Thursday, May 14, 2009

Blindsided

Last week, my very, very shy first grader had a tough day. During reading, two other children were drawing naked pictures of my boy. When another child told the teacher, her response was appropriate and appreciated by us. There were, however, some extenuating circumstances, and the response took on a life of its own. Before the day was over, other teachers and the principal were involved, and calls were made to the parents of the artists.


My shy boy told us nothing of the experience and when the teacher finally reached me by phone very early the next morning, I really wasn't sure how I felt about the hoopla surrounding the event or the way my quiet boy felt guilty based on the involvement of the ancillary staff and principal.


I do believe that if my child had been the artist and I had received a call from the teacher and the principal, that I might have made a conciliatory call to the parents of the teased child. It would have been a simple, "We're sorry and we are working with our child on this," call and that would have been that. In this case, however, the other parents haven't said a word to me.



Yesterday was a big moment though. As we waited for our first graders to exit the school, the mom of one of the artists began to walk toward me. I had about 1/20 of a second to plan my gracious and mature response to what I knew would be her apology. She sauntered over, and when she was within touching distance, she leaned in and whispered,


"You have a sign on your back. It says, 'Kick me.' "


She smiled and walked away. I reached around and felt my back, and there was the sign, courtesy of my less shy third grade son.




Thus, was my planned gracious and mature response wasted.

18 comments:

MsTypo said...

I'm really surprised the other parents involved didn't at least say something to you about the incident. That's rather tacky IMHO. Then again, maybe telling you about the sign was her peace effort. :)

Mental P Mama said...

That explains a lot about their children. Doesn't it?

Decadent Housewife said...

Doesn't life toss us twisters?

Jeannelle said...

Kids will be kids. Parents should be parents.

Julie said...

wow, that is amazing the parents never talked to you. Sorry about that... poor little guy! So what did you do to the 3rd grader:)

Checkered said...

No. They weren't drawing pictures of our son naked. They were drawing pictures of some lady they had seen getting her newspaper that morning.

Caution/Lisa said...

Checkered, I am going to start a new blog and not tell you the address.

Unknown said...

I seem to be somewhat violent today, especially with the death of my alarm clock...is there someone I need to come up there and beat up for you?

Tell your little one that their time will come and when he is a politcal machine in DC, they will be dumping trash at Burger King.

Anonymous said...

Oh no! How funny of your kid to draw you that sign... but how ungracious of the other parent not to apologize.

Busy Bee Suz said...

WOW. So many things are running through my mind.......naked pictures? I used to draw them on my wall...all were portraits of my Mom.
I finally got over that and started drawing flowers instead.
Some parents may be scared to call you...trying to avoid a confrontation. Or they are really, really embarassed.
Is your 3rd grader out of his room yet?
I love how your husband is getting in on your blog. :) You guys are too funny.
Mine just reads it and never says a word.

Anonymous said...

Oh my! It's kind of funny. Atleast you know she has some manners to tell you about the sign!

Noe Noe Girl...A Queen of all Trades. said...

Slacking parents is all I can say. Why dont parents understand that their kids are their responsibility? And people want to know what is wrong with todays kids.

Laura ~Peach~ said...

love checkered hitting your blog...mike sees mine IF i show it to him....he is just learning the compputer at work. third graders lol...here they wont tell the parents who the other kids involved are...

Betty said...

There is something good about an empty nest! :)

Debbie said...

Glad Laura explained Checkered. I got lost. I remember when growing up, all the parents bonded together and it was them against us. We always lost. When I was raising David, THEIR children never were wrong. I see it's getting worse. I agree with Jeannelle.

Ashley said...

Ugh! If it's not one thing it's another...

imbeingheldhostage said...

I'm sorry, I did laugh into my hand so that it wasn't a complete burst. I do that, laugh at inappropriate times, but a "kick me" sign--you actually had one... yeah, I'd better leave the room until I can control myself.

Sue said...

Boy-does this bring back memories. 12 yr. ago, my then 5th-grader,"M" complained to me about a girl that stood next to her in choir that was touching her inappropriately. We talked about it and she decided that she would let the girl know that this was not acceptable and she had to stop or my daughter would go to the teacher. Well the girl did not stop, so I called her teacher, hoping she would move M to a different position and monitor the girls actions (I questioned where a girl this age would learn this--). Soon I was asked to come to the principal's office with M to fill out reports,etc. M was called out of class to report to the principal's office--imagine all the questions form her peers. We had "a talking to"from the principal--I felt like we were "the bad guys" for reporting the incident. I was informed that the girl's mother was only concerned we were going to "sue" her!! When I left the office, I asked the principal if the mother and other girl were called and he said "No". Everything seemed so "ass backwards". Then I found out my daughter had been bullied by this girl because of this incident for the rest of the year, but my daughter would not tell anyone because she was afraid she would be called into the principal's office again with her Mom.