Reply to Kid's friends want to be police officers -- how to handle

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP - Since you have raised the topic of my son's (and one other child's) contribution to the end-of-school year video and suggested raising the topic with the parents, please do reach out.  I would be happy to talk with you about the conversations I’ve had with my son, the signs we have made and books we've read, and the protest march he took part in this past weekend.    [/quote]

How would I know which parent you are?  What are your kid's initials?[/quote]

OP: How did you think that would land?

This way of asking, this sense of entitlement and self-centered questioning, indicates your worldview even more clearly “how would I know...?” vs “may I ask...” or “I would like to talk to you but I’m not sure...” And demanding “ID your kid” vs “was your child in a red shirt” or similar... it is really not helping your cause if you are really, truly thinking you are looking to open hearts and minds.

If you were truly interested in meeting your child’s friend’s parent as an equal in open discourse, I think your mindset would be different.

I think it is remarkable and mature that this parent, having been the topic of your assumption-laden, (in my view) mean-spirited 14+ page trolling, is reaching out to you. Perhaps consider your response in a more thoughtful way. Perhaps consider other people are reaching to you in the interest of bona fide dialogue and building bridges.

Stop posting here. Take action in the real world in a real way. Call this parent. There are only 2, you say. Go ahead and call. Your message had made its way around. People on the internet do not think you are behaving in a reasonable way. Rather than doubling down and digging your heels in and getting the same overwhelming negative reception here, maybe engage in a dialogue and you will both learn something or grow your mindset and jump to fewer conclusions in the future. Or maybe all 100+ commenters here will be proven wrong. [/quote]

Too bad DCUM doesn't have track changes.  Then you could line edit my post to use the exact phrasing you believe appropriate.

In reality, I dashed a very quick response just trying to get the info I would need to take the person up on their offer for me to reach out.  I was weighing each syllable like it was my dissertation.  Your idea to have asked for the shirt color, or something like that was reasonable -- I simply didn't think of it in the 15 seconds I took to respond.

Your post is also quite contradictory.  You make it clear that you think I am an idiot for thinking about calling these parents.  But, then you say I should just call them both since it is only two, rather than me trying to identify the person who said they were interested in talking.  If my proposed action is as crazy as you claim, you should support my effort to try to reach out to only the parent who has an interest in hearing my crazy ideas and not subject both parents to my rantings.

And, since the person who said I should reach out is quite possibly not even in the class and maybe no one wants to hear my thoughts, it seems prudent of me to try to see if I can id the person who actually would be interested in talking.[/quote]

PP here, who asked OP “how do you think that would land?”

You didn’t think about the other person - who is reaching out in a really generous & mature way - at all. Got it.

I disagree with your reaction to this parents allowing their preschooler to express himself, yes. But I don’t personally think you’re crazy.

I do think you are very defensive and deflecting accountability for making poor assumptions about your child’s friend’s parents, and for some reason really want to stay engaged (and even escalate!) in an anonymous Internet forum instead of having real discourse in the real world, with someone you say you are friendly with!?

I think you’ve gotten some actual constructive suggestions here, call the school, call the parents, or re-examine your own assumptions, those are basically your choices. [/quote]

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