Both are held back in swimming

As outlined previously, Kenzie was held back to do session one again in swim lessons.

We made the decision to hold Jia back as well. The main reason is that she doesn't listen to the instructors. They tell the kids to be quiet and listen, she is off dunking herself and yelling for me to look. They tell the kids to hang on to the wall, she is trying to go out to deep water behind the instructors' backs. She is not listening to them, and the higher the level, the more dangerous the lesson will be if she doesn't pay attention to them.

It's the same thing she does at home. I'll tell her not to do something or to do something, and its as if I never opened my mouth. The walls have better hearing than Jia. (BTW - her hearing has been checked and it's perfect - there's no problem with it. The problem lies in her willingness to respond to authority.) There's a part of Jia that I think doesn't care - she's still not getting it when it comes to this family stuff... I think there are times when she thinks this is just another place for her to stay until her next move.

When I told Jia that because she wasn't paying attention to her instructors and that was the reason she was being held back, she bawled and screamed for a half hour "I wanna go to level 2!" over and over. I had told her previously that she had to listen to her instructors - and now she has to deal with the consequences of not doing what we've told her.

Another issue we are currently dealing with: Lying.

And she knows she's not telling the truth. She automatically says, "It wasn't me" when something is discovered and we find that there is something wrong or damaged. Now, I know Kenzie really well - and Kenzie is very careful with her things and with the household. Once Kenzie marked up a wall accidentally with a painted peg, and we talked with her about not doing that and not marking up the walls. This was when she was 2 years old. She's never done it since. But since Jia's been home, we've found places where there are marks (large ones) and we know that Kenzie didn't do it. Jia finally confessed to Roy, but that was after a lot of prodding. Not sure how to handle this. I'm sure that the immediate denial was so she wouldn't be punished in the orphanage... but she has to learn this isn't the orphanage and there aren't another couple hundred kids to blame around her... so it's pretty easy to figure out who did what.

One of these days, the actions vs inactions = consequences equation is going to finally hit home and she'll make the connection. But until then, it's going to be a very bumpy ride.