You’ve probably read or heard about this story. A six year old, first grader, brought a camping/eating utensil (that folds out into a fork, spoon, and knife) to school. The act was purely innocent, but the school has a “zero tolerance” rule that says the little kid is a menace and must go to reform school for a month and a half.

Remember when I decided not to tell my son’s school that he found an old, spent bullet on his playground? Yeah, this is the kind of reaction I feared.

You know, I can understand what causes a school system to implement a zero tolerance policy for bringing a knife to school. One kid brings a knife to school to show his friends the cool hunting tool his father gave him for his birthday. Another kid brings a knife to school to stick between the ribs of the guy who slighted him last week. Both kids say they weren’t intending any harm with the knife, so it makes deciding on a reaction difficult. It takes time and money to investigate thoroughly, and even with all the facts laid out, someone is going to scream over the result.

I think a zero tolerance policy is generally not the best policy, but I can understand, and even grudgingly accept it. (Any kid old enough to have a real knife should be old enough to understand when and where it is OK to have it, and when and where it is inappropriate — like school.) “Don’t bring a weapon to school,” is a clear rule that shouldn’t need more explanation.

But a big problem with a zero tolerance policy is defining the item prohibited. For instance: “weapon.” Is a knife in a eating utensil really a weapon? Check in the cafeteria kitchen and see how many “weapons” are there. A sharpened pencil could be a weapon.

There was a news story several weeks ago about a teenage girl who got strip searched over allegedly, possibly having Tylenol on her person. Really, is Tylenol “drugs” in the sense of our cultural “drug problem”?

I also understand that no one wants to be the one to identify or judge what is a weapon, or what is a drug. Because just like with prescribing punishment for a policy violation, someone is going to scream over the distinction.

And, sadly, if the school administrators rule that the knife in a camping/eating utensil is not a weapon, and the child carrying it should not be severely punished for carrying it, next month some kid at another school will bring one to class and cut someone with it.

But still, someone needs to stand up and make a statement distinguishing, “This situation is not like that situation.” And to support this kind of thing, reasonable parents and fellow citizens should stand up with and support the person taking the responsibility to make a reasonable judgment. We shouldn’t rely on lazy fixes like a zero tolerance policy.

Bullgrit

This morning, after breakfast, Calfgrit4 said to his mother, “You know where my pancake is?”

Cowgrit answered, “In your stomach?”

“Yeah,” CG4 said, “I store stuff in my stomach.”

Lego pieces and Bakugan balls came to Cowgrit’s mind. Scared to hear the answer, she asked, “Do you store toys in your stomach?”

“No,” the little guy answered, “that would be yucky.”

“What do you store in your stomach?”

“Just food.”

Kids just don’t know the terror they can put in their parents’ minds with their simple little statements.

Bullgrit

I took Calfgrit8 out last evening, just the two of us, to go get Calfgrit4 a birthday present. (CG4 will turn CG5 on October 15.) I wanted to use this time not just for gift-getting, but also for some one-on-one time with CG8. We haven’t had much alone time together in a while, and I felt like we both needed it. (I need and want some alone time with CG4, too, and that will come soon, I hope.)

As we drove out, I asked him where we needed to go to get what he wanted to give CG4: Target, Toys R Us, somewhere else? He said Target. I then asked him if he was hungry and wanted to eat before or after shopping. He said after. So we went to Target.

At the store, he knew exactly what he wanted to get his little brother – they’ve apparently discussed this: a particular Pokemon deck. We went straight to Pokemon cards, and Calfgrit8 immediately grabbed the specific boxed deck. There was no looking around, no examining the selection, just straight to and grab it.

When we left the store, I asked him where he wanted to get dinner. In that shopping center there are several restaurants I like and I know he at least doesn’t dislike: Chili’s, Red Robin, IHOP, Fridays, and several smaller places. He chose Panera; I wouldn’t have guessed that. We went to the bagel and sandwich shop.

Calfgrit8 is a great kid. He’s normally polite and well behaved. Sometimes, though, when with his little brother, he gets a little passive/aggressive, and he loses his manners. Also when the brothers are together, he gets a little less mature – he tends to regress back toward CG4’s age. I think this might be because his little brother can’t really advance up to his age, so to have some common ground, CG8 has to “stoop down” in age a bit. And there’s also the sibling rivalry aspect, which as my brother and I can attest (at around 40 years of age), will make anyone drop a maturity level or twenty.

But when CG8 and I are alone together, his intelligence and maturity comes through. We sat in a booth talking and eating our bagel and sandwich. He seems to love asking me questions about random stuff. Apparently he asks these random questions of other people (his mother, his teacher, his grandparents, etc.) and when they can’t answer them, he brings them to me in batches.

“What does the a.m. and p.m. stand for in telling time?” he asked.

He knows they mean before noon and after noon, but he didn’t know what the initials stood for. I explained ante meridiem and post meridiem.

“Cool,” he said, “I’ll tell my teacher. She didn’t know what they meant.”

“What does ‘all rights reserved’ on a movie mean?” he asked.

I tried to give a short-form explanation of copyrights and reserving them, but this question and answer led us down an unexpectedly long discussion about creating stuff, getting paid for selling the stuff, and the wrongs of copying and selling other people’s stuff. Although copyright is a subject somewhat intertwined with my career (and this site), I didn’t intend to get into the depths of it with an 8-year-old, but he kept asking for more explanation and examples.

I really didn’t think we’d be spending our father-and-son time talking about copyrights, but it was still good just to have the together time.

Some fathers and sons sit around talking about football and cars. I and my son sit around talking time zones and copyright law. I love him so.

Bullgrit

Those of you who have been following my life as presented here know that we recently (quickly) sold our house. And since we decided to build a new house, we’ve been shacked up with Cowgrit’s mother for a few weeks. When we left for our vacation, our new house was just a concrete foundation.

The day after we got back from our Disney World adventure, Cowgrit and I drove by to see if anything had been done while we were away. There was a house standing there, both stories. Now, the interior walls are just the frame studs, and the outside walls are still covered in plastic, but glory-be, it looked like a house was sitting on our lot!

That was last Sunday. This Sunday, yesterday, it looks like the only advancement has been that they’ve added windows and exterior doors. In one week, they put up the whole two-story frame, but in the next they only put in windows. I realize there was probably other work done that isn’t obvious to the layman like me, but still, it’s frustrating to see such a big leap in construction and then see what looks like a fall back to snail’s pace.

I took the boys’ to the new house yesterday, and took them on a tour. I explained the floor plan, what the rooms would be, and how we’d get around in the house. They seemed most interested in being able to “walk through the walls.” Sigh.

They were more excited by “our backyard is a mud pit!” and the pile of gravel in our front yard than they were by any real construction that’s gone on with the house.

Bullgrit