Teacher, leave those kids alone
IF you’re a parent, you’ll probably be familiar with that horrible, stomach-crunching feeling you get whenever you receive a telephone call from your child’s school.
It’s never going to be good news... they don’t ring up to tell you your little cherub has been given a sticker for doing their sums right, or has just read the word ‘definitely’ without flinching... no, undoubtedly it’s something bad – in that second before they tell you, you just hope it’s nothing dreadful.
So I’ve been getting a tad tired with my daughter’s school lately, for sending me into fits of anxiety over nothing.
Case one: Chicken pox was going round, but The Princess had already it, quite badly, when she was a toddler, and you can’t get it again (apparently it can resurface in some other way, but you can’t get it properly again). She had a spot on her cheek for three days. It wasn’t a chicken pox spot. She went into school. During the day she got two very small spots on her chin, again not obvious chicken pox spots. The school rang and insisted I take her home. Spots didn’t develop further. She went back the next day, still spotty. It wasn’t chicken pox.
Case two: The Princess awoke with a slightly gummy eye, but it wasn’t stuck together and wasn’t painful. When we got to the school gate she became clingy and started crying. I patted her on the back and made her go in. An hour and a half later I get a phone call saying she’s been crying all morning and won’t do any work. I go into school (luckily, this was on a day I don’t work). I pat her on the back, tell her she’s not ill, promise her a chocolate treat if she’s good, and send her back to class. She’s fine the rest of the day.
Case three: I get a call at work (an hour’s journey from school) at 2.30pm, a mere hour before the end of school, to say The Princess has been feeling sick. My immediate thought of What do you want me to do about it? goes unuttered, so I ring my childminder and good friend, who has to wrap up her own sick child and go to the school to pick up my (apparently) sick child. By the time I go to pick her up, The Princess has demolished a round of toast, her tea and a pudding, and is demanding a creme egg. Sick indeed...
Case four: This is a classic. School rings to say The Princess has got a splinter in her finger. So? I think. Take it out then! They can’t. They’re not allowed to, in case they hurt the child. Ruddy hell. So I go to school – again, thankfully it’s on my day off – armed with tweezers. Child presents finger, with a centimetre long piece of wood protruding. I pick it out with my fingers in the blink of an eye. Anyone could have done that, even Stevie Wonder on a galloping horse. I leave, fuming quietly to myself...
Has the world gone mad? Doesn’t common sense come into anything these days? Anyone else got any instances of this kind, or is it just me?
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So please keep up the great work. Greetings.
I will bookmark your article for future use. It was very interesting. Thank you.
Have a nice day! ;)