Hellobee Boards

DD told me I "treat her badly" the other day. It made me really sad.

After talking with her a bit about why she thinks this, I realized it wasn't really about me personally; she was just angry with the situation. So we had a quick little discussion about how she's making the decisions on how to behave and I'm just allowing her to suffer the consequences of those decisions, good or bad. When I say no, I usually explain why (sometimes before she even asks, lol) which usually, but not always, gets her on board with it. And both my husband and I have been working really hard to take the emotion out of discipling her, which also means not responding emotionally or defensively when she criticizes us. It's hard not to take it personally, though.

as I said before....resorting to calling the adult "mean" continues well into middle school. But if someone has a magic bullet for that, I would love to hear it.

Even when we as teachers explain why we're doing something. ie, "I'm not mean, but I'm grading you on an 8th grade level to get you ready for High School A.P. classes", the kids still don't really GET IT. They just think you are mean. I think it's somewhere in college that developmentally, people start realizing all their parents/teachers did to help them get where they are.

As we know, there are still plenty of adults without this self-realization that thinks a boss is "mean" when they have high expectations. I have one of the nicest bosses in the world, but he means business when he tells all the teachers we should be doing something. And I have coworkers complain that he's "mean"...and I'm like--uh,, he told us we have a deadline to turn in our portfolios. You missed it. That doesn't make him mean.