Playground Wars: Josias Strikes Back
Posted by Rey
Monday, my son went back to school with much trepidation but armed with unknown resources: we notified his teacher about what had happened on his first day. Concerned, she promised that the teachers overseeing Recess would be extra vigilant to ensure that the older kids weren’t doing this stuff.
Around noon we received an email saying that Sy had gotten into trouble during recess: he was playing rough with the other kids. This, she surmised, must be why the there was a resultant strong action from the other kids. Afterwards we received a phone call that he was actually attacking people with his lightsaber.
Thing is, Sy doesn’t own a lightsaber so what he was using was his clenched fist.
Let me pause my storyweaving to say that I’m uncomfortable with this analysis. First off, it ignores most of the events that happened the first day as potential primary causes and secondly any time a boy gets crazy with a lightsaber, he’s usually fighting someone else.
Which wound up being the fact. Sy was playing lightsaber with another kid; himself playing the role of Darth Vader and the other kid starring as Luke Skywalker. (As a side note I think its funny that Sy’s whole Star Wars mythos is built on a segment of the Lego video game and a coloring book: he’s never seen the movies).
In the car though my Son absentmindedly told me about going around the playground “angry and kicking people and stuff”. When I asked him why he started telling me about some game the kids were playing where they would pick him up, throw him down then cheer.
“They were being bad so I showed them they were breaking the rules.”
“How?”
“I did it to them.” ::insert a segment of Vader’s theme or robotic breathing here::
4 Responses to “Playground Wars: Josias Strikes Back”
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September 1st, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I know how I’d feel in your situation. Part of me would want to explain why it’s wrong to do bad things back to bad people and sink to their level, while another part inside my brain would be standing, cheering, and applauding the littlest Sith.
Just promise you won’t buy him a clown mask…
September 2nd, 2007 at 2:18 am
This is classic and tragic: “We weren’t watching the first day, so we didn’t see your son attacked and picked on. We only watched after you complained, and saw him retaliate. We will now label him a trouble maker.”
Perhaps what these mental midgets who must have been absent on the day the teaching class covered “How to Run Recess” might want to take a day or two and actually get INVOLVED with the kids. Maybe actually interact with them before the violence starts to teach a bit about citizenship and kindness, and then perhaps structure their recess activities just a little bit. I realize recess and lunch time are supposed to be “free play” periods where children explore their world and interact with each other on a less adult-directed level, but that approach obviously isn’t working for now.
I remember in 3rd grade, we had one recess “monitor” who’s stated policy actually was “I don’t care if there are fights, as long as they’re one-on-one.” This was before I became overweight, wimpy, weak and uncoordinated. I was also a kid from New York transplanted to Vegas who had already been in plenty of dust-ups. On the first day that this Nazi was monitoring recess, some jerk picked a fight with me. I was caught off guard and stunned, and put up little defense. The next time Nurse Cratchet was on duty, I walked right up to the kid, knocked him down with one punch and watched his two friends run away like the two Agents who just witnessed Neo destroy Smith for the first time. I then proceeded to make the kid eat more grass than some cows eat in a lifetime. Cruelly and without mercy. No trouble after that.
But what happened to me is totally an exception and should not be repeated, especially in today’s world where retaliation has a way of tragically escalating. Prayer and proper parenting - your way - is the best solution.
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:26 pm
MCF: Yes, I promise—no clown masks. And that is partially how it makes me feel although I’m closer to Jerry’s sense of injustice.
TheWriteJerry: That is my major fear that right now my son has been typecast into the trouble maker mold and it could follow him from now on. I hope that I’ll be able to go with Brian’s approach (in a previous comment thread) and getting the teachers to offer a solution because right now it sure seems like a downward spiral.
September 4th, 2007 at 10:24 am
It does seem like a downward spiral, and I agree totally with Jerry that it’s an injustice. I hope Sy is able to work it out, but I have to admit that I’m glad that he stood up for himself in the meantime. Prayers continue.