No No Drama

**Realized I wrote this in the other blog instead of this one.  So I pasted it in here.**

Galations 6:9 has become my mantra the past few days.  "Do not grow weary in doing good..."  It goes on to mention that we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Has been a trying week.  No planning period for two days due to third grade musical rehearsal (my own choosing as we needed the rehearsal, but made for long teaching days).  Riley crying every morning.  Julia crying every afternoon after school.  Both due to not getting food fast enough, getting food but not the kind they wanted, food being too hot, food getting too cold.  Madi talking and mumbling constantly.  Constantly.  I mean non-stop talking.  And having to ask many times to have her say it again as I can not understand what is being said.  Then finding out it was a joke or something that made no sense at all.  And trying to be patient without saying "ok.  whatever."  Meetings after school.  Prep for talent show for next week.  Girl drama due to talent show acts.  Calgon - take me away!!!  Definitely had time to practice living out this verse!

Today Madi and three friends were told they could come inside to their classroom to practice during recess for their talent show act.  They were trusted to make the right choice and rehearse in the room by themselves as their substitute teacher had recess duty.  Hmm... thinking that trust was broken for the rest of the year.  And also thinking that wasn't a good choice in the first place.  However, the responsibility to make the right choice then rested on them as they were trusted with it.

Madi's talent show partner chose to go outside and play as did her friend Talia's friend.  So that left half of each act practicing and the other half outside.  Strange.  As I told her later, it's better to practice an act that is for two people with those two people.  Anyway.

Come to find out that Madi couldn't access the song she needed on YouTube (due to district changing what is allowed on YouTube) so she thought it would be okay to go into her friend's locker and her friend's backpack and find her friend's iPod to use.  Mind you - they have had lecture after lecture about respect for others' property - not taking things out of their backpacks, etc...  as Hailey's iPad and iPhone were both lost and potentially stolen out of her bag a few weeks ago.  So it's been a huge topic in her classroom.  But Madi wanted to practice and figured she could get it out anyway.  So she did.

The girls practiced their songs a time or two.  Then decided to get out a stuffed animal eagle and throw it around the room.  They were loud enough with it that a teacher who had her class at a bathroom break (and the bathrooms are loud!) could hear them yelling and laughing loudly and chose to walk into the room to find out what was going on.  It was very obvious that they weren't doing the right thing and practicing.  So another teacher was brought in to talk with them as she needed to get back to her class.  They were then sent outside on recess.  Madi told her friend that they had used her iPod.  Her friend became very upset because it meant that she had gone through her things to use it.  And she didn't have permission to use it.

The girls all came into my room while I was teaching second grade.  Totally not okay as Madi knows it is not okay to interrupt teaching time to deal with girl drama.  They wanted to talk about all the changes they were making to their talent show act so I sent them out and told them I would be down there when my class was over.

I made my way down the hall toward Madi's classroom to hear her teacher trying to get her to come out in the hall to talk with the other girls and to understand what had happened.  They were explaining it.  Madi said she was borrowing it.  To which she learned (from us and Mrs. Campbell) that borrowing means you have permission to take it.  This was not borrowing.  This was stealing.  As Jeremy put it, "If I borrowed someone's car to drive around for a little while and brought it back, it's not borrowing.  I had stolen it."  She was asked to work it out with the girls.  Mrs. Campbell had to ask her twice to apologize to which Madi said a quick 'sorry' and went on with things.  She asked her how she would feel if someone used her iPod without permission.  Madi told her that she wouldn't have a problem with it - "I wouldn't care" was the response.  The girls worked it out and Madi was very nonchalant about the whole thing.  "Oh - we worked it out.  All is good!"  And off she sauntered to class.  Totally okay with it.

Jeremy and I talked about it for a good 30 minutes or so to figure out how to handle it.  Not punishment for punishments sake or to make her feel bad - because she'd feel more mad than bad about it.  But to truly make her understand that taking someone else's property is not okay.  That it is small decisions like this that will lead her to making bigger decisions later on.  She didn't feel that it was wrong.  And she was very much okay with what had happened.

So we had a talk with her tonight about property, respect for others' things, thinking before acting and how trust can be easily lost as well as built slowly.  We also talked about what could have happened had they played with it, put it back and then come back into the room to find it was missing.  They would have been responsible.

Our discipline for her is that she is tech-free starting tonight through Sunday morning.  Living unhooked from all technology - unless Monica calls or she has to do FasttMath.  Giving her time to think about things.  As we told her, saying "Don't do it again" or "that's your warning" doesn't work with her because she just thinks of other ways to get away with things and is always trying to work the angles to see what she can get away with rather than being okay with following rules given her.  Part of what makes her smart.  And part of what could ruin her future if not harnessed correctly.

So that was today in a nutshell.