Update on Liam

At ECS, each kid has a "shape" for the day. Their shape starts at 'green' and then moves to 'yellow' or 'red' as behaviors indicate. For Liam's class, if they end up on 'green' at the end of the day they get $2 in classroom bucks. 'Yellow' is nothing and 'red' is that the kid owes $5 in classroom bucks.
We ended up modifying Liam's a bit more, in the hopes of being able to track his issues and then once the time is pinpointed, we can then figure out how to fix it. With Liam's he now has smilies for his day. He has two columns to get smilies: "I will make responsible choices" and "I will follow directions the first time they are given". He can get a smile for each of those two columns for each segment of the day. At the end of the day if he gets 16 or more, he gets $2; 12-15 and he gets $1; 8-11 and he gets $0; less than 8 and he owes $5. If he has any issues where he is violent, it's an automatic "red". I sign them at the end of the day (or usually at the end of the week since I scan them in for reference later).
If he gets on "red" (or has any other major issue), he needs to fill out what is called a "Think About It" sheet. This is set up like a letter to home, where he has to say what happened (ie, "I had to move my shape to red today because...." and then it says that he'll work on his behavior, learn from his mistakes, etc. and then he signs it. Then I sign it and return it.

Since he had his "incident" yesterday at dismissal, he didn't get to do his "Think About It" sheet right away like normal. He needed to do it first thing this morning. I was really worried that this would set him off again and he'd flip. Sometimes even asking about an incident days later will upset him and literally ruin the entire day. He gets so upset (or maybe anxious??) about the incident that he just seems to not be able to handle talking about it. It will cry and then completely shut down. I think he's embarrassed about what happened.

I wasn't sure what to expect for today.

I'm happy to report I was pleasantly surprised! I got an email from his teacher saying that he did AWESOME! He sat and talked to her. He was calm. CALM! He talked about ways he could have calmed himself, things he should have done instead, etc. THEN he went on to have an AWESOME day and even got 2 bonus smilies!!!

WOO HOO!!!

I completely realize that this might be the only good day we have for a month, or it could be the start of an upswing and we could have a few weeks of this before it all goes down into flames. Really, there is no way to know. I'm hoping that this is, at least, a good upswing. I think both Liam and I could use that.

But really, it's still one day at a time.