Taking aim

As a general rule I side with authority. In that light I told my kids as they became school age that if I got word from school that they were misbehaving somehow then so far as I was concerned, they were misbehaving. Pontificating a moment, I think a lot more parents need to take that attitude too.

Yet teachers, being human, aren't always right either, and I recognize that. 

There was a minor incident one day with my son and another boy.  While a group of boys were playing football during lunch one kid, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, got mad. He picked up the football and flung it at my son Charlie, but missed. Charlie however picked up the ball to return the favor, drilling it right upside Cloyce's head.

As it happened I was the one to pick up the kids from school that day. The principal spotted me and explained what happened. When he was done I said something like, "Oh." I was dismissive of it, quite frankly.

Coughing, the principal asked, "I'm wondering how you intend to handle it."

I shrugged my shoulders and said,  "Not my fault Charlie's got better aim than Cloyce." The principal stood in front of me, speechless.

The way I saw it, then and now, was that it was just boys being boys (they were in sixth grade) and simply no big deal. If anything, Charlie was really only defending himself with a dose of playground justice (and I was admittedly kind of proud of that). On top of it all, the two kids were good friends before the incident and remained good friends after it. Let it go; there simply was no real harm done.

I think they both got detention. Okay, whatever. Perhaps it did merit that. But Mr. Principal was clearly taken aback by what he felt my cavalier attitude. Me? If that was the worst thing one of my kids were to do in school, I could live with it.