Writing sample

This is a really old writing assignment. I'm not sure how old, but at least a couple of years (so he would have been 14 or 15). Bear HATES writing, and this is probably the longest thing of his I've ever seen written. This was handwritten, not done on the computer. It was really hard to make myself type all the misspellings!!


I got grounded becasue I got lipy and cock a adutud (cocked an attitude) and did'tn stop when you tould me to stop and I also cersd (cursed) over and over agin. I also got grounded for not listening to you and I thretend to run away, and sead I hated gramal (Grandma), Sead I wish I never moved here, Sead I wish I was (forgot the word "dead").

(Not a new paragraph, but obviously written at a different time and otherwise this gets even harder to read- )
I should have sead that I was not having a good day, lestened to you when you sead stop, I also should not have cersd over and over agin, not have got a aditud, also should not sead I wish I was dead, never talked about gramal, I also should not have sead that I (forgot the words "wish I") never moved here but sometimes I can't help my self it's all my falt me and (spelled Kitty's birth name wrong here) don't live with my B.O. Mom. (I have to laugh at this way of spelling biomom!) I geus what Im triing to say is if I would have never got in chruble with the law my sister and I would still live with my B.O.mom but evre time I got in chruble It got wers. When time's come up like this I just don't want to axcept what's going wrong with my life. When I was 7 I thought I was grwon because my B.O.mom never payed atinchon to me I raised all of my sisters and me. My B.O. mom gave birth to me she was on crack I was a crack baby (this isn't actually documented and is actually probably not true according to Biograndma) so was kitty (spelled right this time, but not capitalized). I never lived in a nice home where some one cared about me It's to much to take in at one time. I never had people love me or take care of me the way you gueys take care of me. My Whole life my gole was to get put in prison and Jale, and be a thug It wasent (I wasn't) like the rich kids I didn't want to a good kid or get a job. I never seen my self being welthy. It's just not like me. I geus we cant always get what we want. If I was In the millitary and cocked a adutud with some one I would get dischared (discharged) or have to work exchra.

Love,
Bear

He really appears to have a lot of insight into his life here, but know that he was so "therapized" that everything he wrote was like this. I'm not sure how much is true insight and how much was just repeating what he'd heard for years. Considering his age I'm assuming it was mostly stuff he'd heard a million times in therapy.

It's really weird hearing therapy stuff coming out of little kids' mouths. Listening to a young Kitty saying, "I need to work on my anger management skills."

I'm an idiot

Earlier this week, Hubby told the kids that on Saturday he would take them to practice scuba in the dive pool (Hubby is a scuba instructor), but only if they weren't in the FAIR Club. Bear instantly dove into action on his writing assignment.

Thursday Bear told me he'd completed his assignment. I told him to leave it on the counter where I could review it. Of course he had only finished the writing assignment, not the extra chores for earning the $110 he needed to earn for the MP3 player. I debated long and hard on whether or not to let him participate in this fun activity with Hubby, and finally decided he needed some fun memories, and couldn't be in trouble all the time. I wanted to reward his at least getting the writing assignment done.

Friday nights we eat dinner out with Poppy and Grandma (have I ever told you how much I love my Mom?). I let Bear know how proud I was of him completing his writing assignment and told him that I had decided to let him go to the pool with Hubby even though he hadn't finished his FAIR Club assignment.

Bear claimed he thought the whole thing was done because I had mentioned he could use his allowance to pay off the $110. For over a year we have put the kids' allowances in "savings." We couldn't afford to pay them an allowance, but we wanted them to still feel a motivation for doing chores. We didn't think it would be for very long.

I had made it very clear when I mentioned using allowance to pay off the $110 that Bear could not just use saved allowance, but that we were planning to start paying allowance again and he could use that. I did not state outright that even if he used his weekly allowance that he would be in the FAIR Club until it was paid off, but it was implied. Bear always uses stuff like that... or he just claims not to remember it that way.

We discussed the fact that I had no fast and easy way to make money. None of the chores on the extra chore list (we keep posted for any kid who wants to earn extra money) are for more than $3. We just don't need much done around here that can be trusted to a kid. Did I mention that Bear has completely on his own, managed to completely tweak and "fix" two lawnmowers and the weedeater so they will never work again?!

Bear asked why he can't just go to the neighbor who pays $100 just for some quick landscaping help. I didn't bother to tell him why not. I just said it needs to be for the family. (Now, I can think of all the things I should have said... "because your lying effected the family, therefore the family should benefit from your labor.").

Of course a real part of it is that I want to stretch this out. I want him to be in the FAIR Club for awhile so I don't have to argue about letting him do stuff I don't trust him to be able to do.

Oh I forgot... the idiot part. The idiot part is that Bear didn't leave the finished writing assignment on the counter. Friday was crazy and I didn't think to check the assignment until Saturday morning. The boys left the house before I was ready for the day so I had to call and ask Bear where the assignment was. He said it was on his desk in his room (umm, wasn't it supposed to be on the counter?). So I went to his room. What I found was only half done. So I called again. He claimed the rest was in a yellow notebook which was "somewhere" in his room. I looked and didn't find it. By that time it was too late to stop the swimming.

From the dive store we went straight to therapy and then straight to Grandma's where all the kids were spending the night (Hubby and I had a date for our anniversary!). So it wasn't until tonight that I told Bear I needed the papers. He tried to put me off, but I insisted.

Of course the half done assignment was all there was. He said it was too hard, he didn't understand it, he needed something else to get it done (it mentioned an auditory version, but it was just a reading of what he had in writing - I'd told him this already), he'd lost part of the reading... he'd done all he could/would do. I told him all he had to do was ask for help with the part he didn't understand. He didn't have an excuse for the unfinished Bible verse copying so he blustered around that.

I feel like an idiot for not checking the assignment was complete sooner. Usually I'm really good about checking their assignments so I guess that's why it surprised me that he tried this. He knew he would get caught and this is the first time in forever that I didn't check him right away.

So now it's Spring Break and I or Grandma gets to deal with him all day. The good news is I don't care how long he stays in the FAIR Club so no pressure for me to make sure he gets his writing assignment done.

Is it just me or is it ironic to anyone else that he cheated on a writing assignment about integrity?

Writing Assignments

I hate coming up with writing assignments. It's hard for me so I generally put it off. This isn't a bad thing because it means the kids are in the FAIR Club longer and have more time to reflect on what they did wrong, and calm down enough to cope with the consequences of their actions.

Here's the writing assignments I came up with for Ponito and Kitty. Kitty is 13, but developmentally behind so she can't handle as much as Ponito and Bob. This is the longest assignment I've given Ponito, but I think he can handle it, and he needs to understand his behavior was unacceptable. I gave a similar assignment to Bob when she was only one year older than Ponito.

Kitty - for telling Grandma NO about cleaning her room, for yelling at Ponito when he didn’t want her to play Playstation, and then calling Mom at work and cussing at her when Mom said she needed to listen to Grandma.
Extra Chore: Help clean Mom’s work.
Writing Assignment: _ Read the book, “Handling your Disagreement,” and reread Bob’s article. Write a one page paper about why you acted the way you did with Mom, Grandma and Ponito. How did you feel inside while you were arguing? How you should have handled it differently? Write a letter of apology to Grandma, Mom and Ponito. Should you write one to anyone else?

Ponito -for going to a friend's house without telling anyone. While in the FAIR club - for threatening to kill himself, cussing and fighting with Mom in a store so that he had to be restrained.
Extra Chore: Because you had a potty mouth, you will scoop poop in the backyard and bury it in a hole in the spot where you want the dogs to poop. Use plastic bags on your hands to keep them clean.
Writing Assignment: _ Read the book How to Take the Grrr out of Anger. (It’s not that long and has lots of pictures!). Write why you think you acted the way you did. Then write 3 things you could have done to help tame your anger. Redesign the pledge on page 98 to be specifically for you. Make it look nice enough to frame. List at least 10 things that you have been upset/ mad/ sad about that you want to talk to Mom and/or Dad about. Set up a time to talk to Mom and/or Dad about your lists.

Wish me luck!

Mary

Long week!

Whoo boy! It has been such a long week. Bob finally finished her article with some help. I'll post a copy of it on here. It turned out pretty well I think. I had her read it out load to Kitty and Ponito.

Last night I reread one of the books Bob told me she'd "borrowed" from my bathroom. It was pretty explicit. Tonight at bedtime I sat her down to talk about it. She pretty much said that stuff was "yuck!," and refused to talk about it. She also says she skipped all the "yucky" parts. We talked a little more about puberty and boys, and I think she's honestly still pretty immature. Thank God! Still my baby is growing up! We measured her today and she's grown 3/4" That puts her at almost 5'8" - half an inch taller than me. *sigh*

Yesterday I got to experience something new! My baby, Ponito, had his first major public meltdown. One of the hardest things about adopting special needs kids is exposing the younger kids to their issues. Ponito has discovered some advantages to being the baby, but yesterday was in a cruddy mood and was not interested in one of the not so great parts - sitting in the middle seat. I drive a little Mazda Protege and the 3 older kids rotate who sits in the front seat, but Ponito always has to sit in the middle of the back seat. Bear is incapable of sitting with his knees less than 8 inches apart and his broad shoulders and long legs, combined with either of my not so petite girls (Kitty is 5'3 1/2 inches now - having grown almost an inch since her birthday in April) make things super cramped in the back seat.

Ponito started mouthing off about how he hates his life and he's going to kill himself (yes, he's heard my older kids say this many times - although finally not so often now). In our house, as he knows from recent experience, this means you have to stay within 5 feet of a parent - to keep you safe. Wish I could have gone home at this point, but Hubby was teaching scuba diving, and we had to go shopping or starve! The girls are hopefully going to be starting school so we needed to supplement their wardrobes (they'd outgrown last year's uniforms). Our next stop was Salvation Army.

It started out OK. Ponito was confined to the cart, but it had a small toy plane left in it that I generously said he could keep (I know the people who work there and they are pretty familiar with our financial situation and practically give us clothes and things). We'd been there awhile when he got bored and started playing in the clothes and wandering off. When I redirected him he started hitting the clothes. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything so I ignored it. Then a couple of items fell to the floor. I told him to put them on the hanger and he got mouthy and refused.



Normally Ponito is a big sweetie, unless he's hungry, sick or tired. I looked through all my pictures trying to find one of him where he wasn't looking sweet and happy. This was the closest I could get. We took dozens of these pictures that night. Afterwards we went to the Urgent Care center and found out he had a temp of 104 and Strep. ALL the other pictures that night he's smiling.
I didn't know it at the time, but he'd gotten up VERY early, had snacked a little too much so hadn't eaten lunch, and I found out the next day that he had a slight stomach bug! Still, he was running from me in the store and refusing to do what I told him. I abandoned my cart and sat on a couch in the middle of the store - trying to get him to calm down. He started cussing at me (real cuss words, not No No words). I tried to hold him and get him to calm down. I ended up doing a full restraint on him for almost 10 minutes. SO embarrassing. I finally carried him out to the car and sat with him fighting me and sobbing his heart out at the same time (I sat holding him trying to slow my heart rate back down - almost no air conditioning in the store and none in my car -in Texas!). Ponito is tiny compared to my other kids, but he's still almost 10 - and I'm 38 and out of shape.

After he FINALLY calmed down, we went on with our day o' fun! OK, we finished the shopping. Got home to find out Hubby had the same stomach bug and was miserable. Add that to him not sleeping because of the stress of our financial situation and he's a mess too.

So only Bear is not in the FAIR Club (actually Bob got out tonight) and I still have no idea what to give Kitty and Ponito for FAIR Club assignments. Kitty was disrespectful to Grandma and swore at me. Ponito went to a friend's house without telling anyone, and then pulled his fit in the store.

Any suggestions on writing or reading assignments?

Mary

How media effects our children

So I spent almost 3 hours last night researching the effects of media (books, movies, TV, music) on children. I cut and pasted a ton of it (20 pages of 12 point type) into one document (no footnotes or even researchers names for most of it - just info). I found research on how violent TV is, how violent media effects kids (scares them, makes them aggressive, makes them think the whole world is like that, makes them care less about people getting hurt), how too much TV effects kids (makes them fat and violent), and how media effects girl's body image (makes them think they are fat and that girls should be interested in fashion and boys and not activities).

Bob's assignment was to read the research and write an article for her private school's newsletter about why parents should "censor" the media their children are exposed to. She also had to write a 1 page paper on how the stuff she's been exposed to has effected her life. She's only done the 1 page paper so far, and I'm not happy with it. She also has the task of dusting all bookshelves in the house, cleaning them all, and moving all inappropriate items to my room. I LOVE books and we have TONS of bookshelves so this is not an easy task.

Bob's Media Report

I still don't know what to give Kitty for a FAIR Club assignment. I'm thinking that Bob's article might be at a level where Kitty can read and understand it. If so, then maybe I'll have Kitty read it and write a paper on how media has effected her life. Kitty was allowed to watch horror movies in preschool (The Ring, The Grudge, and her absolute favorite, The Scream). She gets obsessed with movies.

Open to suggestions! Kitty's extra chore was cleaning at my work (since I missed a lot of work time to deal with her issues, and she can't do my actual work, she can save me some of the other work I should be doing there - cleaning!)

Mary