Last week I got a phone call from the kids' school.
It was the principal.
I love the way she first said, "now don't panic...." She know that most parents panic when she rings. :)
Oliver had thrown a rock at someone. It had missed the person he intended, but hit an innocent bystander and caused a little cut on her cheek.
The fact that he had intended to throw a rock at all was very disconcerting to say the least.
He explained to the principal that he had gotten frustrated with this girl who he said, had been trying to boss him around all year and last year and continually try and tell him what to do.
The principal dealt with the issue
restoratively -as a member of our School Association, in our last meeting we had been encouraged to attend a workshop on restorative practices that was being held after school one day and so only the week before I had learned all about it. I never dreamed at the time that one of my kids would be involved in one that had the potential to have been very serious indeed.
I think Oliver worked our pretty quickly that throwing a rock was not the answer. According to the principal he was pretty upset at what he had done and I don't think he realised until it was too late, how dangerous it is to throw a rock at someone. He was very lucky that it was just a small cut and nothing more serious.
When he got home, we had a chat about some ways of dealing with frustration and that it is okay to feel frustrated and it is really good to recognise these feelings, but then how we deal with them and learn from them is what life's lessons are all about.
I think he learned a pretty hard lesson.
I asked him to think about a way he could say sorry, other than just saying sorry, and a bit later in the afternoon he came out with this card that he made.
soory (sorry) Cailten (Caitlen)
"sorry for hitting you with the rock Catilan
Frends care"
At parent-teacher interviews this week, Oliver's teacher said she shared the card with the classroom and staffroom. Even though it was nice for Oliver to receive some recognition for his efforts, what was more important was that his little friend knew how sincere and heartfelt his apology was.
