More bullying

Am I proud of my child for handling this himself or disturbed that the assistant principal calling to tell me she'd had a peer mediation session with my son and another child was the (almost) first time I've heard about it?

Little background here. A couple of weeks ago my neighbor's 8th grade daughter told her mom that another child kicked W. on the bus but she didn't want her mom to tell me. Obviously we moms don't honor silly requests like this and T. told me what her daughter had told her. Apparently my generally oblivious and oftentimes cantankerous (what a combination, eh?) 6th grader sat in a bus seat this particular boy seemed to think was his and so he told W. not to sit there the next day. Cut to the following morning when W., in all his obstreperous glory, sits in the same seat. Well, apparently no 6th grader can just ignore this 8th grader's dictum and so he hauled off and kicked W. The bus driver did not see this but my neighbor's daughter thought W. should report this other kid and get him kicked off the bus. He did not. Nor did she say anything, explaining to her mom that she didn't want to make it worse for W. When I asked about the incident, I was casually told that this kid was a bit of a bully and that it was fine. (Apparently my child is also becoming more stoic because he not only ignored the kick, he didn't cry--and he's generally a big crier.) Stupid mom thought that was the end of it since W. never said another word about it.

So this morning we get a call from the 6th grade assistant principal who clues in the completely clueless parents. Apparently other children had told their parents and those parents had contacted the school about this ongoing bullying. (No indication to us from W. that he was living with this daily either.) The assistant principal confronted W., who admitted the reports were true. The 8th grader has been disciplined in school and his parents were contacted yesterday. Yay school for getting right on this!!! Then today there was a peer mediation between W. and a 6th grader who is apparently "sort-of" a friend of W.'s who has watched this situation, never stuck up for W. during it, and even picked on him some at the egging on of the older kid. Will this change anything? The cynic in me thinks no but at least the school will keep an eye on it. As to the rest, I do worry (it is my job, after all) that W. will be the neighborhood pariah as a result of the whole thing since all the kids involved live here too. I specifically asked if it was made clear that W. hadn't been the one to report it since I wanted the bully and the follower to know that other people were watching them too. I did restrain myself from asking the names of the kids but I might see if W. will cough them up when I ask him about it later today. Of course, if I find out, I'll never ever be able to like either of those kids ever, even if they were to become the nicest, most pleasant boys around so perhaps I should leave it unknown.

But I am also wondering why W. didn't bother to tell us (not that he told anyone until directly questioned) and that worries me too (see how good I am at the worrying job?). This parenting thing, it's gonna be the death of me! Oh, and a rhetorical question here (well, if you have an answer for me, feel free to share it but I suspect it's one of those unanswerable things): Why the heck is my child such a bully magnet? What about him screams out to be abused? And somebody please promise me that we'll all make it through this in one piece.

Student-led conferences

I'm sure there's some educational theory out there that claims that student-led conferences are a good idea. I say that theory is bunk. Today was the third day this week that the kids didn't have school. Monday was Martin Luther King Day; Tuesday was a snow day (more on that in another post); today was a teacher workday, which for the middle school translated into parents being guilted into going in and listening to their child run through a script about what they've learned thus far in the year and how they are doing. I know I'm grumpy, but I regularly check online to see the grades, my child comes home crowing with glee when he's done well, and I go ahead and pull teeth, I mean tease out information about his day to day life at school so this whole conference was unneccesary.

As a matter of fact, I'd forgotten about it until I happened to glance at the calendar on the fridge so W. and I popped out of the house completely haphazardly and last minute. I only had time to take a quick shower so my hair was still wet. W. was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, arguing that he wasn't going to be out in the cold very long. OK, not gonna fight that battle (and I was pleased to note that the silly list of parent tips for dealing with a pre-adolescent that we were given at conferences applauded me for not making a small issue a larger one--so apparently I'm to be okay with frostbite, as long as he gets to wear whatever weather inappropriate clothes he's chosen. Cool. Good to know.). At any rate, we got out of the house with some time to spare.

Back to the actual conference. For starters, W. told me half of what he was supposed to tell me in the car on the way to school. I have no problem with this but I could have saved the gas if we could have done this just as easily at the kitchen table (and given my childrens' tendencies to flapping lips, I suspect we definitely could have). We get to school and W. happily greets everyone he sees who he knows. Less than half greet him in return. This is an unintentional aspect to the conference I could have done without. I know he's socially immature (a less kind term comes to mind but I'll refrain) but I don't really want to see it in action because I might be a slacker mother of huge proportions, but this stuff still makes my heart hurt.

And I'd just witnessed the neighborhood boys' showdown at my front door yesterday when a child who has been less than kind to W. lately came, with back-up, to accuse my son of hiding Z.'s gun in the bushes. Now given that Z. and S. have recently mocked W. for being a baby (he does cry at the drop of a hat but I think being beaned in the head with something hard and sharp warrants crying, even in the most stiff upper lipped of boys), have tossed nerf guns and those squishy dart/bullets of W.'s into the bushes where they seem lost for good, and have been the ones to throw things at W., resulting in the mockable crying, I wasn't having much sympathy if W. had in fact gotten one back at them. (Note that I have never claimed to be a good parent.) But, and I tend to believe my kid on this since he's a terrible liar, he claims that he didn't do it. He admits he asked if he could see the gun but when he was told no, he said he came home. But three angry boys stood at my door certain that W. or T. or T.'s friend M. had done this and they certainly wanted blood for it. (None was given and they went away, probably to ambush my sensitive soul some other day.) So I already knew that W. isn't the most popular kid around before we walked into school. Thankfully he was so wound up about the conference, he didn't seem to notice.

The conference itself took all of 10 minutes and told me exactly nothing I didn't already know. Even worse, as I sat next to W. listening to him go through his class notebooks with me, I kept getting a whiff of the most appalling body odor. Yup. W. He threw clothes on without showering and he sat next to me like pigpen in his own cloud of fug. Very distracting. And I admit that my award as mother of the year is probably being revoked (again) because I leaned into him several times to ask about bathing, deodorant, and general hygiene. Dogged boy that he is, he shook of my questioning and raced through the conference at full speed so he could get home to the tv and computer. And for this they had no school? Next year I'll get two student-led conferences unless the teachers and administrators see the uselessness of them before then. Yeah, I'm not real hopeful either. Oh the joy!

W. and grades update

My children have been testing me lately to see if I am serious about the consequences I've determined should accompany any and all of their poor choices. Trash the basement? No tv or computer for a month. Check! Eat candy all over the house and stash wrappers to hide evidence? All halloween candy gets donated to the local hopital's children's wing. Check! Don't pull up your grades? Be confined to doing homework of mom's choosing (home-schooling on steroids since he'd also still have to attend school in addition to my lessons). Thank the good heavens that I haven't been tested on this one. I am happy (well, happiness is relative since I know W. is far smarter than his grades show and that means he spent the first 3/4 of the grading period not working to his potential) to say that he's pulled all grades to C and above as of the end of October. With any luck, one or two of those might morph into A's and B's by the time all quarter grades are recorded. So I don't have to make him the world's most miserable 6th grader ever although he is going to be annoyed to find that I'm still going to have a conference with his teaching team to suggest that they don't cut him any slack and let them know my philosophy on my children's schooling (ie: he needs to learn accountability without us lowering expectations given his wily but under-worked brain).

Middle school orientation

The number one reason never to have children: having to relive the horror that was junior high/middle school with them.

Went to W.'s middle school orientation today. He seemed mostly blase about it. I was too until I realized how old it makes me to have a kid going into 6th grade. Somehow, in my head I'm still 22 (and the hair isn't rapidly greying, the wrinkles aren't settled and starting to sink like the boobs did several years ago, and the joints aren't aching with age). Hard to face the fact that I'm not young and perky anymore. But those 6th graders made me face it. Have kids gotten taller over the years? My son is apparently a shrimp this year so maybe I just haven't noticed. Also, shouldn't someone tell these children that deodorant is a blessed discovery? Loads of tall, stinky, acne-sprouting, braces-wearing children shuffled morosely out of the cafeteria and towards the 6th grade hallway. No wonder these next years are so awful! I feel sorry for them and sorry for me that I'll be immersed in all this for the second time in my life.

And just a taste of what's to come in my life this year-- W. has never met anyone else with his name before (ever). This year there's a *girl* with his name, not only in his grade but in his homeroom. Should make for an interesting year. Oh yeah, she's also about a foot taller than he is. He is so not going to love that. ;-)