Steven Easton

Follow Through With Your Threats

Thursday, May 23

In one week, I'm gonna be all done with school. That reality is such a weird feeling. Like, I've waited so long for this, but at the same time the month of May has gone by so fast. I cannot even explain how weird of a feeling this is. 

Also, in one week, Ava's dad and Ava will either be best friends or worst enemies. I don't know if there is room for an in between alternative or which one would be better.

Ava and I have gotten along fine today, but I still can't tell if she's secretly mad at me. I think she knows that I genuinely want the best for her because that is what she deserves, but I don't know if she actually understands the concepts of these adult topics that she should've never had to deal with. 

I feel bad because selfishly, I am glad that I am the one raising Ava. She's my kid, but what would've been best for her is different than what happened. In a perfect world, she'd have Stacey and Nick as involved parents. Stacey and Nick would've been married first with stable jobs, but here we are in this mess. It's worth dealing with if it means that in the end Ava knows how cherished she is. 

When I got home today, Ava was playing school again; I could hear her as soon as I walked in the door because she was yelling at one of her American Girl Dolls, so I decided to come up the stairs to check out what was going on.

"Miss Easton," I walked in her "classroom". "Is there a problem?"

"Yes, Julie keeps on trying to fall asleep during class. Look at her."

To me, it looked more like Julie simply just fell over and needed a little extra support. "Oh, my goodness." I walked over to Julie, placing her back up. "Are you okay?" I asked Julie. Then I looked back at Ava. "Oh, my. Miss Easton, she's not responding. What do we do?"

"She's playing dumb. Don't buy it."

"I don't know," I countered. "This is kind of hard to fake. Are you sure she's okay?"

"She does this all the time."

"Maybe she needs some help. Like, most people don't just randomly fall down because they're bored."

Rolling her eyes, she just shook her head. "Julie, don't do that again. This is your last warning."

"Better follow through with your threats," I mumbled on the way out. One thing I learned about parenting and teaching is that if you don't follow through with your threats, people don't learn to respect you... hence the fact I have not given Ava her phone back after sneaking onto social media without my permission. 

While I was making dinner tonight, I was thinking about the punishments I have given Ava and some of my students, and there have been times where I've wondered if I have been too harsh on some of them. There are some students who cannot handle harsh punishments, and that's where things get tricky. Where do you draw the line? Should punishments always be equal for everyone? I don't know.