Quote of the Week


"If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way" ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.



Sally finds the right tools to get the job done.
Posted by:Lloyd Woodward--Tuesday, September 15, 2009


Cisco was moved into the shorter session at Gateway - this change started today. Betty from Gateway said part of the reason this happened is because of insurance reasons but she explained to Cisco that if his behavior is not good she will make sure he gets back into the long session again.

He is doing well and his drug tests have come out negative but he is still trying to weedle his way into getting his own way on certain things.

He started smoking in the car on the way to Gateway last week with the excuse that "he needs to have a cigarette and at least he isn't smoking at school like the other kid that got suspended for smoking in the bathroom". They do have a calming effect on him so we let him smoke but try to keep it to a minimum. We will work on smoking cigarettes at a later date but now we are choosing our battles.


You suggested that I stop the car if he wants to smoke and let him suffer the consequence if it makes him late. I did that today. He was ready to light up and I told him not to; he insisted so I stopped the car and said, "If you need a cigarette have one but you are going to be late." He had one and he was late. He told me Betty makes the group stay later if they come in late. They did keep them about 10 minutes longer than they were supposed to and I hope it was for that reason.

The other struggle is getting control of the radio/CD player in the car. Before I picked him up from school I cleared his CD's out of the front seat and tossed them into the trunk. Before I even drove away he wanted to know where his CD's were. When I told him they were in the trunk he begged me to get them out and I said no. I said " I am a 50+ year old lady who sometimes needs quiter music." I said we would compromise and listen to a "young radio station".

I have been reading the PSST Never the Less blogs and found the one on YELLING very helpful because at times I have gotten into shouting matches which were completely counter productive. I am proud to say that I stayed completly calm and rational even when Cisco was angry in the car today. He was angry and unhappy and swore some. Since I stayed calm he was willing to share with me that he had talked to his X-girl friend and he told me the things she said that made him angry. I sympathized with him and his anger melted away.

Sally

(image from Creata Card licensed software)

1 comment:

Lloyd Woodward said...

Wow! This is a very positive email indeed. Nice work on staying calm and good job sticking to your guns about the music and the smoking. These "little things" are not little at all and some times we deceive ourselves into thinking that stuff like this doesn't matter- it is really important that you are in charge when it comes to "little things" or you soon will not be in charge on the "big things" either.

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