Top 4 Things I Wish My Son Would UNlearn from Kindergarten

Friday’s “What the frak…?” moment (WTFM) is brought to you by……….

Kindergarten: They claim it’s to help your child learn to socialize, but in reality it is a secret communist/Bin Laden/far right government/far left government/religious /those who hate paying taxes to schools because they don’t have kids/canine/feline/atheist/diabolical  plot designed to destroy the educational system by ensuring your child learns the most annoying behavior imaginable to torture both teachers and parents.

“Kindergarten is about learning social skills.”

Talk to any kindergarten teacher or administrator about what your child will learn in what they now dub “the new first grade” and these words will emerge from their lips.

At first, I thought this was brilliant. A way to teach my son the “proper” way to behave when around children his age.

Three months later, and a part of me wishes I’d homeschooled.

My son took it upon himself to acquire and mimic just about every existing bad behavior among five-year-olds.

None of which he did prior to entering kindergarten.

I should not be surprised. He is the experimenter. The child who wants to test anything. At age three, he would purposefully choose every wrong answer in an iPod app before choosing the correct one. Just to see what happens.

His peers and teacher are his new experimental group.

Annoying behavior #1: The Kisser

My son likes his personal space, but for some reason he cannot fathom why other people do. After two weeks of school, reports from his teacher began to show an unexpected trend.

He wouldn’t stop kissing people. Boy. Girl. Wanted or unwanted. He had transformed into That Boy Who Tries to Kiss Everybody.

I remember a child who did the same when I was in grade school.

And now, my son joins the ranks, although the reports of this behavior have dwindled in recent weeks.

Annoying behavior #2: The Taunter

I’m seven again and I can hear it from across the play ground.

“Na-na-na-boo-boo! You can’t catch me.”

Thirty years and nine hundred miles later, my son has not only heard it, but in his true parroting fashion, finds it hilarious to repeat.

Annoying behavior #3: Anything Exiting from Your Bottom is Hilarious

Gas. Excrement.

Funniest things on the plant.

Combining them with other nouns to form such words like “poopyhead” is even funnier.

I am told this is a boy thing.

While it did exist in a minor form before kindergarten, the prevalence has increase exponentially.

Annoying behavior #4: ???

I want to tell you.

I do.

But I can’t.

The husband said no.

It is a single incident too, so that’s good.

Still, NEVER happened before kindergarten and true to just about everything my son does: someone else did it first.

My husband and I have always said,

“The Tackler doesn’t need a pattern, only precedence.”

I’m sure somewhere in there, he must be learning something positive. I mean the law of averages has to kick in somewhere. I just don’t hear about those. Right?

The only evidence I witness is the rare day he comes home in the color blue and tells me, “[Lists off names of three friends] got into blue today, so I told my brain to listen.”

So maybe there’s hope.

I have a feeling just about every annoying behavior will have to be tested and tried in the process.

It’s the only scientific thing to do.

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What is the most annoying/scary/hilarious thing either you or your child learned from another?