Finally!  Finally A said what is really bothering her about school.  Granted she wasted just enough of the school day that I am not sure she will get her hours in.  That would suck.  I will tally it in a bit.  Anyway, she feels powerless.  She is angry that I require her to do current school work during the school day when she would rather do old school work and she thinks somehow that this is a new requirement.  I pointed out all the ways that she truly is powerless and then pointed out all the ways she has power/choices.  That helped. 



At some point, I also talked to both girls about respect.  That seems to be a recurring subject.  She yelled "NO!" and I yelled back the sentence that always makes her shake with anger, "Don't you ever disrespect me like that!"  It is a stupid thing to yell because I am not acting in a way that deserves respect when I say it.  But it always catches her attention enough that we talk and she changes her behavior.  I am sure that if I did it more often, it wouldn't be as effective.  Anyway, right after I yelled that, she said something with a disrespectful tone again and I asked her if she would talk to Roger Eng like that.  No.  (She doesn't respect him and she doesn't trust him.)  Would she talk to Nancy like that?  No.  (She respects and trusts her.)  Would she talk to me like that?  Yes.  (She doesn't respect me but trusts me.)  I told her she was confusing the two; that trust doesn't equal respect.  Then she said something disrespectfully again and I said she was treating me with contempt.  That ruffled her feathers b/c she believed contempt = hatred.  We looked it up b/c I wasn't sure.  contempt = disrespect  Then I told the girls that you can treat a person with respect if you do not respect them but that you will not treat a person disrespectfully if you respect them.  That really caught their attention.  Maybe just maybe we are making some progress. 



Now.  Who was present?  At the start of the argument, it was OT and Moe.  When OT began to feel like she couldn't control her anger, I showed up.  When Moe couldn't control my behavior and I wouldn't act like she wanted, Moe faded into the background again.  I HATE sharing time with Moe when I am fighting with the girls.  It makes being a reasonable human being and responding like a good mom that much harder.  She is everything I hate.