AttitudeKid

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that each of my students is nicknamed for the sake of the innocent...or guilty, whichever the case may be on here. And today I want to share about AttitudeKid.

It started this morning when we were walking to my room. I had been running various errands around the building, and was headed back to my room when the kids caught up with me. AttitudeKid passed me very quickly and was headed to my room. My rule is that NO STUDENTS ENTER THE ROOM WITHOUT ME PRESENT. I told AttitudeKid to wait outside my room until I got there. When I turned the corner, she was already in the room with the Kooshball that they all fight over everyday. I entered, took the Koosh, and had her sit. I started checking homework notebooks and she looked at me and said, "I didn't have my homework signed." I looked at her. She had that little attitude in her voice that runs all over me. I prayed quickly in my head and tamed my tongue.

She sat and watched as the other students received their stickers for bringing everything back. (Yes, stickers still work with 5th graders!) I also had her name added to the "not brought back list." I do this so that at conferences when the parents say, "My kid always brings her work back," I always have documentation.

She acted as if she didn't care. After today's assignment was given and I started conferencing, she started picking on CoolKid. So, I told her to move. She moved over by Silentboy, and I told her to move to the empty cubicle. I went back to conferencing with my student and she walked over with her notebook in about 5 minutes and said, "I'm done." I looked at her, looked at her work, and said, "You still owe me half a page." She frowned and went back to her seat. After a little while later, she came back with the page full, but had gone to writing in HUGE all capital letter writing to fill up the last quarter of the page. I looked at her. She did the "stare down" with me. I won. I looked at her and calmly said, "You still own me a quarter of a page. You're being a slacker and I won't take that work. Try again." I handed it to her, and turned back to the student I had been helping. She was pissed, as she let out a sigh and went back to her cubicle.

At the end of the hour, she brought it to me, and it was twice as long as it needed to be. I was fine with that, and she left. I prayed that would be the end of the attitude. I was wrong.

She came back later in the morning for spelling work, and grabbed Koosh again. I took it from her and locked it in my desk. That made her mad again, and I said, "If you could handle it without fighting the other kids, or could simply hold it, that would be one thing. But, you haven't shown me that you can do that." She was not happy with me. I had her sit at the table with us so I could check her work. All hour she played the "But I did it right" game, where she would give me her work, and I would hand the work back to her and say, "Fix the ones I circled." Then she would huff, say something under her breath, and get back to work. By the end of the hour, I was wiped. If I had felt her frustration was due to the work being too hard that would have been one thing. However, that wasn't the case. She was simply in a mood and wanted me to be the recipient of that mood. It built my character.

I went in later today and talked to her teacher, and we both have noticed a dramatic change. I plan on praying a lot for her this weekend. I want that attitude gone on Monday.

I think it will help that I emailed her Mother too.

Gotta love technology!

Life.
Is.
Good.