Interesting phone call...
 

I had an interesting phone call at work today from my son's school. I'll paraphrase the conversation as best as I can;

School: Hello. Mr. H?
Me: Yes, speaking.
School: It's about your son, he's in a bit of trouble.
Me: Really? What's the problem?
School: Well he told a girl that he was going to blow her up.

At this point I wanted to ask "What? You mean inflate her?" but I got the feeling that they were taking this seriously.

Me: Ohh...
School: I've called our security officer and he's on his way over.
Me: OK, so what do we do from here?
School: Well normally when a pupil has made a threat such as this they get suspended.
Me: Suspended?
School: Yes, but just for the day. You'll have to come and fetch him and take him home.
Me: Do you think that giving him the day off is the best thing to do?
School: Well that's up to the security officer, but it is the procedure...


Now, I can understand that schools have to take action when threats are made, and I in no way condone this kind of behaviour, but isn't this a little over the top?

My son is six years old and to the best of my knowledge doesn't have any explosives experience.
Apparently, according to the rest of the conversation, the girl "...had been playing in the car too long and my son and his friend wanted to play in it and this is when the threat was made"

Of course I spoke to him very seriously and told him that he can't and must not say things like this to people. He took it on board and learned his lesson, but I had a hard time restraining myself on the phone.

Am I being a little insensitive or is this a slight case of over reaction?

He's only 6 YEARS OLD!!! A kid that age for one doesn't really know what that means, secondly what are the chances of him knowing anything about explosives, and thirdly who told the principal, the other child or her mother/father???
This is getting out of hand!!!

my son just got suspended from afterschool for a week. His "third strike" was squirting soapy water on a kid that had squirted him first. The second strike was climbing the fence to come back in (after going out the gate), and the first offense was that him and his best friend were doing arm circles curing exercise period and got a little rambunctious and started whacking each other. His friend hit him hard enough to my son went down to the ground crying (then got right back up).

This is 4th grade.

Clearly your 6 year old will end up like my homicidal 10 year old. You better just turn him over to the juvenile detention facilities while you're still alive...

Dude, I was going to myself "holy *****, his kid sorta *****ed up, shoulda known better", then I got to the part where he's six.

WTF is his school thinking??? I'd raise some hell, but then, being a product of the public school system, I know exactly how much good that would do.

Agreed, serious overreaction.

Sad but with all the wierd junk that has gone down, they really don't know what to take seriously and to what degree either.

There is a little boy in our Daughters class who won't let her be - he has a crush. Our little one avoids him at all costs. She was telling me tonite about it and Our 8yr old heard it and said "I'm gonna punch his eye Dad!" I will bet a thousand dollars that she will go to school and tell this boy that her big brother is "gonna punch your eye!"

I'll get a call...

I think I should report your six year old son to the Homeland security people. Does he like lots of sunshine like they have in Gitmo?

PC and knee jerk reactions like this are ruining this country...

Yeah, one of them claimed to be "scarred for life" because of it.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of them seek counseling to help get over the trauma.

What I'd like tosay to the school administration is go fk yourselves, this is ridiclous.

The serious issue is for your kid not to be labeled as a "Threat to Society" before he turns out like Nostatuss kid...U have to protect him in some way that turns the situation into making the school administration into the problem and not your son. Its really not hard to do, I just don't have the answer for U at the moment.

I agree with tabs. This stuff goes into a file, and that file is reviewed by the teacher at the beginning of the school year. It totally colors how the school and the teacher treats a kid.

For ex., if 2 kids do the exact same minor bad act, the one who is on the "gifted" list did it because he is bored and not academically challenged enough. So some acting out is of course going to be expected. The kid on the "***** list" did it because he's a juvenile delinquent in training.

AMEN!

I dunno Wayne. I take a lot of abuse and rejection daily (I'm in sales) and it just rolls off but call me a racial slur and you're going down.

Aerkuld, I'd tell the school to get bent, just not in those words of course.

So what racial slur gets you going? Just curious.

slur slur slur!

hmm, that is only an "m" away from slurm.

Nostatus the School District is building a case against your kid...you better beware of that Bureaucracy....and the Label it can stick on him...Do U understand...

U never let a Bureaucracy get away with BS. If U do it can come back and haunt U one day. Far better to nip it in the bud before it even gets going.

tabs, we've been dealing with the bureaucracy since kindergarten. We know the system and know how to work it. You have to pick your battles.

what's skool..?

Don't want to say because you might use it on me and I'd have to break out skillz and go all Stan Lee on you :D