My son’s teacher gets the final say

My oldest son Kyle may be four (and a half – as he loves to state), but sometimes I feel like we’re raising a teen.  While he doesn’t mess around when we tell him that there will be consequences for behaving a certain way, he’s already questioning our requests and answers. Lately, we’ve noticed that our son has taken on a new authority figure in his life.  Specifically, it’s his teacher.  I can’t say we’re completely devastated (she’s a great teacher), but her word, if different than what my husband and I say, takes precedence over what we say.  Here are some of my favourites:

I send my son to school with snacks every day. I gave him “chocolate” ginger snaps one time and when he came home, he told me that he didn’t eat his snack.  When I prodded, especially since I knew he was obsessed with them, he told me that his teacher said (in passing) that they should only eat healthy food.  Since the ginger snaps were chocolate flavoured, he wouldn’t eat it.  Obviously, I didn’t argue back on this one.

When spring finally appeared in Toronto, I told my son that he doesn’t need to wear his snow pants to school anymore (can I get an hallelujah). However, there was still some snow on the ground.  My sold told me that his teacher said that they should still wear snow pants for outdoor play, so he wanted to wear his pants. Again, I didn’t argue, but I just added an additional five minutes back into our getting-ready-for-school routine.

One day Kyle came home and told me about an activity he did in class. He said that his teacher was giving out some items and apparently, the kids were complaining about what they received.  She then proceeded to teach them an important phrase “you get what you get and you don’t get upset.” I knew he took this to heart and to be honest, I’ve used this phrase a bunch since he told me about it. Equally, Kyle loves to use this phrase with his younger brother :).

Even though my son’s teacher currently holds more authority than I do in his eyes, I don’t mind.  She’s teaching him some great lessons and she’s probably more strict with him than I would be (since she’s spending 6 hours with him every day).  For now, I’ll take this as a win. I know that soon enough, his teacher and my husband and I, will take a back seat to his friends.