It's already started!

I can't even believe that I have this event to tell you. It's very sad.

Emily is going to be starting Kindergarten after Labor Day at Eastlawn Elementary School. For the first 3 weeks of August, Emily got to be a part of a "Jump into Kindergarten" program that is funded by local foundations. It's truly a great program for these kids because it helps transition them for school coming up so soon. And the things that they are learning are wonderful too! Coming from us, where my father-in-law is deaf, I couldn't be more pleased that they were teaching the children the alphabet in sign language. Insert tangent here: I think that kids should be learning sign language in school before they have to learn to speak Spanish. There are more deaf Americans in this country than you realize and they are constantly being left out and looked over because people are afraid or don't know how to communicate with them. Why do we need to make sure that our kids can speak Spanish when this is America? Speak ENGLISH! Ok, tangent done.

This program is hosted by Eastlawn so I was glad to enroll Emily into the program because I knew that it would enable her to become familiar with her school building. And lucky for us, they grouped the kids by school so she would also begin to develop friendships before the school year began. Then yesterday, something awful happened to her.

She was already having a bad morning of not wanting to leave Mommy so thanks to Mrs. Smartt, who oversees this program, she went with her and spent some time talking, calming down and making a picture to show me at the end of the day. I swear, the child must have known something bad was going to happen to her. When the children were in line to go to another room, there was a little girl behind her along with some other classmates. The end of the line was pushing to go forward so that caused a chain reaction of children getting bumped towards the front of the line. This little girl, pushed Emily from behind and it caught Emily off guard. Emily turned around and using her words, like we've taught her, asked this girl to please not push her. Apparently after that, this girl pushed Emily again and then kicked her 3 times in her leg! Thankfully one of the teacher's witnessed this event and went to this little girl and asked her to apologize to Emily. This little girl would not apologize and then became defiant. She wouldn't say that she was sorry and then got out of control with screaming and kicking to the point that the teacher had to hold her in her arms on the floor. The even escalated to the point that this child had to be removed from the group and sent home because of her horrible behavior.

So here Emily is, 6 years old and getting ready to start Kindergarten and already has become a victim to a bully. And a girl bully none the less! She told me all about what happened but if you know Emily, you can't dwell on an event too long because then it turns into a fishing story that gets blown out of proportion. And we usually take dramatic stories with a grain of salt because sometimes Emily perceives events to be much worse than they really are. Only to find out that her teacher confirmed EVERYTHING that she said to me when I spoke with her this morning.

Thanks be to God though that the staff witnessed this event and handled it to the best of their ability. They assured me that they would keep the girls apart should this other little girl show up for school today. And thankfully after checking with the school secretary, both girls will not be in the same classroom this year. We are very lucky that her Kindergarten staff is a great one. Her teacher is who I had when I was in 3rd grade at the same school, the paraprofessionals in both her core class and extended day class are ones that I also had when I was there. And her extended day teacher is the wife of someone I used to attend church with. So I know that I won't have to worry should I need to talk with them about this. But I still stand amazed that this is already beginning and she is just about to enter Kindergarten.

Yesterday's events were terribly traumatic for her. She ended the day in tears and frustrated beyond mention. Thankfully we were able to talk about it and pray about it together. And even at this age, we are teaching her to pray for her enemies because we don't know what their lives are like at home. From what I've heard, this child is from a broken home so I can only imagine how things are for her. It doesn't excuse her behavior but it at least gives us a glimpse to a reason. Lastly, it makes me so proud of Emily. She handled herself the best way that she knew how and she managed to work through it.

She went to school today, with it being her last day, excited. That's the way that it should be, a child going to school excited and not scared.

It leaves me to wonder.....what is this world coming to? And it also makes me wonder how any parent would allow or enable such awful behavior? I guess, ready or not, here we come to find out!