Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

I guess life lessons are appropriately named, because if they teach you properly they stick with you for life. One of my most profound life lesson in parenting  happened when Jeffery was about 4  years old (Jeff is pictured on the right with his cousin Damon). Travel back to 1993 with me and I will share my story with you.

 I had been having a really rough day. I was dealing with a colicky, sick baby and had gotten about zero hours of sleep the night before. At the time the incident happened I was at my my mothers house doing laundry (as I did not have a washer and dryer at my apartment) and Jessica had been crying for about an hour. Jeff had gone out to the neighborhood playground to play.

As I was trying desperately to get Jess to stop crying and go to sleep for a while, there was a knock at the door. I opened it and there stood Jeff, looking like he was about to break into tears, with a very angry looking woman standing behind him.

Angry woman: "Your son was at the playground throwing rocks at my daughter"

Jeff: "No I wasn't mom, I swear!"

Angry woman: "I saw you with my own eyes. Are you calling me a lier?! You were standing there throwing rocks at her while she was swinging on the swing."

Jeff: "I wasn't throwing rocks at her."

Me: "Jeff, why would this lady lie?! Just go get into the house, I'll deal with you later." Then to the woman, "I'm really sorry, I will talk to him"

At this point she said some choice words to me about my parenting skills (I don't really remember what was said, it's pretty much been blocked out of my memory at this point) and stormed off. Well, she was right about one thing, I really needed to work on my parenting skills: but not in the way she was telling me to.

The next moment broke my heart. I walked into the house ready to give Jeff a what for and saw him crying in my mom's lap. She looked up at me and said, "I think you better listen to his side of the story"...... his side of the story? I have wondered many times since that incident why I didn't listen to his side of the story while that lady was standing there yelling at us both.

Here is what really happened. Jeff had gone to the park to play. There weren't any other children there to play with, except a really small girl on a swing with her mother: too small to play with, so he was bored. He started picking up small rocks on the playground and was making a game out of being able to hit the post on the swing set. It was something he and his dad did all of the time (still do as a matter of fact). They will pick an object a certain distance away and then see who can hit it first with a rock. He was trying to hit the post of the same said swing set that the little girl was swinging on. Her mother perceived that as Jeff was throwing rocks at her little girl. Jeff's only offense was he was throwing rocks in the wrong place, but it wasn't at anyone.

When I heard what really happened my heart melted. I was feeling like the biggest heel ever to walk the planet. Instead of me, his mother, comforting him and standing up for him, I had thrown him to the wolves and my mother was the one picking up the pieces.

I learned a very valuable lesson that day and have used it many times since with both of my children. I will never just take someones word over my kids. I will listen to both sides of the story and evaluate the situation before I say anything to anyone. There are so many times when others will think the worst of a child, assuming they are just a punk kid, and don't really look at the situation for what it really is: and many times they will exert their "authority" over said child. If the person accusing my child of something doesn't not want to wait long enough for me to listen to both sides of the story, then sorry - I take my kids side.

On rare occasion my kids have been in the wrong, but most of the time it's just a case of misunderstanding. No one was in the wrong, unless failure to communicate was the offense. This tactic has helped me build a strong bond of trust with both of my children, has helped them out of several sticky situations and has also helped them learn how to deal with people better.

Remember, the saying isn't "guilty until proven innocent", it's "innocent until proven guilty".