And So It Begins

Lesson # 1:  The school cafeteria allows students to set up an account or pay by cash.  I created the account and placed some money in it.  At $2.00 per lunch I thought it would last a while.  He went through spurts of wanting to bring lunch everyday, and the occasional school lunch.  Lately he's been buying lunch most days.  It probably depends on what his friends are doing and not what's on the menu.  He doesn't ask me to look it up for him ahead of time. 

I logged into his account last week to see the balance.  I ran a report of the last 7 days, the maximum look back on the site.  That boy was buying cookies and extra snacks almost everyday with his lunch!  And one day he only bought a cookie, meaning he made the extra effort to go stand in line just to buy a cookie to go with his lunch.  And he bought lunch on a day that I know he took lunch with him.  How dare he, we discussed the rules.  We agreed to treats only on Fridays.

When confronted that evening he responded with a "how'd you find out?" and "it's my account".  I explained the website and that I was putting my money into it, and so on.  I set a spending limit of lunch only on his account.  And if he wants to buy a cookie he could plan ahead and take fifty cents with him.  He understood, I think, and has continued to buy lunch this week with no complaints of missing a bag of chips or a cookie.


Lesson #2:  The school PTA fundraiser of the month was some crazy shoelace things called Y Ties.  They're coiled and do not have to be tied.  The order form promised that they would save my life and only cost $4 with some unknown amount going back to the PTA.  What the hey.  I bought two.  Camouflage for Nicholas and black for Travis.

Nicholas came home a week or so later with his camouflage Y ties in his shoes.  A counselor at after-school put them on for him. 

Where's the other pair, the black ones?
I gave them to a friend.
What?! Those were for Travis.  So you could each have some.
Commence the water works and run away.

After we got him to return there was a talk about asking parents before giving things away.  Then a talk about if people are truly your friends it's because they like you and not because you give them things.

What's your friend's name?
I don't know.
Is it a boy or a girl?
A girl.
How old is she?
Nine.
And you don't know her name?
Her name is Evelyn.

No big deal, let's think of a solution.  The game plan - talk to her and let her know that he wasn't supposed to give them away, they were for his brother, he'll be in trouble.  If she's really a friend she will understand.   I don't know the child and who knows if her parents would question how she got them.  I had to hope he wasn't coerced into giving them up by an older child, a girl no less!

I picked him up from school the next day.  He was so proud and happy.  He got the Y ties back.  Evelyn had been very understanding.  She even wrapped them in a piece of purple paper and wrote his name on it so he wouldn't lose them.  We agreed that she was a true friend.  (I think she might have a thing for a kindergartener.)


The real task of parenting is here.  We need our game face on.  And a strategy for teaching him how to be responsible, caring, and independent.  He will make mistakes and we will all learn from them.