Frick Off, Ya Frickin' Frick!!

My first order of business is to tell you that the word "shit" was censored out of my last blog and replaced with the word "censored." HEY! NOT! COOL! Listen, you little censoring men with tiny penises, when I say, "shit," I mean, "shit!" Not "*censored.*" Geesh, what kind of Orwellian world are we living in, anyway? (Note: don't answer that question. Don't even contemplate it or you'll be depressed into the next decade. Moving along now.)

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, what do you say we cozy up and talk about angry kids? I bring this up because I walked into a classroom the other day--a classroom that was momentarily missing its teacher, by the way, which leads to total and shocking abandonment of anything resembling tea party behavior--and heard the dulcet tones of an adorable little red-headed pixie girl saying--well, screaming, actually, "YOU STAY THE FRICK AWAY FROM ME!!" to a classmate.

It was just so extremely heartfelt. I think I actually saw some spittle fly from the corner of her mouth. There was vehemence and hatred and an "I'm going to find you on the bus later today" look lodged in those eyes. And really, otherwise, she's a lovely girl. She's creative and funny and excited about doing interesting things. I like her a lot.

I probably don't need to tell you that she comes from a circus family.

Now, the sometimes difficult part of being an adult in charge of children is that occasionally you have to pony up and be the adult. I personally ignore all but the most hard-core violations of school law. Frankly, I think it's funny when a 6th grade boy tosses another kid's backpack into the girls' bathroom. I really don't think we all have to be hardasses. Unless, of course, a kid is running in the hall. Then we are obligated to be hardasses and roll around in the power of making a kid go back and walk. Otherwise, I think we have enough of those grumpy stinkers in our schools.

So there I was, sitting on the fence between acknowledging and ignoring. Unfortunately, not only had I witnessed the incident, but I had been witnessed witnessing it by about 20 kids. Ergo, ignoring it was not an option or I would have full-on mutinies every time I walked into this classroom. Kids sniff out weakness like you would not believe. Also, I really, truly felt that this behavior was not good for anybody. So I bellied up, muttered "shit" under my breath, and asked Red to come out to the hall with me while I quickly tried put together a strategy. I used to go with the authority figure thing and just squash kids under my thumb. I got me a mean pair of stink-eyes, I tell ya. Over time, though, I realized that this was a surprisingly ineffective technique in most situations and generally ended with the kid hating me for the rest of the year. Trust me, it is not fun to be faced with your conscience on a daily basis like that. So I decided to go with naive shock and put on my best innocent face.

"Red, I can't believe what I just heard you say! I've never seen you act like that." Red put her tiny little circus hand on her tiny little circus hip and spat out, "What?! You've never heard 'frick' before?" Okay, so shock's not working. Regroup, regroup! Let's go with empathy now.

"Red, you must be really mad to have said those words."

"Yeah, she was kicking my friend! She always kicks him! She's a bully!" (I had to work really hard not to remark on the irony here.) Now Red is all of about 3 feet tall--she has trapeze artist written all over her--and I have to admit that I started to feel a stirring of admiration for the protection she offered to her friends. Things were going well, so I decide to introduce a little complimentation (yes, I made that up).

"Okay, well, I think that's great that you're trying to help out a friend. Not everyone will do that. But I'm not sure that yelling at her is really going to solve the problem. Can we figure out something else you can do?" Clearly I've forgotten the golden rule that you NEVER ask a kid a question beginning with, "Can you...?" I believe this is what is referred to as painting yourself into a corner.

"No. She won't listen! She'll just keep on doing it!" Red was still rolling her eyes at me and my hippie problem-solving tactics, and I was beginning to wonder why I didn't just tell her she was a very, very bad girl and send her back to class so we could be done with this. For the sake of time, allow me to fast forward and tell you that the final scene of this little drama was Red finally agreeing to talk with a teacher next time there was a problem. I thought it was very gracious of her to capitulate, frankly, even though the chances of her actually following through are slim. I, of course, was exhausted by the time we were done. Negotiation is hard, folks. In the silver lining category, Red still seems happy to see me coming, which allows me to live out my fantasy that I'm doing something right. And that, along with prescribed medication, helps me sleep better at night.

Yesterday Red came to school wearing a stick-on nose stud. I thought it was lovely and told her so. Later I heard her teacher giving her a good ass-busting over how inappropriate it was of her to wear it to school, and I laughed. Because this time, at least, the hardass was not me.