It recently occurred to this once high-school misfit that teachers aren’t the big scary people that they once were. What an awesome revelation, and another step towards me becoming a grown-up.

I often get the impression that Jimmy is quite a challenge for teachers. You may have picked this up in previous posts. However he is a good soul and shows immense clarity of thought that often makes me think of him as being older than he actually is. He also doesn’t take much notice of boundaries. At least, he doesn’t take much notice of boundaries if they don’t make sense.

Our case in point happened when I was taken aside by an after school teacher and told in no uncertain terms that my child was not listening and doing as he was told.

Lady, this is nothing new… I thought to myself, and nodded politely while she said he was blatantly ignoring her.

‘OK, I’ll talk to him,’ I said and proceeded to go and tell him to get his coat and so on before going home. On the way I scolded him,

‘Now what on earth is up with you?’ I started in on him, ‘I really don’t want to hear about you being disrespectful….’

‘Hang on Mum,’ he interrupted. I hate being interrupted. Inside my head a war started…

Drop kick him! … No listen, it sounds like he has something important to say … NO! Just drop kick his interrupting rude self… Oh will you just listen, woman …

‘Mum I would like you to file a complaint please..’ Excuse me? That got my attention.

Well I won’t go into the details but he proceeded to tell me about how this woman (yes the one who was having issues with him) was insulting him and shouting at him and he could see no good reason to listen to her because her behavior was appalling. Now I am paraphrasing a bit obviously but this was the message and his tone was rather indignant. I was not impressed at all.

After speaking to Patrick, and him offering to go sort it out (he does like a good butt kicking opportunity), I decided that I should be the one to deal with this.

So to round up the story, I went and told the teacher that unless her behavior dramatically improved, I could not be expected to tell my child to respect her as it would send the message that some people are exempt from basic good manners. I said that I expected her to set a good example. I was expecting an argument. What I got was ‘Of course, yes, certainly. I understand.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ Jimmy said, ‘Really, thanks for having my back.’

Any time little buddy.. any time.