It's My Place: P and the Bully

Thursday, January 27, 2005

P and the Bully

While pickin' cotton at the office this morning before lunch, I got a phone call from the daycare:

Me: This is Margaret.
Caregiver: I'm just calling to let you know that P has injured one of her friends.
Me: What happened?
C: She cut a little boy on the forehead with a pair of scissors.
Me: Is he ok, do I need to pick her up?
C: He's fine, but will need a tetanus shot, his parents have been called. No, she's fine now.
Me: I'm on my way.

I drive like a bat out of H-E-double hockey sticks (points for anyone who knows who said that), from my office on another base and get to the daycare in 12 minutes. The slicee had a band aid on his forehead above the left eyebrow. I talk to P to 'investigate' the situation:

Me: What did you do with the scissors?
P: I cut C on his forehead.
Me: Why did you do that?
P: Because he wrote on my paper, and I told him to stop, but he wouldn't listen.
Me: You should have told the teacher, not cut him.
P: He also wrote on my shirt, look. *showing me about an 8" ink mark across the front of her sweatshirt (do I need to add that the sweatshirt was $35?)*
Me: Oh, I see...

Do I punish or not punish? That is the question.

When I picked her up this afternoon, the caregiver told me that P was genuinly concerned about C's forehead right after it happened, and even helped to bandage the dot. I kid you not, the 'cut' was as big as this *. I felt a little better that P didn't try to perform a labotomy on him. I was more concerned with what P did to him than his parents were. Even though they both work on the same base as the daycare, they were in no real hurry to check on him, and didn't get to the center until it was time for him to go home (I'm thinking they believed that in some way he deserved it).

Of the 12 kids in P's class, she is the 4th oldest, but she is the 2nd smallest and C is the 2nd biggest kid in class. As with most kids that are bigger than others in class, he's a mini-bully. He didn't learn last week when P pinched him so hard his hand was bruised (he kept scratching her on her arm and running).

Maybe he's now learned his lesson...NOT, because when I picked her up this afternoon, he was having an altercation with another child.

That's were big bullies come from. Little bullies that don't understand stop, even with a pair of scissors upside the head!!!!

10:02 PM |

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