Tell the truth, as soon as you know it

It was a Thursday evening and I had just gotten off from back to back shifts, first a full day in private practice and then a hospital training for my new gig. Zo was riding his bike up and down the street. My husband O catches me on the porch and says, “have a seat, I need to tell you something”. My heart sank, I knew this wasn’t going to be a good conversation. He proceeds to tell me about how Zo had stabbed another student in the neck at school. This is one of those students who is always crying, always dramatic, always asking for a hug. The student had cried and gotten a band-aid and Zo had gotten in big trouble.

I began crying. Ashamed. Scared. Worried. More shame. Guilt. Fear. I had flashbacks of when I had gotten into a fight in high school and the look of worry and concern on my parents’ faces. I didn’t understand then, but in that moment, I fully understood. You work so hard to raise well-rounded, empathetic, gentle humans and then they go and do something so utterly stupid that you lose your breath, you lose all sense, you feel like a failure.

O proceeded to explain to me how he had managed it. He decided to handle it while I was at work between the men-folks. He had picked Zo up early. He had talked to him first and then he even met with the the School Psychologist, Assistant Principal, his Teacher, and the Teacher’s Aide. My husband had cried once they returned home due to fear, shame, guilt, and an outpouring of emotions. He called one of our friends who has an 8 year old son and they walked through an appropriate discipline plan. O talked to Zo a lot and explained how we have to have “gentle hands” all of the time. By the time I got home things were smoothed over. I was saddened that yet again I was at work, but I was proud of my husband for the way he handled things. O is the more calm and collected parent and I begrudgingly admitted that it was good that he was the one who had picked Azola up.

Zo finally came down the street and saw me on the porch. He came to give me a hug and then put his head down and said “did you hear about my behavior?” and then we talked about how he had hurt his friend at school. I explained that I was very disappointed. He promised never to do it again.

I texted the other parent, a stepmother, who had been a little flighty in the past. I asked if we could talk about what happened and we set up a time. That time came and went. I reached out again. Same thing. Apologies. The weekend went by. We continued to talk to Zo about being gentle and that it was important never to hurt others.

Then on Monday I get a text from Zo’s teacher asking had I heard what really happened. I quickly texted back and learned that Zo HAD NOT stabbed another child in the neck, but that on Friday they had learned from the stepmother and father of the little boy ON FRIDAY AFTER SCHOOL that Zo had been dared to break a plastic fork and that a tooth of the fork had popped up and hit the other boy in the neck. The kids had thought this meant that Zo had stabbed him.

So after an agonizing weekend feeling like failures of parents, all the stepmother had to do was text me and say something like “hey, you know Zo didn’t really stab my son, right?” and that would have changed things considerably. Zo wouldn’t have been disciplined. Why didn’t the family tell the truth as soon as they learned it? I would have! Why schedule a time to talk and then miss it and not say anything?

I wish those parents had told the truth as soon as they’d known it.