Kind Kid

Last week I got a strange and slightly garbled message on my answering machine from the principal of Owen’s school.  The message sounded slightly pre-recorded and said something about asking my child about eating lunch with the principal in connection with the Kind Kid Award.  Since Owen goes to morning Kindergarten, and leaves before lunch, I figured that the message was announcing the installation of the program at school or that it was sent to my number by mistake.

Later that day or the next, Owen began explaining a new award that he had learned about in school called the Kind Kid award.  I wondered if maybe that message was talking about Owen after all.

Mama: Wow, that sounds like a nice award to get.  Tell me more about that!

Owen: It sounds TERRIBLE to me!!  I hope I NEVER get it!!

Mama: Aaaaaaaa

Owen: Do you know what happens if you get the Kind Kid award?!?!

Mama: What?

Owen:  You have to eat lunch with the principal! (Mouth hanging open)

Mama: I think it would be an honor to eat lunch with the principal.  I would get to sit next to a special person in your school and people would know that I was a kind person even if they had never met me.

Owen: I NEVER want to do that!  And I don’t want to win that award.  There is NO WAY that I am going to stay at school for so so long and eat lunch there.  I would be home so late!

It wasn’t that Owen didn’t want the award.  It was that he was  worried about staying “after school”. My poor worrying baby!  This is the first week that he has easily gone to school without being upset (even though he loves it when he gets there.)   I tried to convince Owen that half-day kindergarteners would do something else with the principal other than eating  lunch– maybe eating snack together?  Owen wasn’t buying it.  There was no way he was going to take a chance like that.  The next day, at some random part of the day, Owen told me again that he never wanted to have the award.  I began to worry that he would start to be an “un-kind kid” in order to avoid that award…

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Yesterday Owen ran out of school yelling, “I know what they do instead for the Kind Kid Award!  They principal just gives you a necklace!”  And he held out this.

And later I saw this paper in his backpack.

It read, “Owen is a wonderful kindergartner.  He always comes into class ready to learn and with a smile on his face.  I notice that Owen is eager to read and write.  He is so kind and polite to all the kids in our class. I’m so grateful he is in our kindergarten class and can’t wait to see all the learning he does this year!

Mrs. Perry  “