What? You don't believe me? WHY?

Jennifer has matured a great deal over the last three years. She's gone from HUGE meltdowns at least three times every afternoon and twice in the mornings to an occasional squall, over as quickly as it starts most times.

Her parents still swear that it's my doing, but although my consistent and calm demeanor in dealing with her has helped, I think there are other factors involved.

First, her mom and dad really are excellent at the whole parenting thing. They value her and her feelings, and while she is mercurial in temperament, she's also intelligent, funny, creative and interesting as a person. They, of course, see the whole person, not just the high maintenance side of her. And they build her up, listening to her even when she's a little shrill and over the top.

She has had teachers who care about her, too. It's not a secret that I'm no fan of public education, but I'm also a realist. Children will be sent for institutional schooling whether I like it or not. It may as well be a place where people care about the children they've been entrusted with.

The school I work in has a lot of dedicated individuals who really do care about the kids. I don't agree with all their methods (I need to revisit the whole self-manager topic here sometime... and I will never, even if I live to be 200 years old, understand how any thinking and rational individual believes that taking away a child's recess time to get them to sit still and focus will ever work) but they care about the kids out there at our school.

It's really been a team effort. We're all part of Team Jennifer, and we want her to succeed. She's working toward mastering her self-control and not doing too badly at it. Makes me proud.

But she occasionally has a relapse.

Thursday morning, a few of the boys were doing the Charlie, Charlie challenge. Have you heard of it? One uses a couple pencils and a piece of paper and asks 'Charlie' yes or no questions. Look it up. It's a harmless little game, although some crazy fundamentalist types have cautioned against 'summoning the demon' through this game.

Jennifer observed the boys playing, then said loftily, "We're not supposed to do this in school."

The boys looked at her. Then me. And I said, "I hadn't heard that, Jennifer. Who told you that it is not okay to do this?"

"Mr. Smith told me personally!" she said haughtily. "I just asked him yesterday!"

"Oh. That's interesting, Jennifer. He will be here in a few minutes to drop off Elise*. I'll ask him about it then."

She blushed the brightest red I've seen from her in some time. And backpedaled madly. "Oh, well, I meant to say I am pretty sure that we're not supposed to play it because it's scary. You don't have to ask him that!"

The boys snickered a little and Brian said, "You're LYING!"
At the same time, Greg laughed and snorted, "You are such a liar!"

Before I could suggest that name-calling might not be the best way to handle the situation, she screeched and slammed her hands down on the table.

"You are SO RUDE!!" she screamed at them. "No one ever believes anything I say! I hate it here! I want to go home!"

She jumped up from the table and with her hands over her face, stumbled past my table and over to the corner by the book cart, sobbing.

I gave her a couple minutes to calm down a little, then brought her a tissue.

She asked me how come no one ever believes her.
I asked her, "Well, were you telling the truth just now?"

So help me, she tried again. Eyes wide, voice throbbing with sincerity, "Yes! I talked to Mr. Smith in the hallway and told him that some kids are playing Charlie, Charlie! He said, 'that's bad' and that they should not be playing that game!!"

"Did you know that when you tell me something that isn't true, your face turns very red?"

She shot me a look that would have melted metal.
"I guess you don't believe anything I say either," she said sarcastically. "I don't know why I even bother talking to you."

"Wow, that's sort of mean, don't you think? I always listen to what you have to say. I may not always believe you, but I still listen. And you often have interesting things to tell me. Maybe that's why I listen to you the other times."

I patted her shoulder. Got up from the bench and said, "When you're ready, come on back over. We have a little art project to do this morning."

A few minutes later, she put her tissues in the garbage and joined us at the art table to work with Model Magic.

When Mr. Smith came to drop off his daughter, nothing was said to him by the boys, although I expected it.

I am almost willing to bet it will come up another time.
Jennifer will once again be surprised that people don't believe her.

The more things change....