Overheard from a fellow home schooling mom: "So I signed Johnny up for the class, but partway through the second session he said, 'Mom, can we leave? This is really boring.' So I took him home. I mean, I felt kinda bad for the teacher, because he was really loud, but what could I do? He was bored."
What could you do?
What could you do?
OK, how's this. You could understand that he's a child, and that it's perfectly natural for him to get easily bored, and to express his boredom loudly. He's seven and by that age I expect kids to have a bit more of an internal sensor, but every child is different and your child is not defective just because he doesn't get, yet, the fact that loudly proclaiming your boredom can hurt the feelings of the person who is speaking. You can be understanding, respect his feelings and his right to have his time wasted, and take him home.
Or you can respectfully but firmly insist that he stay in the class, because you are the parent and he is the child and presumably you know better than he what level of boredom he should be able to stand, and what knowledge he needs to learn. And because even the most charmed life contains necessary parts of boredom, and learning to put up and shut up and make the best of it is an important life skill to learn.
But whether you keep him in the class or take him home, you can bloody well insist that he apologize to the teacher for being rude. Most probably he had no intention of being rude, and if the teacher knows children (and this one does), she will understand and not hold it against him. You don't even have to be angry at him, any more than you need to be angry at him if he's still not perfect at tying his shoes. Politeness is a skill to be learned.
But he won't learn it if you're so bloody respectful of his feelings that you teach him that his are the only feelings that matter. There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with boredom. Your kid got it wrong. Don't abdicate your responsibility to help him get it right next time.
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