Uh-Oh, My First Head Teacher Summons

I thought I would regain a little femininity in my life for sporting a pink blog for a change.

The kids are doing well at school although hubby and I do have to see Matthews head teacher on Friday due to an "incident" at the school on Friday at lunchtime. Matthew basically lost his temper during football (he is very passionate with his sport) and had a little meltdown. He was being pushed about by some bigger kids as he made a mistake and in short, he lost control, stormed off, tried to kick out at the ground but accidentally hurt one of his best friends as he lashed out. It then took a while to be calmed down. When he had calmed down, he said he was under too much stress at home and how hubby makes too many demands on him and that his room has to be spotless and that we are too hard on him.

I know we are hard on the kids at times but Matthew has been particularly over dramatic with it. Matthew does lose his temper occasionally and when he does it isn't pretty. He's damaged his bedroom wall, he's broke some floorboards in his room and he has smashed and damaged all sorts when he has not got his own way about something. I've learnt to deal with Matthews outbursts and until now, I thought it was just something he did at home.

This was until his headteacher said "Matthew's had another one of his outbursts" This is obviously not the first time it has happened and I am a little annoyed that it's not been bought up with us before.I am in the school TWICE a day, sometimes three times a day. I am in there for 3 hours on a Thursday and there are oppertunities for his teachers to ask for a quick quiet word. Yet, this is the first I have heard of it.

Matthews behaviour is nowhere near as bad as it used to be but the violent outbursts are a worry. We don't want him to be in endless trouble at school. Going back to being tough with Matthew, it's the approach we find works best with him. Matthew needs structure, he needs targets. He has quite a competitive personality that means he is more than happy to take on a challenge. However, Matthew is also a bit of a bad loser and when the challenge fails he becomes a bad sport and his frustrations boil over in different ways creating issues such as this.

I love this little boy to bits, I want to help him. I don't want him to be labelled the "bad" or "violent" kid and I know he has half his fathers DNA - that's the bit the scares me. We've learnt how to help and keep things under control at home and I feel bad that Matthew is under such close surveilence sometimes but it's my way of protecting him.

As for hubby demanding too much of him, well, I feel that someone was after a little sympathy to dig himself out of a hole. Regarding the bedroom tidyness, we have offered pocket money for keeping his room tidy - He doesn't always keep it clean but often still gets the rewards in one way or another, even if he doesn't see it that way. Both my own and hubby's definition of clean room is to not hide everything under the bed and for the floor to be clear enough for me to hoover his room every week. We don't ask for that much but Matthew seems to think that's unfair.

We have had some unfortunate situations where Matthew has had too much mess around and has accidentally broken his 3DS by standing on it and leaving the stylus imprinted into the 3D screen. He has limited room so we have 3 boxes for him to keep his bits in. One for Lego and two for odds and ends. He has two bookshelves. One is mostly for books and projects he wants to do. The other homes a tv, dvd player and Wii on the top and he keeps his prized possessions over there too.

Today hubby and Matthew have gone off to Ikea to buy him a new high sleeper bed. Just like so:

 

He will have far more space to work with and over time the back and side supports can be fitted with a desk style shelf and a smaller shelving unit above to cover his school work and I am sure in time, there will probably be a computer of sorts to do the schoolwork with. Just like so: 

There is also option 3 where a sofabed could be placed underneath for sleepovers but Matthew doesn't really have friends round that often and those who do live a stones throw away and it would be a bit of a waste as he won't see his tv that well from there.

So that's my little boy growing up more than ever. 

I hope the head teacher meeting goes well and that this is just a little blip as on the whole he is being a really good, sensible lad lately but they all have the odd time where things aren't so great. This ironically was the same day he was awarded with a certificate for achieving 50 Merits for good work and behaviour in school and for being star of the week in his class so I know he does do well in general but this was just awful timing on an otherwise highly praisable week for him.