Yes, but the teacher has been a little hit-or-miss on sending the emails. We tend to get them when there's something negative going on, but I can't assume that just because she didn't send an email one day that everything was good. In our meeting tomorrow, I need to reiterate how important daily written communication is. I've suggested a notebook that we can send back and forth, but she preferred email.
Do you know if the teacher is consistently good about praising your son throughout the day when he is not having outbursts? I ask because, if she's not good about telling
you about the good things, maybe she's not good about telling your DS about the good things either. Perhaps sharing with her some of the Nurtured Heart techniques would be helpful. Maybe suggest a trial of concerted Nurtured Heart techniques as a specific plan to implement for a certain period of time (2 weeks? 4 weeks?) to see if they start noticing an upward trend toward better stress reactions as a as a result. That way you would be suggesting something specific and perhaps measurable, and as a side effect, would buy him more time in the class he really likes.
That reminds me, btw, of a technique I heard from a teacher on tv the other night. She would draw a smiley face on the thumbs of her students when they'd have a good day so that they could go home, give mom or dad a thumbs up, and let their parents know they'd had a good day. What about suggesting a variation on this theme for your DS. Throughout the day when the teacher catches him controlling his responses to frustrating situations, she could draw a smiley face on one of his fingers (starting with his thumbs) and he could see how many smiley faces he could collect during the day. He wouldn't lose anything when he wasn't controlling himself, but he would gain something when he was. And it would just take half a second for the teacher to silently respond in a positive way.
