Puppet Theatre

Last Monday as I headed in to put Samantha to bed, Jay asked me to talk to her about her homework.  When they were working on it after school, she was being really evasive anytime he asked her questions about it and he thought it was kind of fishy.

I asked her some basic questions and she kept saying, “I’m not talking about my homework, and I already told Daddy that.”  When I pushed, she told me it was a secret and she didn’t want to get in trouble, so then I started to get a little worried.  I looked her straight in the eye and told her that no matter what she said, she wouldn’t be in trouble and that secrets aren’t good and even though I could tell she heard me, she still wasn’t going to spill.

Finally I put a pillow up in between us like a wall, stuck my hand up like a puppet, and in a squeaky voice said, “Hey Sami! Can you tell me your secret?”

Two seconds later her hand appeared over the pillow and I heard, “I copied all of my homework off of Joseph.”

Extremely relieved that it wasn’t something BAD, we had a heart to heart about cheating and how if she doesn’t understand her work she should tell the teacher instead of copying, because she needs to learn this.  After a few minutes I said, “Have you copied off of Joseph before?” and she replied, “No, NEVER!”

[pause]

“I usually copy off of Julie.”

We just got her progress report and I have send Julie’s parents a thank you note for raising such a smart child.  Sam’s getting straight A’s.