UPDATE:
So it's been interesting. We met with Wolverine's teacher just about a month ago. Her take was that it was typical 6/7yo behavior, especially for a relatively smart, outgoing kid. From a school perspective, she is ahead of where she needs to be, but the teacher didn't think it was boredom, because she'll tailor the assignments to meet the kids' current levels - e.g. give them a harder book to read. From what we've seen, it looks like the teacher has started challenging her more, and she's been putting more effort into in-class assignments, so that's a plus.
Teacher also decided to start splitting her daily report, so if Wolverine had a bad morning but a good afternoon (or vice versa), she would get positive recognition too.
She did ok for about a week around Halloween, but then early November got in trouble on the playground (poked another kid with a stick "because someone told her to" and the other kid bled - not a serious injury, but still, completely unacceptable and really dumb on her part.) This was the final straw for us. She got detention in school, so had to spend her recess in the principal's office to write an apology. We also made her write an apology at home, to both the child and her teacher. We also stripped nearly everything out of her room, and took away all of her privileges. This happened right after her birthday, so every single one of her birthday presents got taken away - most before she got to open them.
To get her stuff back, we told her she had to earn it. We made a sticker chart at home. For every 5 days that she behaved in school, she could choose 1 thing to have back. As a bigger incentive, if she got 5 days in a row, she could choose 2 things. She has 8 days in a row of good behavior at this point, which is really good. She hasn't slipped up at all since she started getting things back - so nothing else has been taken away. She did have a day or two before she hit her first 5 days where she got a note sent home, so I had her write lines as a punishment. "I will listen to my teacher." x25. If nothing else, she learned how to spell "listen" and "teacher." I also had her do extra chores.
We're also probably going to start up gymnastics again - if nothing else it will give her another outlet for some excess energy.
Things seem to be improving, and she loves hearing that we're really proud of her for having another good day - so win/win.
Also, because I'm a pretty awesome mom, I did plan a Six Flags trip for next weekend. She doesn't know about it, but as long as she keeps up with the good behavior, it will be a fun surprise.
Wolverine is in first grade, and will be 7 in like 2 weeks. She has always been a relatively smart and outgoing kid.
We have been getting way too many notes sent home about behaviour issues at school, and are trying to find a way to get through to her that this BS can't continue. It seems to come in waves - last week she didn't have any, 2 weeks ago, she had 3 days, this weeks it's been every day.
Some stuff is relatively minor, and not something that we can really impact (e.g. taking with her friends during a lesson/talking out of turn/goofing off) - yes it's disruptive to the lesson and frustrating for the teacher so we can sympathize, but we're not there to correct it when it happens, so all we can do is discuss at home and punish her if it continues.
Other stuff has been more serious, e.g. throwing pebbles at the building during recess (there was a group of kids doing it), throwing food at lunch (once again, as part of a group), or pushing/hitting/kicking (from the notes, this is always a retaliation or accidental contact, so we don't have the impression that she is bullying anyone - but it's still a zero tolerance environment.).
At this point, we're at a loss of what to do - while she will push boundaries at home (moreso verbal - taking back or trying to argue with us) - it's not the same behaviour that we're hearing about from school. We've tried talking, yelling, punishing (typically taking away kindle/TV/DVD player and adding in extra chores) - none of this seems to be making an impact. We had planned to do a weekend trip to Six Flags for her birthday, but told her that if she got more than 3 bad behaviour notes over the first 3 weeks of October, that we were cancelling the trip. She had 3 notes within the first week, so that's not happening, now.
After reports on Monday (4 issues, mostly around talking out of turn, not listening, not following directions), and Tuesday (throwing rocks during recess), we had a very long discussion about knowing right from wrong and making good/bad decisions. She's smart enough to understand that what she's doing is wrong, but still continues to do it. We talked about consequences, and how if she was an adult that this stuff would have even worse consequences (losing a job, going to jail). We decided that in addition to the grounding from screen time, she would not be allowed to go to halloween parties this weekend trick-or-treat if she got another bad report between now and party/Halloween. Not less than 24 hours later, we get the report about throwing food in the cafeteria, and then lying about it to the teacher (the teacher saw her do it.) So Halloween is cancelled.
We do have a conference scheduled with her teacher for next week, (and i sent her a note today) - but we really don't know what to do at this point. I know it's not a question of the teacher being really harsh, as the kid needs to do something minor 3x in one day before a note is sent home (they will automatically send one for something more severe.)
Any ideas or suggestions?