Book Review of Mindy Klasky's Girl's Guide to Witchcraft as posted on Goodreads

Recently I won an ebook version of Single Witch's Survival Guide by the lovely Mindy Klasky during an online contest.

I decided it would be best if I reread the original Jane Madison series given how long it had been since I first read them.
If you are looking for a dose of romance and a dollop of fantasy mixed with some witchcraft and a hint of humor this is a good place to start.

I have opted to not go into great detail about the plot because I don't want to spoil anything for new readers.

Girl's Guide to Witchcraft is a nice mix of fantasy and romance.  I like romance and have found good romance to come by.
I am not one for gratuitous sex scenes and having my heroine be rescued by the main male character.  So finding a romance set in a modern day setting coupled with fantasy with no bodice ripping male lead and helpless heroine was a big win in my opinion.  Despite some of the issues Jane face (I don't want to give any spoilers)I found her relationships believable.  Though the second time through I was very much aware of the impending "issues" and I wanted to smack Jane and tell her she could do better!

I find it interesting that because my perspective on life has changed since I first read Girl's Guide to Witchcraft that I relate and view Jane differently.  Jane has trust issues from a previous relationship and I can relate to her apprehension about starting new relationships.  I am also very aware of the growth that occurs to Jane over the course of the book, not just with regards to the romance, but on a personal level too.  Between discovering she has magical powers and her grandmother springing a pretty epic surprise on her she is forced to redefine herself and figure out who she is.


I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book the second (I think it may actually be third) time through.
I fell in love with Neko and his antics all over again.  I find myself always hungry especially after a scene between Jane and her best friend Melissa (who owns a bakery).  Mindy has a way of describing food that make me hungry. I am still in total awe when it comes to Melissa's philosophy on dating.

I look forward to rereading the second book in the series.

Consistency is Key

I think I have been saying Consistency is Key since college.  I don't recall which professor said it in my first year, but it has stuck with me ever since.

A conversation over some of the issues that are arising out of my son's class sparked this train of thought.

See we don't see even a third of the negative behaviour that is occurring at school with my son at home.

Even at Beavers he has pushed the limits, but only twice has he even come close to doing anything resembling what is happening at school.  His Dad complains a bit more about negative behaviour, but that I think is mainly because he hasn't seen his Dad in two weeks etc.  There are other factors causing the behaviour.

Consistency.

It is key.

I can't stress that enough.  If you go back and look at my blog on tantrums, I feel like I say it at least 10 times.

Doesn't matter what aspect of parenting, teaching, home day care, preschool etc etc etc you are involved in being consistent is important.  It doesn't matter the philosophy either.

Children need to know what is expected of them and what is going to happen when certain things occur.

If there is no consistency then they will use that to their advantage be it positively or negatively.

My son has now "tried" 5 different reward based systems at school.  I say "tried" because with the exception of the sticker chart none of these have been tried past the 2-3 week mark because they weren't working.  
I am using a modified of the second version to decent success.  He has criteria that gets him a reward if he follows through.  There are 3 goals set out each day.  One goal is always achievable, not ridiculously easy, but one I know he can meet with ease (getting dressed/washroom routine at meal times or setting the table/clearing the table etc).  He needs to feel successful for this to work.  The second goal will be something he can do, but struggles with from time to time (ie getting dressed/undressed for outside/school).  The third goal will be something he is working toward but doesn't do consistently at all (cleaning up properly, homework (reading etc), Listening and participating at Beavers (this has been down graded to a goal 2 now).
He always gets the goal 1 achievement.  The rewards on goal one range from little bugs and such from the dollar store (sold in packs of 8, he gets 1 per successful day), goal 2 can be things like educational iPad time (means he has to play his games not mine) or snack treat he doesn't get often etc, goal 3 are things like iPad time where he can play any game he wants (aka Angry Birds, Cut the Rope etc), tv time, going to a movie etc.
Each morning we review what the goals are for that day and we go from there.  He is allowed reminders as long as he doesn't throw a temper tantrum (rare at home) or start screaming at me (was becoming an issue since mid January).  Either of the two behaviours I just mentioned occur and he loses the reward.  Though the screaming gets one prompt of "You need to Stop, Breathe and Think through what your choices are.  You keep screaming we are done."
After the second week there has been a significant decrease in the screaming and currently all I need to do is the cue of Stop Breathe and Think and he comes around within 30 seconds.

They are still struggling to get consistent success at school.  In part because I don't think they are consistently implementing anything they have tried with him.
And neither have the expectations been explained clearly to my son.

He can't tell me why he is getting a star.  He just knows if he gets 5 of them he gets to do something he wants for 10 minutes.  Generally that something he has picked out at the beginning of the day.

So what are they reinforcing?  Because I don't know.

On the days that the extreme negative behaviour has occurred I will also be told leading up to that point he had met his goal of 5 stars (or whatever it was at the time).

So clearly something isn't working if he is succeeding at getting his stars but he is still reacting extreme emotion wise.

Perhaps because nothing is truly being reinforced?  Or consistently implemented to truly reinforce something?

Being told "you need to do good things" to a child is pretty vague.

What are "good things?"

What do "good things" look like?

Last year I loved the program his kindergarten class ran.
It worked strongly on teaching children to look at each other and recognize what the other was feeling.

There was a very clear, concise short list of classroom rules that went something like the following:
1. Keep your hands/body to yourself unless helping a friend
2. Listen to each other
3. Talk to each other and if that doesn't work ask a teacher to help out
4. Share and take turns with toys
5. If you made the mess you help clean it up
6. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all --specifically no name calling
7. Make the Right choices.  Life is about choices.  You always have a choice in every situation.
If you make a mistake, it's okay, learn from it, fix it or deal with the consequence, move on.
8. (was added mid year) Tattling means trying to get someone in trouble on purpose, telling means there is a problem that someone isn't listening or being safe.

And they were reiterated, they were talked about and reinforced daily.  William could sum this up to me with no problem by the beginning of the New Year.  They also had a program going where every day a child was Captain Medium.  Captain Medium got to be the line leader for the day, take the attendance to the office and that sort of thing.  He/she was also responsible for helping her/his peers remember the rules or appropriate behaviour for the classroom.  To be medium was to keep calm, not too silly, not too loud and be a good friend by listening, helping and communicating (talking) with each other.

The above was applied consistently, expectations were clear.  The consequences were clear (time away if they were really upset, sitting down away from the group if hands on was involved, giving back the toy if they took it away, talking it out with the teacher's help if necessary when disagreements occurred).  The fact is by the end of the year most of the class could articulate clearly when they were upset with each other and resolve it on their own most of the time.

And now all my son can tell me is that they have to do "good things."  And tattling is a daily occurrence.  My son tells me there is a child in his class who tells the teachers that he hit him even when he wasn't anywhere near the kid and the teachers's believe the kid who is lying.  He also tells me the same kid does this with almost all the other boys in the class.

I have asked several times in person, and in writing what the classroom expectations/rules are that they children are being told regularly so that I can help reinforce them by reviewing them at home.

I am still waiting for an answer.  The Principal couldn't tell me anything useful either despite claiming "the teachers in his room are doing some good programming to help him cope."
She was a bit taken aback when I said it would probably be more successful if they stopped changing what they were doing every couple of weeks.

Really Universe can you give us a break?

So I am officially an Instructor for Orillia First Aid and Safety Training.  (YAY!)

I was supposed to teach my first large class over the weekend.  Instead I spent Saturday morning in the ER.
Why?
Because the Universe decided that I needed a curve ball thrown at me.  Walking down the snow covered back porch stairs I slipped half way up and landed smack down on my tail bone and slide to the bottom.
I was holding the railing.  I figure it is the only reason I ended up bruised not broken.

So what is the difference between healing a badly bruised to the bone tail bone versus a broken one?
I get to heal 4 weeks sooner than a broken tail bone.  Otherwise the healing process (ice, taking it easy, cushions for sitting etc) is exactly the same.

This meant I wasn't able to help teach the week day Standard First Aid Course this week.  Mainly because I couldn't get William back and forth to school and because this week I really needed to just take it easy.  I have full confidence in my ability to teach the next weekend course and the re-certification classes next week.  Tomorrow I will teach the Safe @Home Alone class in the evening.  Fortunately we do the CPR and First aid at the end of that class.

And while I heal I get the joy of being super paranoid about whether I caused the pilonidal cyst to reoccur.
Because I was told by the nurses, the surgeon and the people on the forums of those suffering pilonidal cysts that a direct blow to the area during the first 2 years post surgery can trigger a recurrence.

So far I have been told by a trusted source who humored me and looked to make sure there was no tell tale redness and swelling of an abscess setting in that I have a rainbow bruising of deep purple, red, blue and green across my nether regions and swelling that would accompany such bruising, but no redness or heat around the surgery scarred area.

Which is a relief, but doesn't make me any less paranoid.

My son is having a massive worry fit because he thinks I actually have a cyst again.  Took me a bit to get through to him that I fell down.  Though I was honest in telling him I could no longer guarantee the cyst wouldn't return.  This led to tears and worrying about not being able to go swimming and such this summer.
He was reassured that if the cyst were to return I wouldn't be having surgery in the summer again, ever.

Beavers is going to be interesting as we have both a Tobogganing night and a Skating night scheduled for the next two meetings.  I have already told our group that I will be standing at the bottom of the toboggan hill cheering them on this week.
Ice skating is in two weeks, we shall see how I am feeling.  Thank goodness the roller skating night is in April.

Conveniently the cushions etc they recommend you use to sit on for bruised/broken tail bone are the exact same cushions one uses when dealing with a pilonidal cyst.

But Universe, I don't need this crap!  I need to work!  I also need to be able to get the stuff that needs doing with regards to my son's situation and his school.

Tomorrow I get to wait for phone calls to be returned otherwise I will be leaving messages again and I will keep this up until I get a response.

I cannot --I refuse to believe, that my son is solely responsible for what is happening in his classroom right now. I seriously think his teachers have written him off as a problem kid and now it is boiling down to a battle of wills and control between them and him.  And that unconsciously or consciously they are setting him up to react the way he does.

How is it he never had these issues last year, at home in a home day care setting (including coping with a very aggressive 12 year old autistic boy who functioned at a 4 year old level socially) or during 2 years of preschool?
You'd think during all of that we would have seen extreme aggressive behaviour.  Heck he wasn't even displaying this behaviour when he started at this school.  It started somewhere around mid November and has just continued to escalate from there.

And what is being reported to me by the VP and by my son doesn't make sense to me as a person who has a background in working with children.

If it is known that a child struggles at a specific time in the routine ie clean up time and they are struggling over trying to save something they built out of a blocks etc and another child destroying it on purpose causing the other child to react emotionally and after the third time violently that wouldn't you then intercede or make sure a staff member was there to oversee that things don't get out of hand?  To encourage the one trying to save the creation to take it apart himself or just taking the creation and setting it aside till later and then taking it apart and replacing it in the bucket?
Why force my son to repeat this scenario to the detriment of himself and now classmates and teachers over half a dozen times???
Why would you force a child to sit away from his peers on a chair during circle time because he focuses better, but when he refuses because he wants to be with his peers force the issue including him vocalizing how upset he is and how unfair he views it to the point he kicks the chair into the lunch tables (was reported to me as throwing, he maintains he kicked two chairs  away from the group and threw nothing)?  Why wouldn't you as one of three members of the staff in the room let the child sit with his peers with the stipulation that if he started to be silly or lose focus that he'd have to come to the chair?
Number one tenant to working with any group of children or parenting for that matter: Choose your battles wisely.
This was not a battle that needed to be forced yet apparently this plays out pretty much every afternoon and now it has escalated to the point where my son is reacting overly emotionally to what he preceives to be unfair treatment.
Not only that he can't tell me what the classroom expectations are for his classroom.  Last year he could name me off the whole list -Be a good friend.  Being a good friend means sharing, listening to each other, respecting each other's space, helping someone when they need help, comforting someone if they look sad or hurt.  Hands were for helping, playing, writing, drawing and kept to themselves.  Mistakes were okay, but in the future you had to work toward the right choice and the right choice directly tied into the expectations I just listed above.
Right now when asked about what is expected of him in his current class, all he can tell me is "to do good things."  And he can't even give me a real list of what "good things" looks like other then keep your hands to yourself and no hurting each other.
Heck the kid is on his 4th version of a reward system and he can't even tell me what he is getting the bloody stars for.
It's important for the average kid to have clear expectations.
It's even more important, imperative really, for a child with ADHD to have clear and concise expectations.
Otherwise they can't remember them to begin with.  And what are we reinforcing if he doesn't have a clue why he is getting the reward??

And so I sit waiting to hear back from the intake nurse for the School Success Program, the School Board and the Principal to my son's school.

But I suspect that I will be following through with what I wanted to do back before the winter break is going to be come a reality.  Either he will be transferring to the other school or he won't be going to school at all.