Dear Kid Saturday – Trouble at School

Dear TJ,

On Wednesday, I was told that you had a very bad day at school. You had to sit for two timeouts, but you wouldn’t tell anyone why. So when you came home with Daddy, I told you that the TV was not going on until you talked to me about what happened.

You didn’t want to talk about it. I told you that you can tell me anything. I let you know that you weren’t going to get punished again, since you’d already done your timeouts at school. But you really didn’t want to tell me what you did, and you kept answering my questions with questions or trying to tell me unrelated stories.

I started asking you yes or no questions to narrow down the possibilities. Like “Did you hurt someone?” “Did you break something?” You decided that you wanted me to keep asking you questions so you wouldn’t have to talk. I tired of that quickly. I never would have guessed what it was, but I did get a yes to, “Were you being mean to the kids in your class?”

Daddy got really irritated by my inability to get you to talk, too, but he remained calm. Instead, he told you he would just have to call Santa and let him know that you were being naughty by not telling us what happened at school. You burst into tears and said, “No, Daddy, no!” It took some time to get you settled down enough to be coherent before you said you would tell me one of the things you did if I went upstairs with you to your room.

So I went upstairs and sat in your rocking chair, and getting you to keep your promise to tell me one of the things was still like pulling teeth. You kept talking about how you have to hold hands in the parking lot to be safe. Apparently you were holding hands with Kira – who has decided that she’s your girlfriend – when you got back inside, and you didn’t stop holding hands when the teachers told you to. According to Grandma Kitty, Kira is “after you.” I’m not ready for girls to be aggressively pursuing you at the age of 4 – especially not if you’re going to get into trouble for it!

Trying to get you to tell me what the second thing was – it was just as hard. I knew it involved being mean to someone. There were many attempts to reach for the phone and call Santa before Daddy actually started dialing and you promised to tell me between sobs.

It turns out that you dumped all of Ruby’s rice “and all of her stuff.” It sounds like you were doing some kind of art project involving rice, and you decided to be mean and dump out whatever Ruby was working with. That was not very nice at all.

But I thanked you for telling me. And, as promised, you did not get in trouble with us. I reminded you that you should be able to tell us anything, even if it makes you sad or upset, because we’re your parents and we love you.

Then Daddy told you that he had two phone numbers for Santa – a naughty number and a nice number. He told you that you could call the number for nice boys and tell Santa what you want for Christmas. Santa wasn’t available, but he had his voice mail set up, and you left him a message. Before telling him what you want for Christmas, you first confessed to what you did at school! We had to prompt you to tell Santa what you want as presents. That hadn’t changed – you still said you want Batman LEGOs, Star Wars LEGOs, and a gumball machine. But your confession to Santa was priceless.

Love,

Mommy

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Christina Gleason (976 Posts)

That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.