Time Out!

Today I was in class, within the span of about an hour I had taken two separate kids to the "Time Out" Room. I hate that, but it is effective with the kids who are used to the "Time Out" system. The first gal was simply disobeying me and after one warning I sent her in for 10 minutes. It was VERY effective. She came back in and got right to work without complaint.

Arguekid was another story. He was absent yesterday and had a ROUGH morning in the Regular Education Class. I told the teacher I would take him in the afternoon. I am used to that, as kids often lose priveleges in the classroom setting and need a place to "work." Arguekid came in mad because he figured out he was missing the afternoon movie because of his morning. He came and yelling at me, and I put my hand up and said, "Hush. Your teacher already told me the story. Here's your work." I was calm...I was pleasant, and turned to work with the other students. At first he was quiet. Then he got angry and was yelling at me saying I didn't believe him and that I could ask another student in his class that he was trying to do the work, and the teacher was lying. I ignored him. He was sitting, and out of my line of vision, which made him even more upset. He kept talking....talking...talking...it's amazing how the other kids ignored him as well. It's good to know that I was able to train them to do that this Summer. In the beginning it never would have worked! He quit for quite a while and just sat there. He didn't even work. It was an easy hidden picture page, it's not like it was something hard like addition, subtraction, reading, or writing. So finally he started yelling again, and I ignored and felt that I was going to explode if something didn't happen...

So I looked at him and said, "Come on." He said, "Where are we going?" I said, "The Time Out Room."

He sat there.

I started walking and he followed.

He went in and sat down. I looked at the faculty in the room and said, "I need a 10 minute time out."

They all chuckled.

After going back to my room for ten minutes, I returned, and he started yelling at me. So, I shut the door and left him in the time out room. I said, "I will return." He was still yelling as I left. In the end, his parents came to get him early for some reason, so he got out of the time-out room and I was able to walk him up and explain to his Dad what had happened. He cried so hard as I was talking that the principal came out and took him away so we could talk. Dad backed me up, and was fine with what I had done.

As I was walking back to my room, I thought about ArgueKid. I have argued a lot with God in recent months. And honestly, it wouldn't have bothered me so much that the kid was yelling at me if I didn't have some stuff to still pray through in my own life. The kid was frustrated. The kid wanted his own way.

I'm not much different from ArgueKid. None of us are, I think. We all want things our way, on our own terms.

God doesn't work that way.

Thank God!

Life.
Is.
Good.