Oh Dear

Today I was as usual waiting for Douwe outside of school when the class let out. Four of his classmates seperately came running up to me and said "You have to wait for the teacher,". One of them got a scolding on the spot from his mother, who thought she was supposed to wait for the teacher. Apparently "Wait for the teacher" means "Whoo boy did your kid do it now". The thing is, they were each of them giggling.

It seems Douwe pinched his teacher today.

It appears that Douwe took a matchbox car to school today. One of his teachers does not allow this; the other one does but only to be played with at recess. This was the one who does allow it, and it was at recess. However, evidently it kept falling out of his pocket and was otherwise a problem regarding the other children wanting to play with it. As I understand it, she told him to give it to her. He said no and said he would put it away in his coat pocket (which closes with velcro and is in fact where I put toys in toy timeout when we are out somewhere). She was then annoyed and told him to give it to her. He put it in his pocket and walked away.

This was a bad move, because she then got angry and went after him to bring him back to talk about it. She grabbed his arm to stop him and he turned around and pinched her.

The walking away thing is probably my fault; I allow Douwe to walk away when he is too angry to discuss things as long as he comes back when he is more in possession of himself. Because when he is angry his language skills really just leave him and frustration about this fact is likely to escalate both the problem and his anger and leave him either furious or weeping. However, the walking away thing bothers a lot of people for reasons I am not really clear on.

In any event. If he does it again she will call me to come take him home. (Which, if he figures it out, may well lead to more of the behavior and not less. So I am glad he was not in earshot when she said that). So I spoke to Douwe of course and he lost out on going swimming today. I may be sympathetic to his motives but his means are not ok. No fighting, no biting is the rule around here, however angry you may be.

For the balance of the afternoon he was very, very deep in his fantasy world of play and it was very difficult to get his attention at all. So at some point I asked him "Douwe, where are you today?". It was sort of a rhetorical question, it isn't as though he was being naughty or anything.

He said, ">The teacher< was angry. She grabbed me. She took my car. But I was bad. She was not bad?". Hoo Boy.

Thus ensued a five year old level conversation about the nature and operations of power and justice and how these things relate to one another. After which at least he was much more like himslef again. (May I quietly celebrate with you this small thing: that Douwe can now talk about his feelings?) About an hour later he came up to me though and said "I didn't hit her. We don't hit,".

Nice try kid, I said. But we don't pinch either. He said, "I know. But I didn't hit,".

What, he wants credit?