DS had a good schoolwork day today. A little bit of reluctance with the review questions in his English lessons. But everything else was new material with no repetition. That seems to be the magic solution to most of his school and attitude problems. As soon as he finished schoolwork, we went out to get a redbox movie and a bag of candy for him. He had a bit of a meltdown after being corrected for a string of careless, messy behaviors in the evening. DH is NOT fond of his tendency to fling food onto the kitchen carpet. (Don't ask me who thought it was a good idea to put carpet in a kitchen!)
DS recovered himself by calming down while cleaning up his craft stuff. DH went to work since he is on call tonight. Then we watched the movie. Boxtrolls. Cute movie. 3.75 out of 5 stars from me.
I spent a lot of time today reading about reversing underachieving and improving self-efficacy in children. I applied one strategy today and it helps. I have him state the behavior he is doing and then ask him "Does that help you reach your goal?" Also talk about what his goals are. It works better than telling him to focus, or to sit still, or whatever. Hopefully he'll start to self-regulate someday.
I feel less stressed by having a plan in place. I need to encourage DH to pick his battles. I don't know how to do that without it sounding offensive or aggressive. Waiting for the right words to come.
DH is excited about the weather, longer days, and the snow starting to melt! He has been looking at seed catalogs and making a mental to-do list for farm chores as soon as snow melts and the ground thaws a bit. Another warm(ish) day like this - 33 degrees ABOVE zero! - and we'll have to change the bedding in the chicken coop again.