Reddit users are torn in the comments section after a father refused to write an apology letter after his son swore at a teacher and sought advice online concerning the matter.
No matter how many children an adult has, there will always be room for growth as a parent. But when someone else tells you how to parent, it can cause quite the stir.
According to Mirror, a father on Reddit shared his story concerning his three-year-old son calling his teacher a b**** in front of the class. The father was quick to address that he does not condone cursing, especially coming from his incredibly young son, but the dad also shared how he didn’t feel the need to force his son to write an apology letter.
In a Reddit post, the father said:
“My wife and I are parents to a just-turned three-year old boy. He is and will very likely continue to be an only child. As his parents, we are obviously biased; but we are aware of that bias and try to be as objective as possible. It doesn’t do him or the outside world any good if we coddle, shelter, helicopter or overly favour him.”
It had been a total of two months since the couple enrolled their son in a private pre-school. Their son spends four hours at school four days out of the week.
“His terrible twos were relatively mild, and the last few months he settled into a pleasant, friendly, funny, and, for three, relatively attentive disposition,” he added. “The standard practice at this pre-school is to do an assessment one month after the child starts school. He came back glowing: funny, pleasant, follows directions, academically advanced, all the warm and fuzzy stuff a parent would want to hear.”
Still, the father recalled how he detected that his son’s behavior appeared somewhat unusual over the weekend prior to the incident.
“Not totally wild or obstinate, but not his normal self for the past few months.” the father explained. “We were hearing a few more ‘nos’ and a bit more agitation.”
That following Monday, the three-year-old allegedly became frustrated when he spilt his lunch all over the table. When his teacher asked him to clean it up, he responded, “No. You clean it up b****.”
“The teachers told us about it, indicated it was very out of character for him, and we were very apologetic to both teachers. We talked to him about using bad words, about impulse and mood control in general, his mood improved to its normal condition and the rest of the week was incident free.”
Despite this, the both parents were surprised when one of the teachers in the class asked them to help their son write a letter apologizing for his dramatic outburst. The teacher expressed concerns about how the three-year-old must have “heard the word being thrown around at home.”
After receiving the request, this angered the father who took the request as a jab for being a “bad father.” Putting his foot down, he insisted that the face to face apology was more than enough.
“Here’s the thing. My wife and I aren’t perfect. We swear. We say F, S, AH, and occasionally GD to our dog when she’s bad. We try to limit it in front of our son, but occasionally it slips out. We do not, however, ever use derogatory curse words.”
The father then stated, “The school followed up today asking for the apology letter, but I don’t feel like we owe it to them. We have already apologized for him saying it, but don’t feel the need to apologize for teaching it to him because we didn’t.”
One user commented: “The school wants you to write an apology letter for (in their opinion) swearing around your child at home? Seriously? That’s hilarious.
Another user added: “Write the letter but instead of it being an apology, explain that you don’t recall ever using that word in front of him and have no idea how or where he learned it from (if that is what you really believe). Take the opportunity to point out that you have never heard him use that word at home (if true) and that he could have actually picked it up at school.”
Although the situation is embarrassing for the parents, do you think an additional apology letter is warranted, or is the school taking things way too far?
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