News of the day, part 1

I got a call today from one of the parent volunteers at Chess Club (at the boys' school). He was calling to let me know that Bearhug and Cuddlebug had been uncooperative at chess club, not wanting to play and when asked to participate, one of them stuck his tongue out at the teacher, and the other had thrown chess pieces. *groan* He was nice about it, and said they'd done fine the previous weeks. I told him we'd talk to the boys, both about their behavior and whether they wanted to continue going to chess club. Ugh, they know better than to be so disrespectful. :(

Funny, when I asked the boys the other day how chess club went, they both said "fine." Hmm. So today when I got home I sat them down, told them I got a call from one of the chess teachers, and asked them if there was anything they'd like to tell me about chess club the other day.

Guilty faces - both of them. Cuddlebug started the "confession" by saying that Bearhug got him in trouble. Apparently they got into a fight about something, I couldn't really follow his explanation of what and you know, that's not the point anyway. Eventually it came out that he had thrown / dropped an eraser on the floor.

I asked Bearhug what about him, and he told me in a mumbly, hard to understand voice that whoever he was playing chess with didn't want to play with him again, so when the teacher suggested he play with someone else, he SPIT! (way to 'fess up BH, they only told me you stuck your tongue out!)

So here's my take. Bearhug got his feelings hurt so he acted out inappropriately, and probably lashed out at Cuddlebug too (b/c that's what they both do), at which point Cuddlebug lashed right back and also acted out inappropriately. I wasn't there, but that's the best that I can piece things together.

So, they got in trouble and had the fun job of cleaning both rooms rather than playing video games the rest of the evening. As for chess, I think they may be a little frustrated b/c they are at the early stages of learning how the pieces move so it's probably not as fun yet as it will be once they have the basics down. We just got their computer chess game (for kids) in the mail yesterday, so hopefully that will help. I will also talk to the chess teacher to see if there's any way to keep the boys separated (ie. in different groups), they do better at stuff like that when they're not together. Or as Cuddlebug once told me, "we have to be separated for learning." I didn't ask before b/c well, I guess I'm always hoping that this will be the time they surprise me and do fine together, after all they won't always have the option of being separated (as they found out in gymnastics this summer, which now that I think about it, did not go well for that reason...).

This is why they are in separate classes at school - definitely works better that way!