Mama Bear had her claws out!

Think of an image like Marvel Comics' Wolverine character, but looking something more like me. Then you can imagine the image I had in my head of myself tonight during Drew's class.

The week before graduation/testing is always insane. But tonight was particularly insane. There were two classes going on at once, so there was a lot of noise from that. Throw in a screaming toddler (and I mean SCREAMING), parents talking louder than usual, and Drew's class ki-hap-ing extra loud, you can imagine my poor kid with sensory integration dysfunction going nuts. I mean, I have SID too, and it was unnerving me as well, but I can grit my teeth and bear it a little better being an adult. But what really was pissing me off was that my kid, who is finally starting to learn to speak up and speak to an instructor or teacher when he's having trouble, said something and it was partially blown off. What was worse was that several of the kids in his class that were around him saw it fit that when seeing him freak out with the loud ki-haps, even when he asked nicely for them to stop doing it quite so loud, they proceeded to ki-hap to the point of a scream, thus freaking him out more on purpose. I could see it in their beady little eyes-- they wanted to taunt him more with their actions. In my head, my claws were sharpened, and I was ready to pounce on those little brats. Eventually, Drew just removed himself from class, came and cried on my shoulders while holding his ears. All that noise, the school ambiance paired with the yelling in his class was just too much. When they finally started "practice graduation", I knew it would be quieter, and it was, so he joined class again. Later when he was sparring, he was one of the first to get his board broken, thus he was sparring the longest, so he was tired and opted out, but sat nicely on the side of the mats until everyone was done.

I spoke to JZ (who was teaching the class), and I was glad that she did say something in general to the kids about their ki-haps, but I had to explain to her what was happening to Drew. When I said something to SW, she said she saw him go over to me, and she didn't do anything, because she knew exactly what was going on, so she didn't want to interfere. But I made it clear that several of the kids-- without naming names-- were intentionally yelling louder to bother Drew, and in turn, that bothered me a LOT.

This is a school that likes to pride itself in teaching respect, especially for kids that have special needs or are different. Drew is one of those kids. The kids who were essentially being bullies were not being respectful of him. And I wasn't going to let that go unsaid. I pay a lot of money for my kid to get the same TKD education as everyone else, and I want him to have a positive experience, but it's difficult under these circumstances. Hopefully next week, with graduation, things will calm down. We are starting to make some significant strides with him, and I don't want to backslide because of some little creepy brats.

Like I said, Mama Bear has her claws out. I'm not afraid to use them either. But hell, you can only imagine the constraint I had to have with myself to not jump right out there and clobber those kids, or at least give them the verbal reaming of their life.