Why??

I have this student, we will call her Sally (apologies to anyone who has that name). She was the devil child at the beginning of the school year. We would ask her to do something and get a quick and very mean voiced "No". If any new adult entered the room she turned into this sickenly sweet angel that no one understood why we had any problems with her. Of course all they had to do was try to walk in the hall with her then they had a glimpse of our day. Sally would plop her self on the floor and scream at the top of her lungs. It was for attention of course but ignoring it was sometimes hard when you had 5 other kids to deal with who were oh so curious about the little girl screaming on the floor. Okay so perhaps not so much curious as trying to copying her behavior too. When in the classroom Sally refused to sit for more then a few minutes, she wanted to run around the classroom, trying to get anyone to follow her. She created a disaster for my classroom, she the ring leader of bad behavior.

It took many months of ignoring her behavior and trying to encourage the other students to ignore her. It took sticker charts and various rewards, patience, walking with a painting poll in the hallway... But we got her to a tolerable point, more then tolerable Sally was sweet, funny, and a hard worker.

Fast forward to this week... Evil Sally is back. She wants to invite her classmates to join her in disrupting anything at all times. She tickles them, hits them, pokes them, laughs in their faces. She runs around the room like a lunatic. She tantrums when she is told to go to the bathroom, she runs full force down the hallway, she flops on the floor. Sally screams and cries during speech group. Okay it is just this week, but I see the pattern coming back. I see the beginning of the school year in which we were all exhausted and questioned if we wanted to keep our job. We blamed on a need to poop earlier in the week (she only goes a few times a month, ouch) but that issue was resolved and her mood still remains.

So why? why? why????? We will go back to charting behavior, the sticker charts will go back up perhaps, the rewards will become more frequent for her classmates to try to keep them back on track.

On a good note she somehow has started really remembering alot of information. Somehow she knows some of her letters and numbers. Perhaps she thinks that she has accomplished her academic goals and it is time to play...

I just don't get it at all. But we got through it in September and October, we shall get through it now!