Monday – Mondays Bite
Nov. 8th, 2010 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
So it wasn’t the worst day ever. Not by far. No matter how many incidents are on my son's daily report, a day that the school does not call me to come over and intervene is, by my definition, pretty good. Some shoes were thrown. A teacher got bit. The P.E. coach was told that he can't wait for her to die and that, in fact, he wanted her dead. But it could have been worse.
Having low standards helps me cope. I'm always relieved when it is an adult rather than another child that gets bit. I'd rather no one get hurt, but I don't feel as guilty about injured adults. I'd just as soon the parents of the other kids not be demanding that “something be done” about my son. The fact that the teacher’s husband probably wants something done about him doesn’t hold near as much weight on my conscience as all those other parents.
“You don’t threaten to kill people or tell them that you want them dead,” I told him in the car.
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I don’t care. Killing a person is the worst thing you can do, and I don’t want you telling anyone that you want to kill them. Do you know what they do to people who really kill other people? They lock them in jail and they never get to come home again. Don’t say that anymore, you understand?”
He doesn’t really want to kill anyone, I’m sure. He’s figured out that talking about killing gets the adults in a tizzy. It is interesting to see big people freaking out. In fact, when he is talking about wanting you to die or saying he is going to kill you, he is not really in the red zone: he is in the yellow “caution light” zone. In the red zone, when he is out of control, he bites and kicks and hits and throws things. Shouting and making threats means he is getting agitated, but is not yet there.
I have heard these threats myself. He makes them when he is irritated and he can feel his anger starting to rise.
You’re going to die soon, anyway, he told me from the back seat of the car over the weekend.
Are you threatening me? I asked. If he was, I needed to put a lid on it. But something about the way he said it made me think he was getting at something else.
No, but you’re a grownup and grownups die. I’m a kid, and it takes kids a long time to die. You’re going to die sooner than me. It wasn’t so much a threat as it was a reminder of my mortality. And to let me know that he isn’t going to miss me one bit when I finally buy the farm.
That’s true, I told him, Everybody dies.
“They put me in another team in music class,” he said, to explain why the day had so many incidents. “I don’t like the new team. That made me mad.” An unexpected change can put a cloud over his day like nothing else. He doesn't like changes at all, and he hates being blindsided most of all.
“Were all the kids put in new teams?”
“No, just me. Before, I was on the yellow team. There were two teams, yellow and blue. Now I’m in a team with different kids and I don’t like them. Hey, this tattoo glows in the dark.” He didn’t pause when he changed subjects. He has a little temporarily tattoo of a carrot wearing a skeleton costume, and the darkening evening sky was revealing a new delight about it. His grandmother bought some little bags of baby carrots labeled as “scarrots” and for health conscious people to hand out to trick-or-treaters (they were on clearance), and they came with a stack of costumed carrot tattoos to hand out with them. You haven’t seen odd until you’ve seen a carrot’s skeleton; it’s all skull and spine and ribs, with no limbs. I wore one last night that looked like a ghost with a tiny bit of orange carrot sticking out the bottom of a white sheet.
“What color team are you on now?”
“I don’t know if it has a color. It’s just a different team. I’m mad. I had to go to the office. The principal said its okay if I shake when I’m mad, but I can’t act mean.”
“You were shaking?”
“Yeah, from being mad.”
“She’s right: it’s okay to shake. But it’s not okay to hurt anyone. You understand that?”
He said he did.
He agreed he would try for a better day tomorrow.
I told him I knew he could do it.
Still, it wasn’t the worst day ever.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
So it wasn’t the worst day ever. Not by far. No matter how many incidents are on my son's daily report, a day that the school does not call me to come over and intervene is, by my definition, pretty good. Some shoes were thrown. A teacher got bit. The P.E. coach was told that he can't wait for her to die and that, in fact, he wanted her dead. But it could have been worse.
Having low standards helps me cope. I'm always relieved when it is an adult rather than another child that gets bit. I'd rather no one get hurt, but I don't feel as guilty about injured adults. I'd just as soon the parents of the other kids not be demanding that “something be done” about my son. The fact that the teacher’s husband probably wants something done about him doesn’t hold near as much weight on my conscience as all those other parents.
“You don’t threaten to kill people or tell them that you want them dead,” I told him in the car.
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I don’t care. Killing a person is the worst thing you can do, and I don’t want you telling anyone that you want to kill them. Do you know what they do to people who really kill other people? They lock them in jail and they never get to come home again. Don’t say that anymore, you understand?”
He doesn’t really want to kill anyone, I’m sure. He’s figured out that talking about killing gets the adults in a tizzy. It is interesting to see big people freaking out. In fact, when he is talking about wanting you to die or saying he is going to kill you, he is not really in the red zone: he is in the yellow “caution light” zone. In the red zone, when he is out of control, he bites and kicks and hits and throws things. Shouting and making threats means he is getting agitated, but is not yet there.
I have heard these threats myself. He makes them when he is irritated and he can feel his anger starting to rise.
You’re going to die soon, anyway, he told me from the back seat of the car over the weekend.
Are you threatening me? I asked. If he was, I needed to put a lid on it. But something about the way he said it made me think he was getting at something else.
No, but you’re a grownup and grownups die. I’m a kid, and it takes kids a long time to die. You’re going to die sooner than me. It wasn’t so much a threat as it was a reminder of my mortality. And to let me know that he isn’t going to miss me one bit when I finally buy the farm.
That’s true, I told him, Everybody dies.
“They put me in another team in music class,” he said, to explain why the day had so many incidents. “I don’t like the new team. That made me mad.” An unexpected change can put a cloud over his day like nothing else. He doesn't like changes at all, and he hates being blindsided most of all.
“Were all the kids put in new teams?”
“No, just me. Before, I was on the yellow team. There were two teams, yellow and blue. Now I’m in a team with different kids and I don’t like them. Hey, this tattoo glows in the dark.” He didn’t pause when he changed subjects. He has a little temporarily tattoo of a carrot wearing a skeleton costume, and the darkening evening sky was revealing a new delight about it. His grandmother bought some little bags of baby carrots labeled as “scarrots” and for health conscious people to hand out to trick-or-treaters (they were on clearance), and they came with a stack of costumed carrot tattoos to hand out with them. You haven’t seen odd until you’ve seen a carrot’s skeleton; it’s all skull and spine and ribs, with no limbs. I wore one last night that looked like a ghost with a tiny bit of orange carrot sticking out the bottom of a white sheet.
“What color team are you on now?”
“I don’t know if it has a color. It’s just a different team. I’m mad. I had to go to the office. The principal said its okay if I shake when I’m mad, but I can’t act mean.”
“You were shaking?”
“Yeah, from being mad.”
“She’s right: it’s okay to shake. But it’s not okay to hurt anyone. You understand that?”
He said he did.
He agreed he would try for a better day tomorrow.
I told him I knew he could do it.
Still, it wasn’t the worst day ever.
