Hands are for Helping

Ada has started Kindergarten this year and loves it.  I went to pick her up awhile ago (it has taken me a while to post this story) and her teacher beckoned me to the door.  "Ada had a bit of an altercation in class today," she confided in me, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips.  I was a little confused by her expression.  She went on.  "I didn't see what happened.  Her friend Julie was playing with the blocks, I think, and another little boy, Franky, might have tried to take them.... Anyway, when I looked over Ada was threatening Franky with her fist."

"Oh dear," I said.  The small smile on the teachers face grew slightly and I became even more perplexed.

"We try to teach the kids that they can't hit by telling them 'hands are for helping'.  When I saw Ada with Franky, I said, 'Ada!  Hands are for helping!!!'.  She turned to look at me with her first still in Franky's face and said, quite calmly, 'I am helping - I am helping Julie."

Apparently, the teacher took Ada's actions very seriously and Ada was asked to sit in the thinking chair.  The teacher said Ada was very calm about everything until that moment, at which point she became outraged.  Ada told me all about it on the way home, complaining that she had wanted to make it through the whole year without going to the thinking chair.  She clearly felt that the Kindergarten policies weren't clear. 

"Ada!" I said, "You pinned another child to the wall, of course you had to sit in the thinking chair!"