Mel told me that he bet that when Stirling started school this fall, he would end up in the pricipal's office before he'd been in school a full 3 days. Hmmmm.
Well, Stirling started school last week. Kindergarten. First time he's ever been to school, other than Sunday School or Vacation Bible School classes for a week or two in the summer. Now Stirling has made if very clear that he likes to go to "the white church" instead of to "the brown church" because in the brown church they make him sit still during class. In fact, after church one day while we were home in May, after we had gone to the brown church, he calmly announced that the teacher had made him "sit over by the kitchen". I think that is a play kitchen in the classroom. I asked him, very quietly, purposely without any emphasis on whether I was upset or concerned, "Did you have to sit there because you were behaving badly?" "Yes." He was not a happy camper - he did not want to stop playing and join in with the rest of the kids, but instead totally ignored the teacher and the helper. Thus, time spent "sitting by the kitchen."
He still likes the white church better than the brown church. The brown church in my home church. {grin}
So, Kara took something in to the school office, Stirling coming along with her. I don't know all the details, only got part of the story from my mother. Stirling proceeded to tell her he'd been in the office before.
What? Oh yes, the day we came to register you for school.
No - last week when I had to sit here for half an hour.
Kara went and found his teacher. Was Stirling sent to the principal's office?
Uh, no, I don't think so, oh - wait.....
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh my gosh - his grandpa nailed it! Maybe it was the 4th day, but it might have been the 2nd or 3rd day of school last week. The principal of the school came into the kindergarten room to meet the kids and let them see who he is. Stirling refused to quit doing what he was doing (I think he was rolling around on the floor, is what my mother said, which really makes me laugh). So, when the principal left, he took Stirling with him to the office and made him sit on a chair in there for half an hour.
I hate to say it, but that is really not a good way to discipline Stirling. "Time outs" and sitting in the corner and other "you have to sit still for x number of minutes" have never seemed to make an impression on him at all. And taking him to a new place - well, he's very curious about everything, so I'm sure he was just very excited to be going some place new and different. Got to check everything out, you know!
Mom said they are treating his trip to the principal's office the first week of school like 'no big deal' so he doesn't get the idea that he's done something really cool and naughty.
But I have to laugh. And I have to pray. He has one of the strongest wills I have ever seen in a child. I was praying tonight, as I was trying and failing to go to sleep, "please Lord, mould him, but don't break him." I just can't help but believe that strong will is going to be a gift from God some time in the future, that he will need it to do what God has called him to do. So often a child is broken, not moulded, especially when they do have a very strong will and character.
So, my darling, wonderful, beautiful grandson didn't even make it through the first week of school in kindergarten without a trip to the Principal's office.
I wonder what the next 12 years are going to be like?
Yikes!!
Mel was down on the 'walking street' today. He related this story to me tonight.
"I watched a little boy (six or seven?) fresh from school (suit and tie) partially eat an ice cream cone and then flip the remainder out of the cone onto the top of his head. He tossed it like a pancake. All wrist action. Thought, "What a way to short-cut the ice cream headache." Then I had to turn so he wouldn't see me laughing."
He told me the soft-serve ice cream just kind of snaked out of the cone, unwinding into a longish 'string' and landed on the kids head. As he turned aside, it was slowly beginning to slide down off the top and along the side of the boy's face.
I haven't laughed that hard in a long time! I wish I had seen that! And I wonder what his mother thought when she finally paid attention to him and saw him. Oh my!
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