He did *WHAT*?!?

So, minding my own business yesterday afternoon, I got a call from the boy's school. In my experience, the school generally doesn't call with good news, but I answered the phone anyway.

The Vice Principal was calling to tell me that the boy *bit* her.

Yup. He bit the vice principal.

After the initial shock, I got the story. Apparently, his class had a supply teacher (or what was referred to as a substitute when I was in school) and she was having some problems with him - he wouldn't sit down, hid from her in the classroom, etc. Because she was not the regular teacher, she was unaware of his past issues, and didn't get help from the office, she just put him a couple of timeouts throughout the day. All good.

But at the end of each day, the boy goes to the principal's office, or if she's busy the vice principals office so they can get a report on how his day went. If he has behaved, no timeouts, he gets a sticker on his t-shirt. that way, when he gets home, I immediately know if he has had any timeouts, and can deal with him accordingly. He is very proud of his stickers, and wants to show them to me as soon as I see him. It is a good series of positive reinforcement that the school suggested, he gets to tell the principal he had a good day, he gets a sticker, he gets to tell me he had a good day - all good, all round. This has been very effective over the past 4 weeks or so.

But yesterday, he knew he was not getting a sticker. So he decided to run away from the supply teacher and the vice principal and hide in the copy room. The vice principal went in, took him by the hand and was walking him out to the pick up area. Apparently, the boy took exception to being held by the hand - that's for babies, apparently - and started trying to get his hand free. When he couldn't pull it out of her hand, he decided to *bite her on the hand*.

He didn't break skin, but nonetheless, I imagine it probably took all that the vice principal had not to let go of his hand.

So yeah. Back to square one. He had gone *weeks* without this kind of behaviour. Not to say he hasn't had bad days, but he has not been hurting anyone for a long while.

So, he spend the evening in his room last night. From 5 until 8, with breaks for dinner and bath. At the same time, I spent a lovely sunny evening outside with the girl. We played with the neighbours, jumped on the trampoline, cuddled in the hammock, and had a turn on the swing set too.

Lets see if spending a gorgeous evening listening to all the other kids play outside will have any lasting effect. He went off today saying that he was going to make good choices and have no time outs, so he could ride his bike tonight.

Here's hoping.