As a school teacher, the disciplining of other people's children is part of the job. But it's usually quick and deadly or quick and painless. The operative term there being "quick." Cal and Nolan have generally been very good, requiring only the occasional reminder to be nice to one another, or to pick up their clothes.
That all changed today. (Cue ominous music)
Picked Cal up at school and then went to claim Nolan from his Transitional-Kindergarten. One of his teachers asked if she could talk to me. (Cue slightly more ominous music.)
Apparently she had asked Nolan to do something, and he had told her,"No." She reprimanded him and reasserted what she wanted him to do. He continued to refuse and then added the now standard, "You are not my friend" (which Tom did in fact get before me, so there), and "You can't come to my birthday party",(which I got last night.)
Since he wasn't getting his desired reaction, he implied...in fairly blunt terms...that his father was going to cause her some bodily harm. She then pressed him for how he thought his father might do this (her one major mistake, in my opinion) and he expounded for her, detailing the hows and with-whats with a certain, disturbing level of expertise.
Either way, it was a major no-no. I assured her that I would communicate the issue to his parents, and that the problem would be dealt with swiftly and appropriately. That was interesting, because I wasn't too sure what that might mean. But as with Cal's teacher and the homework issue last week, I wasn't about to be judged by these people.
Fortunately the actual parents were near their New Zealand phone connection and we had a quick strategy session on how to play it out. Here's what went down...
Nolan and I excused ourselves to the boys' bedroom and I told him we had to have a talk. We talked about what he said to his teacher, and how that wasn't respectful, and wasn't acceptable. He seemed to understand, but didn't seem overly concerned. I told him that he was going to have to have a consequence, and he seemed OK with that as well. I also told him that I could have denied him play time with Mark & Ed's dogs, that were coming over, and though that got a bit of reaction, he seemed relieved to know that that wasn't the final judgment. Then the boom was lowered. I told him that he would have to sit in his room, on his cot, while his brother got to finish that day's episode of Scooby Doo. Really. That was it. 13 minutes of television. You would have thought it was life without the possibility of parole. His hands went up over his eyes, the tears started to flow, and as I pushed PLAY on the TiVo the sobs got louder. At one point I caught him preening his neck to possibly see a sliver of the program, and drew a nearby curtain that completely blocked his view. Frustrated, I then noticed that he had completely shut the door so that he wouldn't have to hear what he could not see. Oh no. I don't think so. There will be no lessening of the only punishment I can stomach to mete out. I opened the door and told Nolan that it had to stay open, and that he had to stay on his cot.
Eventually the minutes passed, Scooby and the gang solved the mystery, and I went in, gave him a big hug and told him I loved him, and that he had to do what his teachers said. He hugged back, hard, and agreed.
I had him dictate an apology note which I typed in dotted type, so he could trace over it. He's halfway done as of this writing. I realized at some point that he wouldn't go back to school until Wednesday, and so Tom decided that when he dropped Cal off for school tomorrow he would take Nolan to the Pre-K classroom and have him make his apology then, so as to keep the immediacy factor alive. Poppa Tom getting the hang of it! Got to love that.
After the drama we had Mark and Ed over for a Puppy-Pizza Play Date. It was great fun and their dogs even followed the boys into bed and helped tuck them in. Very, very cute. Nolan seemed...aware...of what went down all evening and was pretty easy going from then on.
Me? I'm still a mess. Poor little guy with evil revenge plans!
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