9 Year Old Boys

Boys will be boys.

I think it's more like kids will be kids, especially 9 year old kids. Mine has had a rough go of it this school year. At least I think so. I swore I wouldn't be one of those parents who thought the school was being mean to her kid, but I find myself thinking that lately.

Some of the stuff he's been "punished" for at school just seems a little over the top. Or maybe being punished for it isn't over the top, but the punishments are. This week I received a phone call from the principal telling me that my son was made to sit "on the bench" at recess because he was running down the hall on the way back from gym. O.k. not good. No running in the halls. I get that. He also had a few other incidents that he was "concerned" about.

He teased a classmate about who she has a crush on...again, not really nice, but pretty normal stuff.

And there was some incident on the school bus when #2 told the kid next him him that the "Cardinals Suck", the boy yanked on his hair and in trying to get the kid to let go, #2 tried to bite him. Again, yes, naughty behavior, but not the end of the world.

At recess the kids had their hands inside their coats so that their sleeves were empty (know what I mean?) and they were swinging their empty sleeves at each other. He whacked a girl in the face...accident? Not sure. But the two of them worked it out. Except the principle saw them working it out and came over a chewed #1 out for it.

OF COURSE we supported the school and handed down our sentence here at home (no electronics privileges [game boy, playstation, etc...] until further notice), of course we had a long talk about doing bonehead things at school when you KNOW the principal is a little power-mad.
Well, maybe we didn't say that last part out loud.

There are just some really dumb rules at that school.

• Students must walk on the 3rd tile (floor tile) from the wall when moving in the halls.
• Students must be absolutely SILENT while doing the above.
• No running on the wood chips at recess.
• No tag.
• At lunch, they are not allowed to get out of their seats if they forgot their utensil, milk, etc....
• At lunch, there is to be NO BANGING OF THE SPORK PACKET so as to allow the spork to pop out of the top thus letting the children to remove said spork from it's plastic enclosure. (I only include this one because it seems to be the most troubling to my boys...it's the one thing they just can't wrap their brains around. "And he WON'T LET US BANG OUR SPORKS!!!")

We support the school and breaking a rule is breaking a rule...I would, however, like to ask the principal what he was like when he was 9.

#2 has the great misfortune to be just that.....#2. He's a great student, very bright, good sense of humor; he's just not like #1.

#1 didn't get in trouble at school (or he was smart enough not to get caught) and was genuinely terrified OF getting in trouble. He operates on a bit more mature level than his peers and that usually kept him away from the principals radar.

#2 is a bit less mature, one of the younger one's in his class, and very imaginative. His conduct and effort sheets come home with notes like "goofing off during reading" and when I ask what that means, #2 says "I was pretending to fly" (while reading a book about flight). Or it'll say "playing with his pencil" which means "I was making my pencil do that thing when it looks like its bending....you know jiggling it". Once his sheet even said "Being silly in the library". I didn't even ask what that meant; I mean, silly in the library? What was he thinking??

So, yes, he's a bit of a space cadet. He's squirrelly. He teases the girls at recess. He runs in the hall (but not with scissors).

I think he's a pretty normal 9 year old, not a future criminal mastermind. So, school,

LIGHTEN UP!!



**and no, we don't talk this way about the school in front of the boys. We provide a united front with the school. But it's not easy when I hear myself saying "We've told you not to jiggle your pencil before, son, what were you thinking?" (Actually, we nab him on the not paying attention aspect of that behavior, not the actual jiggle. See...doesn't that just SOUND dumb?)