Naptime Blog

I am still not sure how I feel about the phone call that I got from the Principal last week.  I mean I am proud of my daughter for sticking up for herself and not allowing anyone to get away with touching her, but I do not like that my child feels that it is okay to hit another child.  Let me backtrack a bit.

When the Principal called at 1 PM last Tuesday, I thought it was the nurse calling to tell me Juliana was not feeling well.  When I heard the Principal’s voice, I thought it might be about the website that I have been managing for the past two years for the school.  Instead, I heard “Juliana hit a little boy in the schoolyard today”.  WHAT?  I would have liked to say “You have the wrong child”, but first of all, the school is small and the Principal knows all the children personally by name, and second, I loathe when parents deny that their child could do no wrong. So I sat there and listened while she told me the story.

I learned that the children were playing during recess, and one of the boys tagged her on the shoulder.  Another boy squeezed her in the breast area.  Although my daughter is too young to have developed anything in that area, I have been adamant about teaching her that she should never allow anyone to touch her in her private areas, and that area was of course a private area.

I am not sure if it was sheer reflex, but turns out my daughter hauled off and punched the little boy in the jaw saying “You are not supposed to touch a girl like that!”  The boy started crying and his lip bled.  They were both called to the principal’s office, he admitted what he did and apologized, the principal told my daughter that she should have called the lunch mother, and told both of them that no one should be touching anyone’s private areas.  The principal called the boy’s mom and then called me, and told me that although she did not tell Juliana outright, she is proud that Juliana knows to never let someone touch her and that she defended herself. 

I, on the other hand, cannot believe my daughter hit another child!  I have never been in a fight and would never have hit anyone else, although there have been times in my life when I WISH I would have!  I would have preferred that she went to the lunch mother as well, and did not condone the hitting.

The one thing I wanted my daughter to clarify to me was “Are you sure he didn’t touch you by accident?”  And Juliana explained to me that the boy not only touched her, he pinched her in that area and twisted!  Not only was she defending herself from a boy touching her where he had no right to touch her, she was also probably embarrassed that he did this, and maybe he even hurt her! 

My husband and I did sit her down that evening to have a talk with her.  I needed to stress that hitting is not something we will allow.  I reminded her that she needs to go to a trusted adult if anyone ever hurts her or does something wrong to her.  I told her that I never want another call from the Principal saying that Juliana hit anyone ever again.
When she went to bed later that night, I told my husband that I was secretly very proud of my daughter for sticking up for herself.  I know that I never had the guts to do that when I was younger, and although I meant what I said about never wanting to hear that my daughter hit another child, I am very happy she has proven that she will not allow anyone to hurt her or touch her inappropriately.  And I hope the little boy learned his lesson as well! 

Jennifer
Wife to Paul, Mom to Juliana (7), Anthony and Louis (1) and Joseph (2 months)
www.nevaland.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Jennifer, School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.