Friday, October 09, 2009

This post is toned down a notch from what I wanted to say after it happened.

A kid on a playground grabbed my daughter so hard that he left gouges in her arm. Asked how this came about, the woman watching him said, "oh, Todd needs redirecting sometimes, he's a special needs child, so we redirected him, and it's fine now."

Well, no, actually. It is not fine now.

I don't give a rat's skinny ass how "special" this kid's "needs" are. My girls have the evidently not-so-special need not to be injured by other children on playgrounds, and I'm sorry, but that trumps whatever he's got. Insensitive? Hell yes. My sensitivity ends where my daughters' safety begins. Call it whatever you like, but keep your kid's hands off my girls, or you'll experience a "redirection" you will never forget.

Have a nice day now.

4 comments:

  1. I know things weren't perfect when I was growing up, but parents tended to watch after their kids and discipline them when necessary. Oh, yeah, so did the teachers and principals. That's the big difference.

    Now we've replaced the word "discipline" with "redirection." How warm I feel after learning this.

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  2. Nothing like this has ever happened to my children on a school playground. I have the sense that their teachers pay very close attention at recess.

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  3. Careful about threatening to redirect the little bastard or they will be redirecting you. I am among the last of the "knock it off" parents around, and I commonly tell kids in need of it to "knock it off", some parents say, aren't you afraid of getting in trouble-- All I say is Knock it off, and there is no harm and no foul and I am not about to get in trouble.

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  4. Good on you! I loved reading this post and agree with you completely. I think you were very measured and restrained - not sure I would have been! A lot of bad behaviour is excused these days because of various "disorders". You have rights and so do your children. Great work. Oh and by the way, I actually popped by to say I'm back! And so is my word imperfect blog. Hope you can join me some time soon.

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