Friday, April 17, 2009

No Biting

Yesterday when I picked Logan up from school, the teachers were beaming with pride. Logan had a GREAT day! Logan did REALLY well! Logan was in an AWESOME mood!!

I thought it was a little strange that they were so excited. After all, he's usually in a great smiley mood. So why were they talking about it so much, like it's the first time he's done well?

And then we got right down to it.

He didn't even bite a kid. Not once!

Ahhhhhhh. The light blinked on in my head.

So, the teachers can get just as frustrated as I can with this crazy kid of mine. Good to know.

What's more - they were SO happy, that they repeated the whole GREAT REALLY AWESOME FANTASTIC MOOD speech all over again this morning when I dropped him off.

Wow, he must really be making a great first impression with the new teachers. hehe

As it turns out, it was a huge deal. Because, as I've mentioned before, Logan's gotten into the habit of not only pushing, but biting too. It's extremely frustrating trying to reprimand a 16 month old about biting, putting him in a time-out for 30 seconds, explaining that what he does hurts people. He looks up at you, grins real big and gives a huge hug. And, if you continue on your scolding session as you put him in the time-out, he suddenly looks very confused and starts to scream, kick and cry. He just doesn't get it.

At any rate, not only did he not bite a single kid yesterday, he was actually in a tempting situation to bite a kid but still didn't. Which is also huge. When another kid came up to him and took away a toy, instead of biting or hitting back, he just screamed really loudly.

Which, sounds bad at first, but is in fact a step in the right direction. Because, it meant he was trying to verbalize his disapproval rather than lashing out with his teeth instead. The teachers felt this was a great step forward, and I'd have to agree. They even encouraged him when it happened - telling him it was great he was trying to use his words and told him it was okay to say "MINE" back at his fellow classmate if that happened again.

And then another light clicked on.

SHIT. They're teaching him how to say "mine".

I suppose it's an improvement over biting, but man oh man. What am I going to do when he goes around stealing everyone's toys from their hands (or not sharing his own) yelling MINE directly to their face? How exactly do you tell him NOT to do that after we taught him that's what he should do? I guess we'll deal with it when the time comes, but I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

2 comments:

Charlie said...

Ransom is a big biter. And Cricket has wounds to prove it.
Some lady told me that it's a language frustration, but who knows. I think Ransom is just part wolf.

Mama Bree said...

part wolf....I love it.

that's curious about the language frustration comment - esp. since Logan's been slower at learning to use his words.

ah well, guess we'll get there eventually! :)