Okay, so I've got some issues with my son that I've really got to get to the   
   bottom of, and I guess I'm a bit stumped on what to do with it all.  My son's   
   been getting in trouble more and more lately, primarily in his afterschool   
   program.  He's hated that program for a very long time.  At first I thought it   
   was primarily because it was cutting into his videogame time, but I'm really   
   starting to think that there's a lot more going on there than I was aware of.   
     Unfortunately he's ended up falling in with some of the more dirty mouthed   
   and trouble prone kids in the school there.  I think it's probably because they   
   move around a lot, and when the kids were looking for new friends he ended up   
   finding them due to the fact that everybody else already had a bunch of friends   
   from previous years at that school.  I can't very well expect him to finish the   
   school year without any friends, so I'm trying to help teach him to make the   
   right choices when those friends are doing things that'll get others in   
   trouble.  I think he's been doing pretty well with it, all things considered,   
   but there may be some bias going on with the staff there, as well.  I don't   
   know if it's some form of racism or another bias (my son being half African),   
   but whatever it is I think I'm going to have to go talk to the school about it.   
     One of the first things that happened is that somebody left a purse with   
   money in it laying around at the school and he, plus one of his friends (whom I   
   really don't trust) ended up being around it at one point.  When somebody found   
   out that there was missing cash from there, they ended up looking for clues   
   from the class as to where it went.  Turns out that most of the class fingered   
   my son and his friend about it.  I trust my son for the most part, but I don't   
   know if maybe his friend did something and took that money (I really don't   
   trust the kid or his mom-- the kid alone is a bucket of unending lies to try to   
   have something interesting to say); or maybe he did get my son to try taking   
   something...  It's so hard to know for sure.   
     After that, I ended up going in to pick him up one afternoon and showed up   
   right at the same time that one of the staff who I think might have a bit of a   
   grudge against my son was pulling him and two of his friends out of class in   
   order to 'make them stop being so negative.'  She was literally shaking with   
   rage, and the kids were all telling stories about how she'd pushed one of them.   
   I don't know what happened with that, due to not being there to see it, but I   
   do know that whenever you've got somebody in charge of others who is shaking   
   with rage like that that something bad happened and could easily have triggered   
   her into some inappropriate actions, too.  She had just sat them down to write   
   some sentence about being negative 100 times, but I was picking him up at the   
   same time.  I ended up grounding him for that one, primarily because I knew   
   that something bad had happened, and I figured it was as good of a time as any   
   to try to make sure that my son is steering clear of others' negative behavior,   
   even if it is funny or amusing at the time.  Seems to have worked well here.   
     Yesterday, though, when I got back from work, I heard a pretty disturbing   
   tale of my son being accused of 'sexually harassing' some of the girls in his   
   class.  Now this little bit is really taking the cake, because I'm 95% sure   
   that my son has problems talking to girls about most things, and he's hyper   
   aware of his actions when he's around them.  It turns out that him and some of   
   his friends were discussing male genitalia and semen for some reason, and it   
   sounds like that was the primary cause that they got in trouble.  Now while I   
   can understand that perhaps the topic wasn't appropriate for a school   
   environment (though I personally don't believe that myself-- it's a school,   
   kids are learning, and kids will talk), I don't think that telling a kid that   
   it's a legal offense that could get them thrown into juvenile hall is the best   
   way to deal with something like that.  It got even worse when I checked my   
   voicemail last night and ended up finding out that one of the other parents had   
   been around when it actually happened, and _she_ was calling me because she saw   
   the instructor/supervisor there deal with things in an inappropriate manner,   
   not the kids.   
     Now this isn't the first time that I've had to deal with crap from this   
   school.  I think that the truth of the matter here is that there are true   
   aspects all around, and improper dealings with things all around, as well.  The   
   difference being, of course, that the adults in the situation that are dealing   
   with things inappropriately are serving as role models, and need to learn to   
   keep their emotions under control when dealing with children that are supposed   
   to be looking up to them.  I think that my son has fallen in with some bad   
   apples, and at the same time he's going through such a rough and stressful few   
   years that he's almost certainly acting out some on his own.  I've certainly   
   seen bits of it here, as our domestic situation has failed to improve in any   
   way.  Unfortunately work only makes dealing with this crap harder.   
     So now I have the decision about how far involved I'm going to get with all   
   of this again.  Even if my son _is_ guilty of all of this stuff, I don't think   
   that it was handled appropriately.  I've had to go and head off a bunch of this   
   junk before, last year, when the lunch staff was harassing him in front of a   
   bunch of other kids because of a paperwork error that had his free lunches   
   tallying up money due incorrectly.  Ugh.  I really just don't want to have to   
   deal with this crap, but alas, I cannot let my little man deal with all of this   
   without properly finding out what's going on here.   
     Gah.  I've got more that I was going to write but I'm frustrated enough   
   already from having to think about this so much for now.  I'll probably be   
   writing more on this as it develops.  There's actually some other issues that I   
   need to write about, too.  Not this early in the morning, though.  ;)   
     Hope y'all are doing well.   
      
     -D   
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