The answer should be yes. Not "how can I get my loved one help?"

Category Archives: influence

and so ends the great debate

Our youngest son David loves to argue.  Everything for him is something that can be debated.

Tell him that he needs to clean up his kleenex, and he will tell you why he can’t do it, and he might use something you said yesterday to him as an excuse.  Tell him he needs to eat his supper before he has a snack, and he will tell you that he ate his supper and then will tell you what he ate for lunch.  When you ask him who made this supper, he would say, so and so made it for me at lunchtime.  Well, since it is 6:30 in the evening, you need to eat a regular meal before you have a snack.

For discipline, one of the few things that works is to have him cover his head.  Normally we don’t keep him under there for more than about 10 minutes.  1 minute for each year of his life.  But, he will pop in and out with different questions, excuses and arguments for the next hour and never fully be disciplined for 10 minutes.  It doesn’t matter to him that he has been there for an hour, all that matters is he didn’t have to be under the blanket for 10 minutes.

So why had the debate ended?  He fell asleep. 🙂  I love him and tomorrow is a brand new day!

 

Me Parent – You Child and a Brunch Date

So today has been one of those wonderful days. Mostly calm and relaxing.

The youngest had a date with his mentor, so we hiked to another town 30 miles from here to drop him with the mentor.  Got a brunch date with my lovely bride… 🙂 so rare that this happens, cherish the moments.  Went back to get our son at 3.

Seems like every button that he can push on his sibs is pushed.  I don’t think that it is intentional.  I just think that his siblings are so used to getting after him for everything that they still do it even after he spent almost 7 months in the residential facility.  So mom and I have started our mantra.  Me Parent – You Child.  Our son has two parents and 4 siblings, not 6 parents and no siblings.

He tries hard to be good, you can see that he wants to be good.  It is just that his energy levels and attention span accentuate negative behaviour.

So any ideas about how we can convince the sibs to stop parenting?

And yes, kids, I know that you can read this.  We want you to enjoy your childhood.  No amount of yelling by you or your brothers and sisters can make his behaviours change to what we think they should be.  Please be patient with us and him as we work to adapt our lives to the needs of everyone in the household.

Even you have to admit that on his worst day now, it is still better than his worst day a year ago.

 

 

Our School District made the news!!! Updated

Update February 12, 2012

An update.  In chatting with news people, it was explained to me how the story is reported.  Since the report from the Sheriff Department reported it as an accident, the news people felt that there really wasn’t a lot else to report. I can see where they would say that.  And I agree with that.  Since it is an accident, there was no real reason to think that our district was being inaccurate in their portrayal of bullying in our district as being something that happens 3 or 4 times a year.

I appreciate the news person for helping me understand how they work.  I applaud them for their efforts at fair and accurate reporting.

Thank you:

Why Not Fathers

===============================================

February 10,2012

Our school district made the news.

http://www.kxnet.com/story/16909355/garrison-school-incident

So I wrote this response to the reporter.  I stripped out some info like names…

Good Evening Ms. Gustin,

I am the father of the child who was injured last week and I feel the
need to clarify a few things in regards to your piece on the news this
evening.

The child in question is not in junior high school, she is a sophmore
in high school.  She suffered a concussion and a contusion to the base
of her skull.  At the time of the incident we had no idea what
happened.  Given the history of bullying toward my daughter, we called
the Mclean County Sheriff Department and reported the incident.  As a
result, a report was filed, and an investigation was completed.

The school offered to let me view the video, but I declined, as I
wanted the investigation to be completed by a third party, and not
influenced by me.

My daughter suffers now from headaches, bright lights give her a head
ache, as do loud noises.

During the course of the investigation the school conducted I asked
for updates.  At first I was told that they had two witnesses, then I
was told that they had one witness.  Then I was told that they didn’t have
any witnesses.  I was also told that the video didn’t show anything
happening to my daughter.  The high school principal told me that the
video shows her sitting in the hallway.

The school tried to blame me for what happened to her, they said that
I wouldn’t let them investigate our daughter’s allegations against
students in December 2011.  In fact what I told the school is that
they couldn’t question my daughter without either my wife or I being
present.  We also heard that the district tried to insinuate in a
staff meeting that she hit herself in the back of the head to get
attention.

In the end, it was determined that there were two boys who were rough
housing in the hallway.  One pushed his buddy and he was pushed into
my daughter who then hit her on the locker.  The deputy talked to me
and asked if I was comfortable with calling it an accident.  After
considering what he told me, I agreed, with the caveat that the boys
in question apologize to my daughter.  Which my daughter has told me
occurred this week.

I like that the news was reported.  I just wanted to make sure that
you had all of the information about the incident.  All is not as rosy
as Mr Brannan would have you believe.  In this district there exists
an atmosphere of bullying.  Student on Student, Administration on
Student, Parent to Administration, and Administration to faculty and
staff.  I should also include that administration bullies some
parents.  Students are allowed to intimidate staff, and no
consequences are given.

We have friends who work for the school district who have been told
that maintaining friendships with me and my family is detrimental to
their careers.

This is North Dakota, not communist Russia at the height of the Cold War.

I welcome your questions.

Thank you

 

Last week I was asked if a reporter could contact me.  None ever did. I just think that the story needs to be reported accurately.

 

http://www.kxnet.com/story/16909355/garrison-school-inciden