Friday, August 29, 2008

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I have a head cold today, so Wendy's was on the menu for dinner. As I was clearing out my sinuses with a Spicy Chicken Fillet Sandwich, I saw J dip his french fry in his chocolate milk and then I turned to see Michael, who was watching carefully, try to drop a french fry into his milk. I explained to J how carefully Michael watches everything that he does and how he tries to mimic it, so he needs to watch his actions (and maybe one day his words, if the speech therapy works).

Now, I am going to back up some to earlier in the day. Spencer came home from school a little beside himself today. In general, Spencer is very sweet and smart in every way...and I'm not just saying that. Even people who are not his parents say that sometimes. He is tall for his age, but not one of the biggest kids in the class and he is quite skinny. He also wears bifocals, which hasn't been much of an issue for him socially until now. Apparently, a kid from his class has been taunting him on the bus. In fact, I dare say the word bullying. He has been calling him a "sissy" and other not nice words. So, I called the school. I'm not about to let my six year old son deal with this on his own. The vice-principal took my call and said she would leave a message for the teacher and also contact the department of transportation so that the bus aide is aware of the problem.

The teacher called me back this evening. When I described the "bullying" to her, she said, "that actually makes a lot of sense." A few days ago, she had read a book to the class about bullying. In the books there were two boys and one of them wore glasses and the other boy was calling him a sissy and using the same behavior that was used on Spencer. It was meant to open up the conversation about bullying, but instead it was apparently used as catalyst for bullying behavior. As we talked, she said that it sounded like his classmate was acting out the book she had read the class almost exactly. She will talk to him when they get back to class on Tuesday. I have every confidence that it will be taken care of, because Spencer also remembered the book and knew that if someone was treating him in that way that he should tell an adult.

3 comments:

Brig said...

See? Spence IS smart! AND pays attention in class!

Christina said...

Interesting...it's funny how much kids can pick up just from a fictional story.

Shauna said...

As a teacher, it was always one of my fears that the kids would take something I said, twist it around, and then say, "But Teacher said . . ." Poor Spencer. I'm a little bit afraid that Nathan (in his two week old glasses) will have to deal with the same kind of garbage.