Life with a Six and a half (important) year old

I have to remind myself, on many occassions, that our son is only 6 years old. The half part of his age is very important to him. He counts his age in quarters. In January, he will be 6 and three fourths old. Crazy, I know. Many times, he is so grown up. The monster that we have created in him. It may be a disservice to him. We have always treated him as a person - maybe a grown up - when he should have been treated like a child, even an infant. I remember talking to him one day while buying groceries. A fellow shopper commented that she couldn't believe I was speaking to him about the things going into the buggy. She wanted me to know that an infant in a carrier couldn't understand what I was talking about. I just smiled (really, I did). All of this to say, I have to remind myself that he isn't an adult with a voice of reason completely formed at this age. He is, after all, only 6.

In his classroom, they have levels of behavior. As a student in this class, you can receive a smile, straight or frown face in your planner at the end of each day. As a parent, you sign that you have seen this reflection of the day. We have had smiles most of the year, a couple of straight faces and now two frowns. This doesn't settle well in our home. When confronted as to why he had a frown for last Friday, he quickly described another child hitting him in the head and how he told this other child to stop. This one infraction, under the supervision of a substitute, caused a frown? !?! I knew that there had to more to this story. It is interesting how being a mother gives us so many superpowers. It is like we can read the minds of our children. I knew he was lying. I couldn't imagine a substitute giving him a bad report for defending himself against the evil child who would strike my child in the head. Great story, but I wasn't buying it. I explained that I would e-mail his teacher to verify the said event and find out if there was anything else I needed to know. He cried a little harder (the crying began when he showed me the frown) and admitted it was a lie. OK, now I was really disappointed. Turns out, he was just talking and talking and talking and talking. Oh and disrupting and disturbing his friends who were trying to get their work done. He was one of 9 children listed as participating in the disruption on Friday.

As parents, we have to discipline our children, right? There are days that I really do not like the job of parenting. Once Mark arrived home from work, the two of them left to go somewhere to discuss the infractions. Once home, B had to write a note of apology to his teacher and to the substitute from Friday. For the next 7 days, he can not watch any TV or play his XBox, he can not go to a friends house, and has to be in bed by 7 pm each night. Also, for 30 minutes to an hour after homework is done, he is to do yardwork - we have a lot of leaves to be raked. So far, he doesn't seem to be much affected by the punishment and says it is ok to not have these privilges for the next 7 days. If there is a complaint about any of these rules/punishments he gets a day added to the 7. I think by the end of the 7 days he may wish that we didn't have trees in our yard, or even that he had different parents. Oh well, it isn't all fun and games. His teacher feels very confident that he will correct his behavior. She said that she only has to correct him once on anything for his behavior to change. Only if his parents were so lucky!