The Phone Call

So yesterday, Cass and I got The Phone Call. From Luke's teacher. For the record, this was our first such phone call with any child.

On the first day, he explained to me how he *almost* got a purple paw print. Well, since then I've become quite acquainted with the behavioral/discipline system that they've got set up for kindergarten.

Each day, the kids all start out with a Purple Paw Print. If they're misbehaving, they get a Warning. If they continue, they have to move their color to Yellow. Next infraction is Green (5 min timeout). Then comes Blue (10 min timeout, call to parents). Finally, the big one is Red (meeting with The Principal).

Luke has been up and down. He started out with Yellow, then Purple Paw Print, PPP again, back to Yellow. At this point it's Thursday of Week 1. Cass and I decided to give him some major incentive to get PPPs. We promised him that if he gets 5 PPPs in a row, we will get him the new Viva Pinata game for XBox. This is HUGE to him, because he loves that game. I figured we had totally outsmarted him.

Friday was PPP. Monday was a holiday for Labor Day. Tuesday was PPP. Woo hoo! We won! Then came Wednesday (yesterday). I checked the voicemail on my cellphone before I walked down to meet the kids at the bus. There was a Phone Call From the Teacher. Yikes. I didn't have time to call her back right then so it would have to wait until after I had gotten the kids.

Luke got off the bus dragging his feet. I could see on his face that he had not had a good day. Of course, he doesn't ever want to talk about it when he's gotten in trouble - but I was able to get out of him that he just wanted to talk to his friends even though the teacher had asked him to be quiet. And BTW, I know that I never get the full story from him when he has to tell me about stuff like this. :) I opened his daily folder, and there it was - BLUE. With a frowny face.

Left voicemail for the teacher, but she didn't call back for a while. Cass was getting antsy to hear what had happened, so he called her again. He got her, so he conferenced me in. From what I can tell, she's a really good teacher and she's just trying to get a handle on the class in the first couple of weeks, so that they don't get out of hand later. She's got 23 kids in there, for which they had to have a waiver from the state, so she's got a big task. I don't think she had any real concern about his behavior, but she wanted him to know that she *would* follow through with what she told him. I think he will fall in line sooner or later - but given the choice, he'll do it later. I hope we have the patience to make it through.

I guess there's a first time for everything. I think we're going to experience a lot of firsts with our last.