The Moral of the Story

One of our children has an iron will. This child will dig heels in deep and not budge - ever - on whatever the issue of the day is.

Since school began this year (even before the move), this child has not been participating well in class. I don't know why, but I suspect it has to do with:
#1 - not wanting to look foolish doing silly actions and movements;
#2 - not wanting too much focus to be turned toward the child;
#3 - needing to be perfect and have things mastered before being willing to do them; and
#4 - a little bit of stubbornness deep down in this child's heart.

Said child came home a couple days ago proclaiming that there was no happy face in the agenda from school because the class was doing yoga and my darling wouldn't do it. To be honest, I was so proud of this child that I cannot even tell you - we have had many discussions about yoga and why our family believes it is best not to participate in it at all.

I began drafting an email...

Later, with some digging from Daddy, it was discovered that the child did not, in fact, refuse to do yoga, but simply refused to join in on the doing movement (you know, bend down and touch your toes, now reach up to the sky, etc.). Yoga was not for today, but they would be learning it later on, said the child. Perhaps this should have been my first clue that things were not all as they appeared?

I began revising the email... I had Pat read the email... I re-read and re-revised... And then - I hit send.

Yesterday I received a phone message from the teacher. As I did in my email, the teacher first addressed the child's issue and some solutions that had been brainstormed. Then the teacher addressed my concern and request that they not do yoga in school. The teacher informed that there has never been, nor would there ever be, any plans to practice yoga at school. Ahem.

The information my child had given us was incorrect, and no one has any clue where that information may have come from.

This morning, I drafted a new email. If email came with a picture, my face would be very red and my eyes averted. How incredibly embarrassing - to have written an email convincing the teacher of my reasons for opposing yoga in school FOR NO REASON. Oh, how foolish of me.

There are three morals to this story:

First, never jump to conclusions.
Second, when you learn information that upsets you the first thing you should do is ask, "is it true?"
And third, never, ever, ever take what a child says at face value!