a conversation with my 9 year old

I love the school that my kids go to and here is one of many reasons why…the principal whom I have gotten to know over the last 8 years sent me the following interaction he had with my 9 year old son this morning…I loved it so much I thought I would share.

The principal caught my son doing backward cartwheels on the railing outside his classroom. Of course he stopped when the principal came around the corner. The principal went up to him and put his arm around him nicely and just said to him quietly that he wanted him to know he had seen him doing cartwheels and he was pretty sure my son knew not to be doing this. He agreed that he knew not to do it.   So the principal said that was great and that he didn’t need to worry about him doing that anymore. 

The principal then suggested maybe he should run a small current through the railing so that if students climbed on it they would get a small shock and asked him what he thought about that. “ You know, like they do with cow fences to stop the cows from pushing on the fence”.  My son knew the principal was joking with him.

“Well”, my son asked, “what kind of metal is this railing made of?”

“I don’t know”, the principal replied, “but as long as it’s metal it will conduct electricity”.

“Yes” my son said, “but if it’s made of copper or zinc then it will really give us a zap because they conduct electricity really well”.

“True”, the principal said,  “now, I know this  because I’ve built lots of houses and they use copper in all the wires and I’ve gotten a shock a few times… but how do you know that?”

“Well, I just know this kind of stuff.” my son said. “ I find this really interesting.  You’ve built houses?”

“Yes, I’ve built lot’s of houses because I love building…log houses, frame houses all sorts” the principal said.

My son then walked over to the end of the railing and said…”If we put the wire through this wall no one would see it and we could surprise them!”

“Yes…that’s true…but we are just joking around aren’t we?”

“Yes, of course, we are just joking”.

————-

So I only have to add that now I am terrified my son is going to build some kind of electric shock mechanism and surprise us all 🙂