Bad Day

The day started off well enough. I went grocery shopping early in order to beat the late morning crowds. I played a little PS2 with Aeia. Then I picked up Lash from school.

When Lash got in to the van he was holding his arm, like a wounded animal hiding his wound. It turned out he was trying to hide the tear in his favorite shirt: a blue Snoopy t-shirt with long white shirt sleeves sewn in to it to make it look like someone wearing a t-shirt over a long shirt. All of his clothes were a grass stained mess of grime, and his favorite shirt was torn. It took a half hour of coercion before he finally admitted that he had torn the shirt on purpose. His classmates were teasing him about the shirt (they said it was a girl's shirt, which it was not). He told his teacher about the teasing, which netted zero reprimand, and the teasing continued. To the point where Lash tore a small hole in his shirt sleeve with a pencil and then ripped the hole into a much larger disaster with his hands. And then cried for over an hour at home because his favorite shirt was ruined.

I am so f-ing tired of his school. In Kindergarten he would retaliate against the bullies. He'd get in trouble, but they'd leave him alone. After being taught the wrongness of a physical response, he's gotten a first hand education in how teachers and administrators today don't take the time or energy to give a flying flip about their students. I don't expect a teacher to be able to watch every kid every minute of the school day, or even one kid every minute of the school day. I'm not unrealistic that way. What I do expect though, is that a teacher pay more attention to a kid who consistently reports abuse from his peers. At least once a week I get a report from Lash that he's been bullied in some form, from pushing, to teasing, to kicking, to food being spilled on him, to mud being thrown at him. No one ever sees this, and no on ever does anything about it when he reports it to them.

I really feel that if I have to continue replacing his clothing as often as I do due to their getting ruined by other kids at school, his school ought to have to pay to buy him a new wardrobe. I'm this close to encouraging him to return to retaliation against the kids. A couple 2nd grade suspensions might be worth an end to the bullying.