Elwood, God bless him, made the school supply run today and when he came home there was much sorting and divvying and arranging. The process was interrupted by dinner, though, and the unsorted stuff went to a temporary home on the dining room floor. After dinner the three younger boys enacted a sort of Battle of Five Armies with school supplies as the principals. "My tape cannon is blowing up your Kleenex box tank!" shouted one to another, with appropriate sound effects.
This was fine and good for ten minutes or so, but then I began to weary of the sounds of the glue stick M16. "Boys," I interrupted, "I need the artillery to fire more quietly or I'm going to call an armistice." Marty objected. "Mom, you can't have a quiet machine gun." "Fit it with a silencer," quoth I. Elwood rolled his eyes. "You can't put a silencer on a machine gun."
Tell me I am not the only one to see the irony there: you can spray bullets out of a hole punch and lay siege to a city with a box of markers, but it's too implausible to put a silencer on a machine gun? Maybe I should call it the House of Five Boys if my husband is going to side with the mad eraser bombers.
On a more serious note, today we walked down to school to find out the middle boys' class assignments. (And hurray! They both got the teachers I hoped they would!) As we walked, and then again at dinner, we talked about what to do if this neighbor who has caused such hassles for us should bother them as they are walking to or from school. Is she going to view a pretend swordfight, or an argument with raised voices, as further evidence of maternal negligence requiring immediate intervention? I'm not terribly worried about it since the police officer told me he would make it clear to her that she needed to leave my kids alone, but it has been niggling at me. They will pass her house twice a day, unless I tell them to take the route to school that has many times more traffic. I don't think I want to do that.
Tonight I told the kids that they had to remember, always, the greatest commandment. Loving your neighbor means you shouldn't be ugly or deliberately rude or vengeful. But I told them they should be assertive and forceful if she attempted to stop them, that they could shout something like, "NO! Do NOT touch me! I do not need your help to get home safely!" And possibly, "My mom will report it to the police if you touch me!" I think I will also call the principal and give her a bare-bones outline of the situation (probably just "we're concerned about a neighbor who exercised poor judgment in an interaction with Joe"), and ask to be alerted immediately if the boys have a run-in with her on the way to school.
I am still wrestling with the question of expressing forgiveness -- I was intrigued to see the range of possible responses in this comment thread. However that plays out, though, she cannot ever again restrain one of my children without my consent. I have poured a lot of energy into teaching my kids to treat adults courteously and with respect. It feels a little strange to say, "And really, go right ahead: bellow NO and run away if that's what you need to do." Different tools for different situations, I guess. But it's one thing to talk about shouting NO at a hypothetical stranger, and another to say, "You have my explicit permission to shout at this neighbor."
What would you do?
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