Anxiety Prevails and The Lines Blur

Yikes.  Went to an after school theater activity with my kids.  Movie Man tried to skate past me to get out of attending.  He went last week and participated only after I caught him trying to leave the building without attending. So what's the big deal?  Why not let him skip out?  What is my problem? Well, I paid 85 bucks per kid to do this for a semester, and Movie Man begged me repeatedly to sign him up.  By early December, they put on a production.  He wanted to be on stage. Now, a handful of schools are included and my guess is a total of about 125 kids are involved.  Obviously the prime parts are out of reach for my two kiddies.  Thank God.  We don't need any more stress from having to MEMORIZE! lines.  


Anyway, as the rapidly paced activities were taking place, I glanced up from my ed leadership text to see how my kids were doing.  I really wish I had not.  It was this large circle activity where the kids take turns running up to another kiddo and say their name, that kid says their name back, then runs across the circle to say their name to another kid.  Guess whose kids NEVER got approached?  I watched them get smaller and smaller and could read their faces quite clearly.  They were hurt and they were withdrawing.


OK.  My kids are introverts, but they are not what other kids would identify as weird by appearance.  They dress hip, have hip hair cuts, but they exude introvertism.  They  are not jump- into- the- crowd- and- make- it- work kind of kids.  Even after that, Superman got up and auditioned!  My props to Superman!  


However, Movie Man told me on the walk home he almost threw up while we were there and he really does not want to go back.  He was miserable.  Really miserable.  So, even though he raised a HUGE stink and insisted I sign him up, and even though I paid, I am going to let him out of it.  He has an anxiety disorder and this serves no purpose.


Parenting with grace means I need to truly embrace all that my children are and are not.  They don't like sports, but they kick ass in Beatles Rock Band.  They don't invite friends over and friends don't invite them over, but they are good and caring little men.  They like their time at home left to their own devices.  This is hard in our society; having this kind of kid.  So, that excruciatingly painful hour of watching my kids in activities that others thrive in was yet another parent smack down.


Now about school...or continuing the sage.  RT (replacement teacher) has done more dirty dog things to younger teachers and I now see that my administrator is between a rock and hard place.  RT is evil.  My parapros are afraid of her, my old students are afraid of her. This not good.  My principal sent a message to me through one of my dearest friends who still works at my school.  The message was that she adored me and wanted me back next year.


I guess that you don't need to be an administrator to be on The Dark Side. Maybe, just maybe, some of the teachers are on a dark side of sorts and put the administrators in really difficult positions that require certain action and that can interpreted as Dark Side moves.


Oh dear, the lines are starting to blur already and I am only in this admin program 5 weeks.