A BAND OF ROBBERS!

In response to a rash of overly-aggressive play, Cole's teacher informed me today that she was going to crack down on some of the overall negativity that has pervaded her little preschool room. I was assured that Cole wasn't one of the ones who was actually being aggressive to other people, but apparently he's quite the follower when it comes to angry pretend-play.

My tolerance for aggression and overall negativity in our house is low. I mean, superlow, sometimes low enough that I wonder whether I might not be letting our kids work something out that they need to express. So while I've attempted to be a bit more laid back about that, I will not back off on my feeling that pretending to harm or kill others is not acceptable, nor is saying things to others that is intended specifically to hurt them (either physically or mentally).

So today when Cole's teacher informed me of this shift in her classroom I welcomed the news, in part because it's really hard to get that under control in your own house when your child goes to school and, naturally, finds it very hard to resist playing such games with his peers who are doing it. "Consistency in discipline! You will be mine!" I thought.

With that, as we climbed in the car, it seemed a good time to address the loads of "I don't like you and I wish you weren't my brother/sister!" that we've been hearing quite a lot of lately. I mentioned that in light of the changes that were going on in Cole's classroom, it might be time to take on some of those same changes at home. After all, I commented, we are a family who wants to be known for the fact that we are helpful, not hurtful (this is the criteria that we often use when faced with a moral decision, btw.....). "We want to be known as the helpful Smiths, not the hurtful Smiths", I said. Then, attempting to drive the point home, I asked, "After all, if we're not helpful, what does that make us?"

At this juncture, I expected my daughter and elder son, who are both extremely good with the concept of opposites, and who are both known for their extraordinary abilities to pick up on subtleties far beyond their ages, to chime in "HURTFUL!", the natural opposite of helpful. For Pete's sake, I'd already set them up for the answer. And it was the ultimate no-brainer.

Cole had no response, looking at me with vacuous, tired post-school eyes. I'll give him that, he's always tired after school. But Annemarie, who never is tired when it's time to be, simply rolled her eyes as if she was too good for this conversation, and answered, "Robbers?"

Robbers?