Mom Is Teaching

I have a lot of thoughts trying to spew from my head into my hands and onto this keyboard right now.  Therefore, let me add my disclaimers right up front.

Disclaimer Number One:  I am frustrated, aggravated, confused and maybe even angry.  Sometimes when I’m like this, posts seem to disappear without warning after I have calmed down.

Disclaimer Number Two:  I very much want my children to be educated in the public school system.  I guess what I really want is the education system to straighten their act up while I attempt to get  the act of my child together.  I really don’t think I am cut-out for homeschooling.  My mom even said as much yesterday.  Geez, she’s a real motivator uh?

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Ok, so simply by the act of convenience, my mom has been taking Walker to school and/or picking him up for over a week.  He has remained a Purple Bee (that’s the highest level of good) in the hive for the last 10 days.  Today, today I figure it was time for Jace (3.75 year old) to get out of the house for a change (and me too) so I prepared to pick Walker up at school (you know, like I bathed, brushed my teeth and make the kiddo put on some clean clothes).

When Walker’s teacher opens the door for him to get inside the automobile, he notices that it is me, his mommy instead of his All-Wonderful Nanny, who is retrieving him from school and he started crying.  I issued orders to stop crying because I had a surprise.

Before I could reveal our plans to come to McD’s and play (while I work), he burst into tears again with, “but I got a Yellow Bee”.  Yellow would be directly under green so of course it isn’t horrible but we have been laying down the law about this when it occurred in the past.

With that, I opened his folder to read that they were having “silent lunch for half of lunch today and Walker would not cooperate and missed half of his physical education class”.  (not verbatim, but you get the idea - and Walker said up front that she moved him to a place alone during lunch because he wouldn’t quit talking).

This will take bullets for me to dissect:

• Why do they have silent lunch?  They sit in a room, in a chair, paying attention (hopefully) and working quietly (hopefully), so why do they add silent lunch in there as punishment.  Sorry, I don’t see that as a good punishment or even as an idea.
• They only have like thirty minutes for lunch, so that’s plenty of time to eat for 15 minutes while being silent (no talking with food in your mouth at least) and then 15 minutes to at least socialize a little, geeez! (I have a post coming on my own social skills).
• He was moved to a table to sit alone for the remaining 15 minutes.  So, he was punished.  Right?
• He missed half of physical education class.  Wait, he has already been punished, right?  He was made to sit alone for not following the silent lunch rule.   So, why is he now missing half of physical education?  And, why are the physical education teachers (and you know I am a physical education teacher with a B.S.) allowing the teachers to use the child’s physical education time for punishment?  They only have 30 minutes for physical education.  Why take fifteen minutes of it away?  Don’t these kids need to play?  Get rid of some excess energy?  Release the energy bundle so they can go back to class and “sit quietly”?

I’m going to say this first and foremost.  When I taught physical education class, it was a ground rule I set between the teachers and myself that my time with their children was not to be taken away from them for punishment.  I was not carrying out their punishment nor was I going to take away the child’s time to be free, run and exercise.  I had to go through the principals at various times because teachers didn’t want to comply, however, how do you think they would have felt if I had sent this note back to class with little Johnny?

“I am keeping Johnny in physical education class for an extra fifteen minutes because of his behavior.  Please excuse him of any math work he may miss during that 15 minutes.”

How well do you think that would go over?

Yea, I know, it wouldn’t!

So, what did I do.  I didn’t think it was fair to Jace to just say, “ok then we aren’t going to McD’s” so I told him that we were going and he would sit and watch without playing.  Yes, I know, I mentioned that he had already been punished.  But, in my world, punishment at school means punishment at home, no matter the crime.  And, it’s not up for debate, so don’t go there.  please? 

Once we arrived at McD’s, he ate and then I told him he had 15 minutes more to sit out without talking and he would get a spanking when we arrived at home. 

Side Note:  Again, don’t even go anywhere on a tangent about spanking.  I do believe in corporal punishment when a child is old enough to understand it, knows and understands the reason for the punishment and it is NOT carried out when the person dolling out the punishment is angry. 

I called my husband to verify that this would be sufficient.  He agreed.  I’ll let you know how it all works out.  I had already planned to take Walker to school myself in the morning because of errands and such, but now I will be going inside.

Why am I going inside?  I want he and his teacher to understand that we (the parents) will not accept his behavior as such.  But, we (the parents) would like some consistency..punish the child once please, do not repeatedly punish him for the same misbehavior. 

Lastly, Walker was telling me that he didn’t know it was suppose to be a silent lunch.  They had silent lunch for half of the time last Friday when I was there so I know my son knew it was suppose to be a silent lunch.  I let him know that I knew he was aware of the “silent lunch” rule.  He repeated again that he didn’t know.  I stopped the truck and asked if he wanted me to turn around and go back to school and ask the teacher about this.  (I know he knew, but I had to call his bluff).  He decided that no, indeed, he did not wish to go back and that he did, indeed, know that it was suppose to be a silent lunch.

Either way, I will go inside with him tomorrow morning.  I will make it clear how I feel and then I’ll let you guys know if I have any hair left.

Discuss.