Grasshopper New Media Presents...

I have been having a challenge with my fourth grader. Every time I ask him if he has any papers for me, he says no. He’s getting his homework done, but he often says he doesn’t have this paper or that one. On a recent spelunking mission through said backpack, I found several permission slips, notices, order forms and the like gradually turning to compost at the bottom of the backpack. The child screams every time I go near the thing, as if I am about to discover closely held state secrets.

This morning, he announced he had an evening event- The Reading Olympics, at a local highschool. No forms, papers, notices, nothing. So I strapped on my miner’s hat, got by repelling harnesses and entered The Backpack Of Doom, after many warnings and cautionary tales fed to me by said child. Indeed, no such information could be recovered. (An invitation to a dance class from January was located, two permission slips, a teacher appreciation week notice, and part of a candy cane that simply scared the crap out of me.)

After accusing him of preparing for a career in the CIA or FBI, I simply related the tale in an email to his teacher, and await confirmation of the report. I suspect he is correct, because he could recall a remarkable amount of specific information, but I really want his in writing.

Have you ever encountered this problem? How do we walk the line between taking our child’s word for it when asking them if there’s stuff I need to see, and when do you enter the Cave of Wonders? Clearly, said child needs more regular clean outs, organization, and parentally-forced investigation and dumping expeditions into the Backpack of Doom - that’s my responsibility. And he hates it when I freak out about the stuff I find, but after the lies/prevarications/whoppers/exaggerations of the lack of information to be found and finding out the truth is much to the contrary, what is the proper parent response? Freaking out seemed slightly reasonable to get my point across.

I’m dying to hear your suggestions and whether anyone else lives in fear of what they might find in the Backpack of Doom.

by Whitney Hoffman

Photo graciously provided by derpunk, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

[tags]advise, apprehensions, backpack, children, information, kids, lost, messy, papers, Parenting, parents, personal privacy, school, trust[/tags]