Question
My husband and I have a 5 year old son who is in Pre-K. Every day he comes home with a happy/straight/sad face depending upon his behavior for the day. At the start of the year, there were some sad faces. We imposed a penalty of all afternoon/evening in his room for a sad face and the frequency of the sad faces declined to 1 every three weeks or so. Two sad faces in one week warrant a weekend day spent in his room (that's only had to happen once).
Today, I was going to suprise him with a dinner out with some family friends. However, he came home with a sad face for spitting/hitting a little girl in his class. He claims he didn't spit and when he opened a playhouse door, it hit the little girl in the face accidentally. He's not one to lie, and I tend to believe him about this incident. The little girl ran to tell the teacher, who put Michael in timeout, and sent home the sad face. I canceled the dinner and imposed the consequences for a sad face even though I don't necessarily think it was deserved. I know I need to support the teacher but I feel conflicted since I think she reacted to the little girl being upset and didn't actually see the altercation. Per my son, the teacher was at her desk across the room. In your opinion, should I have followed through on the punishment or taken his side and gone to the dinner?
My friends think I'm odd anyway for soliciting input on a daily basis from his teacher. They believe I should ignore it unless it's bad enough for them to call me at home. I know I'm doing the right thing but today I'm feeling like a really mean momma. When comparing discipline techniques, I definitely feel like the odd bird out. - Odd Bird, New Jersey, 4/2/2001.
