The Queen's Rambles

About a year ago I followed a blog link to a drama post to a forum I had never heard of. I stuck around the forum because the drama was entertaining to read. As I kept reading, though, something happened. Epiphanies! Realizations! Spine building! The forum, Dealing with the In-laws, is over on Baby Center (very easy to google, I don’t want to link to it here). If you want to learn how to deal with difficult people and be entertained at the same time, I highly recommend it. I learned that my family is completely bat shit crazy and that it’s ok for me to say “No, that doesn’t work for me” when they start acting crazy. I should not be giving them my all when they are giving me a shit sandwich. It is not normal to spend so much time worrying about what my family of origin needs when I have my very own little family to take are of. Thus we had the best summer vacation ever. It was very freeing. No plane travel to a hole-in-the-wall that we all hate. No babysitting a bunch of kids who don’t know how to behave. No worrying that we’ll be murdered in the night by my sister/her husband/some random drug seeking person the cat dragged in. Wish I would have discovered DWIL years ao.

As a by-product of this new found spine, I also learned how to kick ass when things go wrong at school. Today I think I kicked some ass. I hope.

Instead of simpering around, being mad and raging internally and on the internet, I took serious action about the bully at Erik’s school. I e-mailed the principal (very firm, with a request for a three pronged action plan) and his teacher. I talked to the Safety Patrols (though I do not expect them to do much. I think it is ridiculous to give 4th and 5th graders that kind of power and expect them to handle naughty little children), and I talked to the bus driver.

As a former teacher I knew they were not going to suspend him, expel him, kick him off the bus, or anything else that would be drastic for a first offense (though I’ve heard from the neighborhood moms that this would be far from the first offense). My number one goal was to get the bully into an assigned seat behind the bus driver.

Whoo-hoo! It worked! That’s exactly what is happening.

The principal and I chatted for about 30 minutes and every time he would say something to try to smooth things over and downplay the severity, I’d say “physical abuse is completely unacceptable. I understand the other child must have some serious things going on in his life to cause his behaviors. It is not my six year old child’s job to understand that or be his punching bag. Physical abuse is unacceptable for any reason.”

Just so you know, I recognize that “boys will be boys” and that boys play rough. If this was a kid from the neighborhood that he had a good relationship with, I would not have taken this sort of action. Erik has been complaining about this child from day 1. He says he tries to stay far away from him and he does not play with him at all.

The principal told me that he was required to give me a link to the districts’s bully reporting website but that I did not have to fill it out. He kept telling me that he already investigated the situation so there was really nothing to be gained by reporting it on the site, but that he was not discouraging me from reporting it. He was TOTALLY discouraging me from reporting it. I told him I would most likely be using the link and I would do everything in my power to advocate for my child. That I understood things are not easy for teachers because they have to balance the needs of everyone, but my job as a parent is to solely focus on making school a better place for my child. If I don’t advocate for him, who will?

Still trying to decide if I want to report via the link or not. I need to talk to some experienced parents and find out what doing the report will actually do.

I am so proud of myself! Long time readers know that it is not long ago that I would have rolled over and showed my belly. I can talk a big game, but once I am in midst of an actual confrontation I turn into jelly. Of course, I am well aware that i still have problems standing up for myself. It is different if my child is getting the raw end of the stick. I would do anything for my kids, not matter how crazy or outside my comfort zone it is.

Except play video games. Ugh. I draw the line at playing little kid games (most days).