When Your Kid Is the Classroom Problem Child

Whenever Kim gets a call from her son Alexander’s school, she presses “record” on her phone so she’ll have evidence, just in case. These calls come frequently. For example, recently, Alex, who is a handsome third-grader with longish wavy brown hair and sleepy eyes, climbed on top of his classroom’s closet, which juts out from the wall. The school’s parent coordinator FaceTimed Kim to see if she could talk him down. Kim shared the audio with me.

“Hey buddy … can you come down, sweetheart?” Kim coaxes over the phone, which is on speaker. Alex starts throwing school supplies down at the parent coordinator.

“Please don’t throw stuff. Stop kicking that, buddy.” The parent coordinator’s voice rises in panic: “I want you to see the dangerous situation he’s in … I’m not going to stand here and allow him to throw me with stuff … have a good day. BYE.”

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