What the *&#%?!

It's not always what you know that can get you in trouble...sometimes it's what you DON'T know. Just ask Blake. We were two days away from finishing his kindergarten year and I picked Blake up at the end of class as usual. When I asked him how his day was he informed me that he had garnered himself a "red ticket" (for bad behavior) and explained that his friend had taught him a new word...a certain explicative he then REPEATED to me (let's just call it the "S-H" word)! I was horrified. My sweet, innocent, quiet, little Blake said a word I was in no way prepared to hear come out of that kindergarten mouth of his. I was so upset that I forbade him to play on the playground with his friends (our afternoon ritual) and took him straight to the car for a lecture on why we don't use "those words". As we pulled away I heard a meek voice from the back seat softly say, "But I didn't know it was a bad word" (which was apparent because I was told he repeated it quite a few times in class before getting in trouble...my apologies to the parents of any of his friends...).

My mantra as a parent is, "What did we learn from this?". Blake learned (the hard way) the importance of knowing the context and meaning of a word BEFORE he uses it. And that just because your friends say (or do) it doesn't mean it's okay...a "life lesson" I'm sure he'll learn many times over. And I learned not to jump to conclusions; to understand the WHY before I react to the WHAT. Although there is some backwards logic that has me questioning if we should have exposed him to this before his friends so that he would know what to do or say...I'm sure I'll be struggling with this one for years to come.

Still, I was wondering if or how long it would take for Blake to teach Garrett his "forbidden" word...but he didn't have to. In true Garrett fashion he one-upped Blake and dropped the "F bomb" today, thanks to the neighborhood kids down the street. This time we were able to talk to the older kids and this time (knowing Garrett had NO IDEA what he was saying) I didn't jump to conclusions. And Garrett got his first pre-kindergarten lesson in proper vocabulary...and life.