WEEK ONE SUPERSTAR

This boy of ours had the BEST first week of school! 

He made every effort to focus, complete his work, and do his best, and we couldn't be more proud of him. The bonus was that he was awesome at home for us too, completing his chores without needing to be reminded over and over, doing his homework efficiently and happily, and responding to us quickly when summoned or asked to help with something. He completely deserved this little reward and he's clearly pleased with himself. Positive reinforcement goes a LONG way with James! 

If you remember how he/we struggled last year, you know what a big deal this is. On top of the awesome behavior reports and changes we've seen personally this week, when Jay questioned Ms. Arnold about the copy of James' evaluation that we provided to her (to keep her in the loop and let her know some of the issues we dealt with last spring), she said it surprised her because she hadn't seen any of those issues this past week. We're hopeful that this week is the start of something new for him, that he's growing out of some of it (as we hoped he would when we declined to put him on meds and instead opted to just give him some time to mature) and/or learning how to manage himself. He'd been a little upset leading up to school starting, worried that he was going to have a "bad year like last year" (doesn't that break your heart to hear?!) because he can't focus, and while we explained to him that he does have a legitimate struggle with focusing, it doesn't mean that it will always be hard for him. We promised him we would do everything in our power to help him succeed and that all we expect out of him is to give each day his best effort. Hopefully that was enough to give him the confidence he needed this past week. And fingers crossed we get many more weeks of greens, blues, and purples (he has more chances for "good colors" with this year's teacher AND the opportunity to rotate back UP the scale, which makes both students and parents happier) on his daily reports!