3 X’s

Ricki came home today with 3 X’s on her behavior chart. Three X’s in and of themselves, being only about a fifth of her points, might not be so bad. A lot depends on what she DID to get the three X’s…..
Now, usually when that happens, Ricki tries to “doctor” the page up by ripping out the offending area, or making the whole sheet get “lost”. (Pretty smart, if you ask me. Why lose out on computer time -the “consequences”- if I can just maybe convince Mom that I was well-behaved.)
Today she had done none of these, and was complaining that she didn’t feel so good. But when I asked her where her behavior sheet was, she said, “I don’t want you to see it; you’ll be angry.” ** Now THAT statement had me worried. Had she assaulted someone? Their possessions? I went to check the sheet.
It turns out that Ricki came home with a temperature of 38.5 C, and the three X’s had been because she hadn’t done her work during the last two periods. The aid even though she hadn’t realized that Ricki was sick, had noted that she seemed a bit under the weather….
So I sat Ricki down. “Ricki, I will only be angry when you misbehave. When you are sick, and can’t work, that is not called misbehaving.”

She had actually been very well behaved today… was trying SO hard to be good and not just managing….Perhaps her temperature knocked all her ADHD belligerence out of her, poor thing…….

** I just want to add that when she said “You’ll be mad”, she was saying “You won’t let me watch Computer”, or at worse, I would yell at her. Nothing worse.)