1. You are breaking a bad habit, which means you might have days that you fail a bit and go back to your old behaviors. If that happens start again. One failure one day to meet your goal is not constant failure , its only one day.

2. Take it one day at a time. Do not look at is as all year, First day of school you tell yourself I am going to behave TODAY. Get through one day , then another etc.

3. Keep a log so you can tell what days were good and what days you messed up. You will find you were good more often than you thought. If you do mess up write down what caused it.

4. This is the tough one: If your friends are the cause of you misbehaving stay away from them in school but hang with them after school. If a best friend is causing the problem go to your guidance counselor and ask to be put in a different class until you clean up your act. If its possible they will do that because they dont want you to misbehave. You never have to tell your friend you asked to be moved.

5. Reward yourself for reaching small goals. Too often we wait until we are “done” That is too long. Tell yourself at the end of each day you have behaved you will do a little something for yourself that you like. At the end of each five days you behave, make the treat a bit bigger and at the end of a month make it even better. Your parents might actually help you with this.

Good Luck