Tuesday, October 16, 2012

F.A.R.T.

In an effort to not receive any more notes or emails from Olivia’s teacher regarding negative behavior in the classroom, we’re working on cleaning up our vocabulary at home.

The other night as I was getting Olivia out of the tub, she announced, “I passed gas in the bathtub.”

Alyssa, ever the honest one, told me, “She said the word F-A-R-T when she did it.”

Olivia, not to be outdone, replied, “F-A-R-T, that spells train track!”

And okay, I laughed. Because it was funny. And now, when anyone passes gas at our house (we’re a gassy bunch) we will ask, “Who train tracked?”

Which, Tom has declared, probably isn’t much better than asking who farted.

So we’re trying to get back to the nice, polite habit of ignoring passed gas, because really, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do at school? Or heck, anywhere in public?

I’m happy to report that Olivia has replaced the word butt with bottom and she’s rarely heard announcing that anyone in the house (or classroom) has poopy pants. So that’s progress. I’m still not sure she understands why she shouldn’t say certain words at school but after much discussion, she seems to understand that if she does say them, she will lose fingernail polish privileges and that isn’t something she wants to risk. Bare nails might just be the fashion faux pas she can’t bring herself commit.

I know all kids experiment to some degree with misbehavior. Maybe they are trying to figure out where they fit in the classroom hierarchy. Maybe they’re just trying to fit in or are doing what they see their peers do in an effort to make friends.

I want Olivia to be social. I want her to have friends. Don’t we all want that for our kids? I want her to enjoy school but I also want her to get something out of it, something academic and something social. And negative behavior takes away from that. It distracts her and it distracts her peers. We can’t have that.

So for now, we pass gas from our bottoms and we use the potty, we don’t fart from our butts and we don’t walk around with poopy pants.

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