Even the Best

You all know that Campbell is a very good kid. She rarely gets in trouble. When she does it's usually for being mouthy or not cleaning her room. These I feel are normal 9 year old misbehaviors. Before this week, she had never been in trouble in school. School is her sanctuary and she always tries to be the model student. Her worst offense at school up to this point was reading a book during math class. Oh the horrors! :)

Here's what happened. Each child has a homework journal. They bring it home each day. The parents are to look at the book and make sure that the child does the homework listed in the journal. Once the homework is done the parent must sign the book to let the teacher know that they have looked at it and that the child has done their homework. The student then takes the book back to school the next day. If there is not a parent signature the child loses 5 minutes off their recess. Personally, I think it stinks that the child loses 5 minutes just because the parent was being slack and didn't sign the book, but I digress.

One day last week I forgot to sign her book. It happened to be a day when there was a substitute so she may not have lost the 5 minutes anway, but who knows. Instead of just letting it go, our smart little girl decided that she would sign my name for me. Yes, that's right. My 9 year old committed forgery. Unfortunately for her, the sub didn't catch it. Mommy did. She recieved a huge lecture from Aaron and I. We then sent a note to the teacher letting her know what had happened and asked that she make Campbell stay in for the the 5 minutes she would have lost. The teacher took it one step further. She made her do this paper called a Think Tank. The paper asks questions about what the child did. Why it was wrong. And what are you going to do the next time you are faced with this situation. Campbell was mortified that she was subjected to this type of punishment.

We know that all kids try this. I mean, her parents both tried it. Aaron even remembers that as a 1st grader he tried it. Only, he signed the paper with "My mommy". Campbell's forgery was a bit more sophisticated. It does suck as a parent though to see your child so upset because she had to be punished. It's really difficult to draw that line between comforting your child and teaching her the difference between right and wrong.