It's hard to be a kid these days...

Wanna know what you get for doing the right thing? Ya get in trouble, that's what you get. Well that's if you're a kid in school these days, what with zero tolerance polices on weapons and such...let me very briefly explain that statement.

I was reading news online, and stumled upon a story at upi.com that summarized in two sentences a recent incident at a Georgia school that got me going.

I completely understand the need to discipline children who knowingly bring weapons of any sort to school with the intent to hurt another, but what I don't understand, and never will, are the zero tolerance policies that schools across our nation have instituted against weapons in school or even things that look like weapons. With a zero tolerance policy in effect, schools are foolishly and harshly penalizing young children for bringing toys to school...like the kindergartner i told you about last year that got suspended for bringing a half inch long plastic lego gun to school to play with his lego men. And now, a child has been punished for unwittingly bringing a weapon to school and alerting the necessary authorities to the incident so it could be taken care of.

The story I found online..."A Georgia boy learned an unpleasant lesson about self-incrimination. The thirteen year old (I left out the name) brought a 1 1/2-inch-long knife to school and “immediately self-reported” to campus officials, says a report by Lanier Middle School in Gwinnett County." So, this kid got to school and realized he accidentally brought his pocket knife with him so he took it to the administration so he wouldn't get in trouble if it were found on him. Well that was the smart thing to do....let the school administration know a mistake was made, leave the item in their care and have parents pick it up later, right? You'd think...but no.
For doing the right thing, the boy was rewarded with four days’ in-school suspension. This irritates me in the worst way. Way to teach a kid that lying and or sneaking is a better alternative to telling the truth. If he hadn't said anything he probably wouldn't have gotten caught, but no, he was honest and his honesty was rewarded with suspension.

Seriously, something has got to change. Children are children...and that makes them human...and although humans, even children can be scary and do horrible things...not all children are that way...you can't punish them like they're all the same. If my child got suspended for doing the right thing or for being a child and bringing a toy (even one that looks like a weapon) to school...they would become home-schooled. Just sayin.