Suspended!

I thought that I would start this blog as an outlet to my frustrations with everyday life. First let me give some backstory so that what I tell you has some reference.

I'm a 40 year old mother of two children and wife. I live in the outer suburbs of Atlanta and work in the Advertising Industry as a Manager over a video team (we do Digital Signage and multimedia videos for the web - but it's much more than that).

Anyway - my son, we'll call him Nate (not his real name, just a name that I picked from thin air) who is eight and just about to be nine is having a terrible time in school. I cannot tell you the frustration that this has brought me. I mean when you start out having kids you have so much hope and aspirations, you also think that they'll gain the best attributes of your character as well as your spouses. No one ever tells you that more than likely your offspring will be a combination of bad and good - hopefully more good but that has not panned out in my case. My son, although cute and at times very funny - has issues with lying, acting out and being stubborn. Couple that with a confirmed diagnosis of "ADD" well, you get the picture. He isn't stupid, at least not as far as IQ. He does stupid things - mostly for shock value and for attention. Some of the things he has done are normal and really if this were the 1980's it would have been dealt with differently.

These days however, any little infraction or grievance - whether it be looking the wrong way at a schoolmate or touching someone on the back, is magnified and looked at with abject horror. "OMG! He touched your shoulder! How awful! You mean he is happy to see you and then he jumps toward you? That is just not going to be stood for." YES - this has happened. That was one of the minor infractions. Nate seems to revel in the negative attention. He seems to enjoy making people look at him with their jaws hanging down to the ground. I don't know why - it baffles me. It seems he gets in trouble and then a few weeks go by and he decides that he needs to up the ante.

I believe that if the administration at the school didn't play their part in as far as acting so shocked and absolutely mortified then Nate may not think that acting funny or weird is the best way to get attention. I also think that because of the microscope that parents (ok me) are under (you can't spank oh no, no you can't delve out harsh discipline, and you may not yell or otherwise show any human emotion) then his behavior would be taken care of much more quickly.

Anyway - apparently Nate decided or was dared to go up behind a girl who was sitting on the playground and gyrate like, well a stripper would. I do not know what possesed him to think this was ok. Once I heard about it - yes, he was grounded and yes he got in trouble. Now today - the school called me and told me that he is being suspended tomorrow. Great. Now I'm being punished? I'm not sure this is really going to teach him a lesson at all. He gets a day off of school and I miss work, endangering my job because he did a lewd gesture. Honestly - I would be ok if they decided to make him stay in school but suspended and had him clean up the cafeteria, or make him write 1,000 times that he will not make lewd gestures. Well he'll be doing that with me - but what happened to schools? Why don't they do that anymore? I remember that being in trouble at school would mean tons of cleaning chalkboards, writing things 100s of times, sitting in a detention hall and not allowed to talk - so what happened?

I'm just overwhelmed. I don't understand, I tried - but I just don't get it. I can see their point but at the same time I believe that the schools now are just too pansy assed. They took out recess or cut back recess to the point that it isn't recess anymore. They cut back on Gym, they cut back on a lot of things that would help kids who need physical activity. Then they wonder why so many kids are diagnosed ADD. Here's a hint - those kids who are diagnosed ADD are bored to tears. You can't expect children to sit in a classroom for 7 hours a day without some outlet.

I bet you're thinking - well why don't you stay at home. I would except I'm the one who makes the money that pays for the house, the car - everything. My husband makes 1/4 of what I make, and he doesn't want to quit. I'm not sure if its pride or if it's because he likes his job, doesn't matter because it just isn't an option.

So where does that leave Nate? Same place, his sister watches him after school (she's 14) and my husband gets home at about 5:30 then I get home at about 7:30 (my commute is over an hour one way). Private school isn't an option primarily because of the expense also because private schools also have a waiting list and usually screen children for entrance. Obviously if Nate is having issues in public schools - a private school isn't going to touch him without a size-able donation... ahem.

Soooo - what can I do? I can talk to him, ground him, take things away. Which is what I'm going to do. Any suggestions out there? I'd love to hear them. Comment away!