Today, I stumbled upon this blog, Adventures in Mommyhood and her blog post entitled My Little Terrorist.
This post (the story, not the updates) made me angry. I was angry for this mom and her boy. I was angry at the school. What irritated me the most about the entire situation was that we recently had to go through an incident where Reilly's teacher basically called her a liar...
Here's the run down of what happened.
Back in October, a note was sent home from school saying that they were going to have a field trip to the zoo the first Friday in November. Awesome! Reilly loves going on field trips, and the zoo is super awesome. They were asking for chaperones. Now, I couldn't go because I have Ophelia during the day, and siblings aren't allowed on field trips...but Brad was going to be on leave after his surgery, and had said something about wanting to go. So I ticked the little box saying "Yes! If you need the help, I am available" and waited to hear back from the school.
A week or so later, Reilly comes home with a bright orange piece of paper saying "We've selected you to be a chaperone, please send us your $$."
Yay! Reilly was really excited that Brad would get to go on the field trip with her. She loves that he can do stuff like that with her. It's good bonding time for both of them since he works all day and she's at school all day. But he had the day off already and was excited to get to go!
Fast forward to THE DAY BEFORE the field trip. Reilly comes home from school a little distraught. Of course, I ask her whats wrong and she gives me the run around. So we just start talking about her day and I ask her if she's excited for daddy to go with her on her field trip the next day.
"Mrs. T says that daddy isn't coming with me on the field trip."
What....what?! I heard that right didn't I? I mean, we turned in the paper, we got that bright orange paper back, I sent money to school to cover Brad...sooooo what's the deal?
"Reilly, Mrs. T sent us home a paper that said daddy was going on the field trip with you tomorrow...what do you mean she said he isn't coming?"
"I was saying how I was happy that my daddy was coming with me to the field trip tomorrow and Mrs. T said that my daddy wasn't coming....I kept telling her he was, but she just kept saying no!!"
I was seriously taken aback. She just kept repeating over, and over "Mrs. T said I'm not right." and "Mrs. T says my daddy isn't coming."
We had the damn paper posted on our fridge saying that "Yes, a parent of Reilly was going to chaperone."
I told her not to worry about it, that her daddy WAS INDEED going on the field trip with her and that daddy and I would deal with it.
We waited for Brad to come home (I'm not sure where he was at the time, but he wasn't at home) and we talked. He had tried to call the school but Mrs. T was gone for the day. We didn't know what was going on but we decided to just go about our business like he was going on the field trip, all the time reassuring Reilly, who was devastated, that we would deal with it in the morning and that daddy would go on the field trip with her.
So the next morning, we all piled in the van (I was just going to drop off Brad and Reilly and then pick them up after school) and drove to school. We got there early, so Brad and Reilly hoped on out of the car after a bit to go sit in front of the class and wait for Mrs. T, bright orange piece of paper in hand stating that yes, they did say he was going to chaperone.
I was sitting in the car with Ophelia when all this went down, but I could see them. I saw Mrs. T walk up and I saw Reilly say something to her. I saw Brad stand up and pull the piece of paper out of his pocket and Mrs. T take it, say something, and then walk away.
While the field trip ended up being canceled and rescheduled (which, I'll get back to that in a minute) here is what happened...
Mrs. T walked up and Reilly said "See Mrs. T! My daddy IS coming on the field trip."
And Mrs. T said "No Reilly, he's not." Right to her face, with her daddy sitting RIGHT NEXT TO HER, she called my kid out as a liar -- in my mind --. when she was CLEARLY right.
Right?!?!
That's when Brad stood up and pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket and had to point out that THEY SAID he was going. When Mrs. T saw that, she said that she was going to go see what happened, but made mention that the field trip might be canceled.
Turns out it was...there was a lot of rain downtown and it was really gross and not a good day to go on a field trip. But I just felt so horrible that my kid was basically called a liar. When the school approved it.
Sadly, they rescheduled the field trip and Brad won't be able to go now since the trip is on a training day. I'm not sure if Reilly was ever apologized too, but she dropped it, and so did we. But she's five...why would she have any reason to lie about something like that? And what good does it do to her self esteem to tell her that she's wrong? Is your pride as a kindergarten teacher THAT fragile that you HAVE TO be right?
Are all teachers like this? Aren't they supposed to be helping the kids to build their self esteem up and help teach them good values? Maybe instead of telling her "NO!" you can, oh, I don't know, DO SOME RESEARCH and figure out that YOU SAID that her daddy was going to be a chaperone.
I'm still irritateed about the whole thing. My daughter lies about brushing her teeth and putting her toys away...ya know...KID stuff. Why would she have ANY reason to lie about other stuff?
Luckily, she has parents who believe her and encourage her when she IS right. Of course, we talk to her about it when she's wrong too, but in this case, she had nothing to be worried about and was right.
*sigh*
What would you have done in the situation? I'm not sure if we should have demanded an apology or what we should have done...but now that it's done and over with, we just have to deal with Reilly being upset that Brad can't actually go on her field trip (it's a training day for him...and he's been on leave for a month...sad face.) and I can't go because I have Ophelia.
Maybe another day he can go...
And hopefully her teacher won't be a dip shit.
