Yesterday when I picked her up after school, she looked distressed.
“How was your day?”
“Fine.”
But I could tell it was not fine. Her pale face betrayed her.
“What happened?”
It turned out that she got in trouble for kicking a first grader. “She kicked me first!” she said with outrage.
Miss Lynn, the educational assistant who supervises them while they wait to be picked up, didn’t care. She told Grace that she may need to speak to the counselor the next day because there is no reason to kick anyone, even if they kicked you first.
And, to add insult to outrage, Grace confessed she’d also gotten into trouble when she ran into the multi-purpose room to wait for pick-up. “But someone was CHASING ME!” Running is not allowed in the school hallways.
With that, she burst into tears. She hates to be in trouble.
And I tried not to laugh.
I know. But I can’t help it. My poor girl keeps getting herself into trouble with her overactive sense of justice and her propensity for vigilantism. She cannot understand why she should be in trouble for meting out apt punishment for bad behavior.
Of course, I tell her that she cannot kick someone just because they kick her. I tell her to yell, “HEY, STOP KICKING ME!” so the other person gets in trouble. And then fake cry.
I direct her to tell a grown up.
I shake my head and purse my lips and remind her not to get involved when one friend shoves another because it’s not her problem.
But secretly, I’m kind of glad she’s the kind of kid who will kick someone who kicks her first. She is a girl who stands up for herself and will not timidly allow someone to behave badly around her. She’s feisty and will instantly get involved when she sees friends shoving one another . . . and she will shove one of them on the behalf of the other.
She is a bossy, indignant kind of girl. She’s my kind of girl.
If you kick us, we will kick you right back.
Consider yourself warned.
Actual Unretouched Photo 
Her heart is in the right place.
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That’s my kind of girl, too. And I know that the schools have to have rules in place to avoid mass bedlam, but if God didn’t want kids to run, he wouldn’t have given them legs, for heaven sake.
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She sounds like me reincarnated. I was the feistiest, sassiest, most independent little girl ever. I had to be, to survive with 3 brothers in a neighborhood oozing testosterone. And I’m still pretty much that way. She’ll do just fine getting thru life…I know I have for 57 years now.
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PS….This sure isn’t like the old days when we used to blog all the time, is it? But once we’re over and done with all this moving business, we’ll get our groove back. Don’t despair, Mel. It’s just a result of stimulus overload our middle aged minds are having a hard time working their way around.
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Oh Mel. I would never kick you. Or attempt to give you a high five.
I think your girl sounds like a good friend.
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Like. 🙂 I have a 9 year old who is similar. Do you think they will like playing together when you get here? 🙂
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Good for your girl. Early on, I made the mistake of teaching my children to be too polite, if you know what I mean. Then I had to re-teach them how to stand up for themselves. Now, hopefully we’re somewhere appropriate in between the two schools of thought. Can’t survive in the day we live in if you’re willing to be a door mat. Must be able to advocate for self AND respect our people trying to do the same.
You’re a great mom!
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Bravo!!! I was shy and didn’t know how to stand up for myself – that is until I had my daughter. She was born with complex life-threatening heart defects and NEEDED an advocate. It took time and practice for me to learn to stand up for her rights. Ask the doctors for information, make them repeat it and draw diagrams, explain what each test is for and what each surgery is – as for more diagrams because it is so extremely complex, contact therapists when she has strokes during heart surgeries and has to relearn how to sit up, roll over, walk and talk at the age of three, argue with he specialists because you know they are slightly confused as to when certain tests were done and they can’t find it in her chart because it was misplaced in one of the other 4 huge folders that contains her young life. Take her to doctor after doctor seeking answers on how to help her with the pain. Yeah – I learned how to have a voice because my daughter needed me to. I wish I was born with your daughter’s spunk and ability to stand up for herself and her friends.
And yay for you to know that she is going to do well in life because she is able to stand up for herself and for others. 🙂
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