There are moments in life which have the gift of being both comic and painful. Such a moment occurred today: both boys are enrolled in theater classes and while my eldest is quite happy to be off at his class alone, I often sit in on my six year old's class. Today they were building props for their play -- in this case, a paper mache mushroom. As you can imagine, the making of a newspaper and glue construction can get a bit sticky and, as one might expect, there were the requisite spills and over applications of glue and massive over utilization of paper towels. But the truly exciting moments had little to do with the mushroom building and everything to do with six year old boys in a small room for an hour and a half while the sun was shining outside. The first incident, which did not involve my son (A selfish 'thank heavens!'), occurred when a little boy, in an excess of enthusiasm ran head long, head FIRST into a wooden door... This action had, of course, followed upon his being asked 'not to run around the room, please.' Hmm... crash, bang, tears and mommy came. Off goes that little one, throughly unhappy with the world. Sigh.
The next 'moment', however, starred my son, front and center. It was half way through the class and the two ladies who were running the class decided that it was time for a water/bathroom break. Off the class troops. Ah, but here a problem arose: two women with a class equally divided between boys and girls and two bathrooms, one for boys and one for girls... so the six year old boys were sent off to the men's room... by themselves. I, meanwhile, am sitting quietly, working on schoolwork. Suddenly I hear the unmistakable sound of my son... crying. In he comes, face dripping with tears and red with unhappiness. 'He HIT me! He PUNCHED me!' he announced loudly. Another woman, not part of the class, had followed him and explained that the other little boy was in tears too. Over the course of the next few minutes the story emerged. The boys had gone to the bathroom. Xander had turned ON the light. The other child had turned the light OFF. Xander turned the light ON and, when the other child (who, to Xander's indignation, was laughing) went to turn the light off again, Xander reached out and grabbed his hair. The other boy punched Xander in response... After hearing the story, the young woman teaching the class said calmly, 'Well, now, maybe pulling his hair wasn't the best response.' Xander replied indignantly, 'Well, I didn't PUNCH him! If I'd punched him, I might've broken his ARM!' She allowed as how punching was probably not the best solution either. Xander looked mutinous. She explained that a better approach would've been to ASK the other child not to turn the light off. Xander expressed his doubts about the efficacy of such an approach and she then said 'Well, in that case, you should leave and ask a teacher for help.' I kept silent through the whole of this, figuring I should not undermine the teacher's authority but a part of me shook my head -- not that I disagreed with the general outline of behavior. Quite the contrary. But having dealt with children this age in large groups, I know that telling them what they 'Should do' after the fact rarely works to teach them anything. Children, like many adults, tend to react rather than reason and it is for this reason that sending a small group of six year old boys into a bathroom by themselves rarely ends well.
Of course, I cannot be too holier than thou about this. Grin. It was only last night that I walked into the bathroom (at the end of bathes) to discover a minor flood on the floor and my six year old busily 'cleaning it up' with toilet paper... the whole roll!
Such are the moments in the life of a boy (and his mother).
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