Well IT happened.  Emma's got a juvi record.  A YELLOW card. I wasn't sure as the year started if her "teacher pleaser" attitude would vanish or stick around.  I'm happy to announce it still remains 1 month into school! 


Emma comes home from school Wednesday evening about 5:45 (she went to a friends after school).  Her first words - hidden behind her hands covering her mouth - was something to the effect of "mumble,blah,mumble,yellow card,blah, mumble". 


I knew I didn't want to jump all over her...after all it was just a warning, but I didn't want her to get the idea a warning was nothing to worry about. I tried to get the story out of her as to why she had to pull a card.  That proved to be difficult. First of all she mustn't be like me....likes to give each and every detail of a story...oh no! I AM my dad!  She (still in her mumbling, scared tone) said something about a "guy kissing a girl & Avery and I were talking about it".  Which I'm sure her and Avery's conversation went something like "Oh, my.  They are much to young to be kissing.  We would never do that as it would cheapen us and disappoint our parents.  We vow to remain pure..." AND CERTAINLY their conversation wasn't anything like "Hehehehe. They kissed!! Hehehe! Did you see that!! Hahaha!" (all in a squeaky, high pitched little girl tone). 


As Emma told us what had happened you could see in her eyes (blood shot and flooded with tears) that this had weighed on her all day.  Which broke my heart.  So did knowing that she cried when she had to pull the card (she reported Avery did not cry). So, being the hormonal and oh so sleepy mommy I am...the yellow card made me cry a bit too!  Tears of sadness for her and to be honest tears of joy for me...the thought that she cares enough about doing well at home and school. And joyous tears that SHE was not the one being kissed!! :) Our talk ended by her letting out all the worries & fears of the day on Daddy's big shoulders!


So, my guess is it went like this.  The girls saw a boy and girl kiss.  They were snickering about it.  Substitute probably asked them to stop laughing/talking about it (Emma denies) and they didn't, so thus the stripping of the precious white card...revealing the yellow warning card.  


How we handled it right or wrong...heck if I know I used to be the mean teacher having sweet children pull their cards/sticks/etc.  We praised her for telling us first thing.  She could have waited until bedtime, or even until Thursday when her school packet & behavior chart comes home.  We encouraged her to respect substitute teachers as she would her regular teacher.  Explained that she will sometimes make mistakes and that is ok, but a frequent yellow card day is NOT, nor is any red days.  Whew!  Hopefully this is as bad as it gets!! :)

BTW where are the PDA kiss anyway??  Did they pull a card? :)