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Old 10-05-2005   #42
MorganGrayson
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 4,321
Default Re: Everyone in this business...

Lance...he most likely has age appropriate comments that will stay age appropriate right up until some adult freaks out and either makes him feel ashamed and guilty or hands him a nice weapon to use against adults. If he discovers that saying words like "boobies" freaks out his teacher...she bettle settle in to be freaked out a lot.

When a sixth grade daughter mentioned having a boyfriend, I did the silent, blank faced *thud,* then asked in a casual voice "what does that mean in the sixth grade?" She shrugged and said "nothing, really." It was merely immitative behavior. Kids would make a declaration "so-and-so is my boyfriend/girlfriend" and that was that. It didn't change their behavior in the slightest. They didn't spend more time together or do any of the things older children would have done. "Ah," I said to my child. "OK." And that was that.

I had an absolute catfight with another parent once who told me what she'd heard during one of her middle school daughter's phone calls. I said "back up a minute...you *listened in* on one of her phone calls?!?!?!?" (That point was lost on her, so we moved on.) I tried to explain that at that age, kids talked dirty on the phone. The phone made them safe. (I'd gotten advice from my own middle school aged children by asking them about phone call content, discovering that it was quite frequently blue, and it - again - did not change a thing about the way they treated each other in person.) She had violated trust and royally overreacted.

My youngest got an email into the family account when we first got the internet that had a subject line that dropped my jaw. She said "oh, he just does that in the subject line, he thinks it's funny, the rest of the email isn't like that." I said "you most definitely need your *own* email account" and off we went to hotmail, with instructions on internet safety. I could have royally overreacted and forbidden her computer usage...but then I never would have had the pleasure of watching her glued to a hockey game because she'd met a nice Canadian kid in a teen chat room. It was a Candian team versus an American team...and they had a playful "I'll bet my country can kick your country's butt!!" thing going on. She'd never watched hockey before this.
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