Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Isn't she so darling? such a cutie....

I'm so exasperated with this parenting thing!! I have THAT child. Let me give you the reports I got on Penny today:

Dental Hygenist: Your daughter is so well-behaved. I'm always afraid of how the 3-year-olds will react at their first dentist appointment, but she did amazing. She listens so well.

Preschool report: Penny had a rough day. She was not kind to her friends and did not use her listening ears. When Ms. Hansen and I tried to talk to her about good choices she spit at us and laughed. In the afternoon she ran around the room screaming.

Yes, THAT child who behaves in public when her parents are around, but is a screaming bratty mess otherwise. Believe me, she throws tantrums at home but a time-out ends them pretty fast nowadays. At school they "redirect" her and talk about choices. Obviously Penny is making the wrong choice and could care less. The past couple of weeks when we've gotten a bad report at pick-up time we've taken things away, like library storytime or toys, but by the end of the day I think it is so far from the incident that it doesn't really teach anything, like when we do it at home. We talk to her all the time. here was the conversation on Sunday:

Me: Remember Penny, we don't hit our friends. There's never a time when you should hit your friends:
Penny: I don't hit Libbi, or my grandmas, or Molly or Charlotte.
Me: Yes, Penny, that's good but we can't hit anyone. You can't hit your friends at school.
Penny: I don't hit my friends at my old school in Minnaplis. Just my friends at my new school.

This is going to sound crazy but I was hoping during our visit to Kansas she would have turned into Hyde so I could see her in action and reprimand her. But no, at the party with all the kids she was the little angel. She even came to me and told me when a kid kept cutting in front of her and taking her turn (this is what starts the hitting at preschool)

We have a conference with the teachers next week. In the meantime I'm setting up a reward chart. We've done rewards off and on over the past couple of months. For instance, the day we got Snow White from Netflix I told her if she got a good report at school she could watch snow white. I didn't mention the Snow White reward to the teacher, but at the end of the day the teacher said Penny had good listening ears and could watch Snow White. I guess she was telling the teacher all day "Tell my mommy I listened so I can watch snow white!" My first reaction was that I was bribing her. Shouldn't she act nice and listen without rewards? But then, I convinced myself this is a good lesson in delayed gratification. She can't act like a wild banshee like she wants to if she wants the prize. Hopefully she'll learn it now so she'll work hard at college and not jeopardize her grades with crazy parties. Okay, maybe that's going too far. To be honest, I remember multiple classrooms in elementary school where my desk was next to the teacher's desk and many recesses when I had to stand next to the wall because I would talk non-stop and not follow directions. But I was never mean. That's the part of her behavior that really bothers me.

So my chart has 3 rewards: Watch Aladdin (she's never seen it), Visit to Chuck E Cheese (never been there, but knows about it from the commercials on PBS. Why is Chucke cheese the one commercial on PBS?!) and a visit to her friend Libbi's house. She has to get 5 days of good behavior to get each reward. That might not sound like many days, but with her behavior lately it could take 3 weeks before we get 5 good days. We'll see how it works.

Vent over...

on another note, she has very big teeth for such a small mouth (braces here we come), but no cavities. Also, we've been reading Dora Goes to the Dentist for months and she has been beyond excited to go. I wish our many books about kids going to preschool had the same affect.