I recieved an email from the boys' principal yesterday. She sent it to let me know how grateful she was that 10-yr-old reported that there was a student with a knife on the playground. She offered that there had been some other students who had seen the knife, but hadn't said anything. I was surprised to get this email. Being a high school teacher, I'm certainly not naive to the happenings at schools, however, it just had not crossed my radar that this particular kind of happening would involve my children. This is not because I believe that they are special, or especially protected--I just hadn't really thought about it. And then I went to pick-up the boys . . .
They jumped in the truck, and 10-yr-old instantly began to tell me the rest of the story . . . "Mom, when I saw that he had it, I said, 'Give me the knife--you are going to hurt someone or yourself with it'" With my heart starting to pulse a bit faster, I asked for the rest of the story. 10-yr-old said, "Well, then he ran away from me and when he saw me tell the teaching assistant what was going on, he tried to drop the knife behind him hoping no one would see. But I did. When the TA went over to him, I kept all of the rest of the kids clear of the knife."
How exactly does a Mom respond to a story like this? I didn't know where to start--so proud of his bravery--so worried that in his attempt to do the right thing he could have so easily implicated himself in the "having a knife situation" had the student actually given it to him--so astounded that he took control (even telling the TA what to do)--so stunned that he didn't even consider that he could have gotten hurt in the whole thing.
I took a minute to gather my thoughts, compliment him on everything he did right, and then promptly fumbled all over myself trying to explain to him why he shouldn't have asked for the knife. In his world, it made perfect sense--he knew how to handle a sharp object, he was older, and he is very protective and responsible. Why wouldn't he try to fix the situation? Ugh. How awful that I had to try to explain that not only could taking the knife have been the thing that got him hurt, but also that had the student given it to him, the student could then have tried to turn the story inside out and gotten him in trouble. 10-yr-old sat next to me quiet. A little confused. And trying to process. I could barely contain my angst for him. The ripping away of the illusion that doing the right thing, the safe thing, is not at all simple, nor straightforward was as painful to watch as the idea that my dear boy could have been physically harmed, felt.
9-yr-old sat in the backseat quiet, wondering what all of this meant for him. The boy with the knife was not a close friend, but in his class, and definitely a playground football friend. Now what? Was the certain look on his face. Am I somehow guilty by association? And, mixed-in those deep brown eyes was also some, Would I have known what to do? anxiety.
We relived the story with Dad at dinner, and he too reemphasized 10-yr-old's bravery and leadership, while trying to assauge 9-yr-old's nerves. We found ourselves groping for the right way to present reality, while desperately trying to hold onto their little elementary world for them. I think we all knew though, that things had shifted just a bit--and that no matter what words are spoken, anytime a 10-yr-old handles a scary situation like a man, a little bit of childhood is over. There was more than one illusion shattered yesterday.
No comments:
Post a Comment