Frank's Hat

Frank got his hat taken away at school, by his teacher. School rule: no hats. He has been wearing hats. Gets warnings, still wears hat. Mrs. Cole takes his hat away. She keeps it for a few days, I could have emailed or called and he would’ve gotten it back, but I figured it was a good lesson to be without it for a week.

This morning he comes to me and tells me that in order to get his hat back, I have to go to the school for a parent-teacher conference. Okay, that seems major for a hat infraction. He gives me a few minutes and then comes up to me as I’m folding laundry and says, “Mom, are you mad at me?”
I answer, “Why would I be mad at you?”
“About the hat.”
“Well Frank, is this the same hat that was taken away before?”
“Um, yeah . . . well, she gave it back and then took it away again.”
“Why did she take it away again?”
“Because I was wearing it at recess.”
Exasperated sigh.
“Frank, I’m not mad at you, BUT, you have been pushing boundaries here, at school, at Taekwondo, everywhere . . . blah, blah, blah.”

I emailed Mrs. Cole to find out if I really needed to come to school about the hat, or was there more to it? She answered that no, it was just the hat and now that we had the email exchange, she would slip it into his backpack at the end of the day.

I answered her with a reiteration of my conversation with Frank and knew that it was a hectic time of the year for her to keep track of his hat for a few more days (10 more days til the last day of school), BUT I hated that he was getting off this easily.

Mrs. Cole offered to keep the hat for the summer. I won’t go that far, but I appreciate Mrs. Cole offering and like her even more for it.