My kid, the bully

Last weekend when I was in school, Kyle took the boys to our nephew's basketball game. This seemingly innocent event, turned out quite interesting...

Kyle said when the game ended, he spent some time talking to a girl we went to high school with. She has three boys. Her middle son, Troy, is in Tyler's room at daycare, and her oldest was playing basketball that day.

I didn't catch the whole story of how it happened, but Kyle said they were talking, and Tyler, who had been around the corner, came walking back. No big deal. Then, all of a sudden, Troy came running up to his mom in tears. He said Tyler had put him in a locker and shut the door. Someone else had to open the locker, after hearing Troy banging on it.

O. M. G.

Kyle said he apologized profusely to Jill, and I'm sure almost killed Tyler out of embarrassment and trying to make a point that putting people in lockers is not something anyone does, EVER. When I got home from school and Kyle told me the story, the look I gave Tyler immediately brought him to tears. I'm not sure what my face looked like, but he collapsed to the ground in tears out of embarrassment.

I still feel really bad, and believe me, we've talked about it a lot with Tyler. I guess we all will always worry about what "type" of kid we will have. I can assure you though, after that incident, that is first and foremost on our radar, and we're working on "how we treat our friends", and putting them in lockers is not an option. To us that is a logical conversation, but with a 5 year old, it becomes interesting.

I happened to run into Troy's dad at work today. I knew this had happened, and although Jill was okay with it when Kyle left that day, I know how I would've felt if someone put my kid in a locker. I tried to kind of avoid him. Troy's dad, Jason, just said, "Heard your kid is putting little kids in lockers...hehehe." He actually was smiling, and I starting apologizing like crazy. I told him how bad I felt, and now I'm having visions of being the mom of the "school bully", etc., etc.

His response, as he was laughing: "Yep, and I'm having those same visions of my kid being the wimp that is put in lockers."

Touche.