Six Year Old Kisses & Underwear

Stop.

The.

Insanity.

A school suspended a six year old for kissing a second grader on the bus.

Yeah. Okay. This whole "zero tolerance" thing has gone way beyond any sort of common sense.

Just a few weeks ago, Zoe had an accident at school. They didn't call me - instead they just put a note in her backpack, changed her into the school's "spare" size 6X set of pants and underwear, and asked me to wash and return them in the note. Which was fine.

Except Zoe was going through her backpack on the bus and her underwear fell out. The bus driver found them, and she made a big deal of coming out to talk to me about it. When Zoe explained she'd had an accident in school, the bus driver backed down and said, "Oh, she didn't tell me that."

Did she think Zoe was flashing the other kids? What?

It just seems to me that the first reaction nowadays from schools (and anyone involved with schools) is an overreaction. Instead of using their heads, they let their fear lead them. A six year old kisses a second grader, a pair of underwear is found on the bus, and all of a sudden bells and whistles are going off? I understand being a mandatory reporter, and of course, if you discover real abuse, you should do something.

But something like this? Come on...

Life is complicated enough for adults, never mind the kids, without adding this sort of suspicion and stress. And when the adults in their world suddenly become wary of everything... it definitely makes things pretty confusing and bewildering for a six-year-old.