Mila is Smarter than the System

For what it's worth, I long ago declared the "red, yellow, green" method of encouraging good behavior at school to be THE DUMBEST THING EVER OMG. Everything about the system is terrible and stupid and I'm very glad Alexis only had one year of it. Even better, her one year of it was a looser version that the norm with far fewer opportunities for stupidity to happen.

But here we go again.

Mila's kindergarten teacher believes in the whole thing. Every little angle of it. (Not shockingly, her teacher HAS to be about ten seconds from having retirement slap her in the face.) She believes in the worst version of the whole thing, the version where a daily status report comes home and I have to sign it.

It's one thing to judge my kid's behavior; it's another to tie my ability to remember to open a folder and sign something to her behavior. Spoiler alert: I'm really bad at signing things every day. I maybe sorta kinda taught a different kid how to forge my signature YEARS ago for that exact reason. Ahem.

ANYWAY. Mila sits at school every day, has someone decide if she deserves to stay at green or not, and then has to color in a circle on a piece of paper and bring it home for me to sign. This game is going to last until Parent Teacher Conferences when I'm going to argue my way out of the while thing (I hope) because IT IS SO DUMB.

Though, I will admit it's not likely to do Mila any harm. She's not the kind of kid who is going to be motivated by it, but she's also not going to be discouraged by it. She has already figured out that the kid who has been yellow for the past week is still rocking the yellow and nothing bad has happened to him. She doesn't realize that there's probably a bigger story to the whole situation; she knows that he's yellow and no angry dragons have flown down to the earth and swallowed him whole. Thus, she can be yellow and everything will be just fine. The flip side of it won't do much for her either - the "getting caught being good" side. While every once in a while she will be flattered by a compliment when she's doing something she should do, mostly Mila operates on the theory that she will do what she wants to do for her own reasons.

She is 100% self-motivated. Outside forces have no impact. Threats, bribes ... it doesn't matter. She makes up her mind to do what is best according to her view of the world at the exact moment that she has to make a decision.

A few days ago, the thing that made the most sense according to her world view was to take the little scissors that were in her hand and ... *snip*snip*

You guys, the "It is attached" about killed me. WHY? WHY ARE WE SENDING HOME ENVELOPES WITH HAIR IN THEM? I know the answer is that evidence eliminates the opportunity for the parent to decide the thing never happened but COME ON. I've met Mila. Every ounce of me believes she would make the decision to cut her own hair.

Except ... she cut about an inch off of three or four strands. She didn't give herself crazy bangs or take a total whack at it ... three or four strands. I'm torn between, "Why do I need to know about this?" and "HOW IS SHE STILL GREEN?" If it's bad enough to tell mom, shouldn't it be bad?

I AM SO CONFUSED.

And so is Mila. We talked about how we're not going to cut our hair EVER AGAIN OMFG, CHILD. I was pretty clear that the only people who can hold scissors within a foot of Mila's head are me and professional hairdressers, AND YET. And yet, Mila's takeaway from the whole situation, " ... It's okay if I cut my hair. See! I was still green!"

Did I mention that red, yellow, and green behavior things are the dumbest?

Comments

[Susan]

My takeaway from this is just shock that grandma alexis committed forgery.

[JackieHall]

My son had to do that but he duped the system and kept putting green. But he also knew he would get in trouble by me if he had any other color. (We didn't have to sign off on them. Maybe we did. He is 27 now so it's been a minute.) . Yes, that system is silly.