Sunday has so far been swim day and, after a mornings play at home, the children chose it again; given the choice between swimming and the park. As it was they all cried off after just half an hour, saying the water was too cold.
It was certainly on the chilly side when we first got in but I think it may have been more to do with us being the only ones there this week.
We were in need of a trip to Macro and, this still being quite a novelty for our kids, I think the shopping trip was almost as popular as the swimming or the park.
Once again they were all very well behaved today, heeding requests to sit properly when in the vehicle and not asking for things whilst we were shopping.
I may be repeating myself here but we have really seen rapid improvement in general behaviour, not that its been so bad, but just those simple things like politeness, clearing things away, learning when to stop an argument before it goes to far.
In particular this week we saw one of the children begin to grow up in a big way. The child in question has clearly had a tendency to go into crying fits if reprimanded or not getting their own way. Having had a couple such incidents I decided it was time to take steps to curtail this behaviour, with rapid results. The last time it happened I instructed everyone, children and staff alike, to ignore the crying , which went on for quite some time and was quite distressing at times. Eventually I asked Boon to explain to them that they needed to calm down and apologise for the behaviour that had started the incident. This did the trick at the time and we explained that, as they were growing up, they needed to accept and understand when they had done something wrong without such a fuss.
A couple of days later there was an incident at the dinner table with the same child. When reprimanded they stopped the row they were making and sat properly when asked, without the previously expected tears. Later House Mother Wasana told me that the child had said that I had taught them not to cry when they got told off. Later that evening we had a ‘Gold Star’ ceremony with the award going to the child in question to acknowledge their important step in growing up…..the smile of pride that resulted could have lit up the City.
