Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Last night my son's school had something called a "Showcase", where the entire class of 23 students, convened to basically show the parents what the hell they've been doing all semester. The kids recited lines about an expedition they went and then (they basically interviewed students and faculty, wrote down their responses, drew pictures of who they interviewed and then drew a school map to indicate where in the school this teacher---it was VERY cool) explained it to the parents via a 30-minute long presentation. The teachers did an excellent job of instilling confidence and a work ethic in these kids and it showed in the final product. Not one kid messed up any of their lines, and when it came time for each kid to show off their drawings, their maps and their interview questions/answers, they did so gleefully. It warmed my heart as a parent and as a member of the school community. My son is in damn good hands.

This concludes the positive portion of my blog entry. Now I have to get dirty.

One of my son's best friends in kindergarten is Jayson, and their behavior patterns are virtually identical. He's mercurial, he's silly and he can be a bit handsy at times. Sadly, Jayson's parents--particularly his mother--are annoying as hell. They ask questions about my son but the motive behind their questions is always to show off what THEIR son is doing, rather than really hear about mine. They also go to church eight times a week, and they turn their noses up at my wife and me, because we don't attend at all.

15-20 minutes before the Showcase began, my son was fixing his bowtie and tucking in his shirt, and out of nowhere Jayson hit Nyles in the back of the neck. It was a total sucker punch. Nyles's first instinct was to hit Jayson back(per my instructions) but I held him back for two reasons:

1 - Jayson's mom jumped in and pulled her son away, and I didn't want Nyles to accidentally hit Jayson AND his mom
2 - The showcase was going to start in 15 minutes and I didn't want Nyles or Jayson to be flustered during their big moment

But what I DID do is pull Nyles aside and ask him to hit Jayson the next morning before class started. My wife immediately swooped in and told me that I should not be instructing my son to do such things. On one hand, I agreed with her because my son has a birthday party this weekend and both Jayson and his parents will be in attendance. No one needs that kind of drama at a kiddie birthday party, but at the same time, I don't want any kid having one up on my son in the punch department. He needs to win or at least break even, but out of respect for my wife, I kept the peace...until this morning.

Since I preside over my son's drop off at school (my wife does the pick up) I knew that I could have the last word when it came to dictating my son's actions. My son walked into class today, removed his hat and gloves and I told him that he should hit a) hit Jayson before class started and b) tell the teacher and Jayson, that his daddy asked him to do that, since Jayson hit him last night.

When I told my wife about it later, she vehemently disagreed with my action, and told me that I should not have done any carryover retaliation from last night, and I think she might be right. I just don't want folks getting comfortable with hitting my son and thinking that repercussions aren't around the corner. But I also don't want my son getting in trouble because of crazy directives from his dad. We'll see what happens.


Also, shoutout to the two black fathers (there are only four of us in my son's kindergarten's class) who showed up to this kid-friendly showcase, smelling like weed. That's always a good look in an elementary school.