Saturday, February 11, 2012

Moxie's Little Juvenile Delinquent....


Soooo....I get a call on Friday from Darling's school.

Apparently, my sweet, innocent second grader got in trouble for defacing school property. She and her BFF decided that it was a good idea to write their names and "BFFs forever" on the bathroom stalls of the girls room.

The school counselor told me that it was in pencil, "but quite large" and she had the girls clean it up and they were sent to the vice principal for a "discussion".

I was flabbergasted. I was a child that never, ever got in trouble. Handsome was a hellion. He routinely got in trouble in grade school. Apparently, she truly is Daddy's Little Girl.

I initially had four reactions.

1. She is in SOOOO much trouble.

2. She's not a very good juvenile delinquent. She wrote her name, which is quite incriminating when committing a crime. I need her Sicilian godmother to have a discussion with her about covering her tracks.

3. We need to have a serious discussion about peer pressure. She is much too influenced by others. Writing on the walls is just not something she would come up with on her own. I've seen in other situations where she'll do something because others tell her it's a good idea. Maybe because she's an only child she hasn't figured out how to say "No, I don't want to do that."

4. She is going to be much harder on herself than Handsome and I are going to be.

My Darling Delinquent is lucky that Daddy picked her up from school and not Mama.

Let's just say I needed some "cool off time"...

When Handsome went to pick her up from school he walked into her classroom and she took one look at him and knew she was in trouble.

Handsome is a much calmer parent than I am and so he said, "So...Mama got a phone call today from school."

She nodded her head and said that she expected that.

Handsome asked her why she did it.

"Because I'm a bad kid"

And....his heart broke a little bit.

He told her (and I backed it up when I got home) "You're not a bad kid. You're actually a very good kid, but you made a VERY bad decision. Sometimes good people make very bad choices. The important thing is to try very hard not to do something you know is wrong even if your friends tell you to do it."

Handsome is full of "Good Parent Wisdom"...

I never thought that we would have to have the peer pressure discussion in 2nd grade.

Sigh...

Punishment: Writing 6 pages of "I will think for myself and do what is right.", no computer games, no tv, no Nintendo DS for at least a week.

She's taking it well and if we had left the punishment up to her she probably would have come up with something much harsher.

.....

Sometimes parenting sucks.

3 comments:

Nick said...

2nd grade seems about right - that's when our oldest started spending too much time making jokes in class with 'the cools girls'.

We had the same talk - several times in fact - about making good choices, why one doesn't want to lie down with dogs, etc etc etc. And, since she is also a good girl, this year's 3rd grade experience has run much smoother...

My first reaction last year was somewhere between yours and Handsome's: I was set she was bound (after a good thubbing) for the inside of a nunnery. In Switzerland.

Hyperblogal said...

My call from school came after Steven--- also known as evil spawn of satan-- kept harassing my daughter Kelly at recess until she had enough and yelled , "F***k off STEVEN," apparently a HUSH fell over the entire parochial school playground and a couple of teachers fainted.... this too was second grade.... even though the teacher acknowledged that Steven obviously was destined for a life in newsprint, she requested we have a chat.... we did and it never happened again... at least at the same volume.

josetteplank.com said...

Argh, yes. I've had to have the "peers discussion" with my 5yo, already. The good thing is that when you start the peers discussion sooner, by middle school - when this kind of thing reaches a fever pitch - you've already brainwashed them (in the best way possible.)

My angels have been on the receiving end and, unfortunately, the peer pressure-ers at times. Ack!

But very funny that she wrote her own name, lol! Maybe time to teach her about graffiti tags? ;-)

(PS, I haven't been blogging in a while, and am getting back into it, touching base with everyone I followed via feed. :-) My blog used to be Halushki (you have it in your blog list on the side) but I've switched to josetteplank.com at http://www.josetteplank.com/) Trying to alert people to re-directed and broken links.