What we've got here is a failure to communicate.

Perhaps this is just a sign of my aging, but seriously, where are kids’ manners these days? When kids come in demanding an ice pack forgetting their p’s and q’s, unless there is an active emergency, I remain at my desk and tell them I can’t hear them.  Nobody’s teaching manners at home, so I try to teach them while I still can. The other day I had a sick girl already on the cot when a boy entered and I said, “What can I do for you, sir?” Suddenly the girl had energy, shot up and screeched, “You should have called me lady! You called him sir, that isn’t fair!” Excellent attention to detail, young lady, but she quieted down when I reminded her she was sick… and that she hadn’t addressed me as ma’am, either.

This week I saw child restraints for the first time. The kid was screaming so loud I began to wonder if I could later file for workman’s comp when I become hard of hearing because of it while he was being pinned by a resource teacher. Something had set him off, and after he spit in several kids’ faces and bit his teacher, they caught him for fear of further harm and destruction and brought him into my office. Twenty minutes later, he finally exhausted himself to the point of silence. All this, and the kid is only in first grade. Imagine what problems he has to come.