how to deal with little monsters

yeah mega-bummer

aaaaaand to close out the story that started this thread: the teacher who presided over my child's beating had her last day today. she is 4 mos pregnant and is leaving to take time off and pursue her master's/get properly accredited and the whole process of her leaving has made it ABUNDANTLY clear what an incompetent prima donna she is (complaining that the term "discipline" should have no place in the co-op's rules and regulations, demanding that she be able to tell parents, individually and personally, when she was leaving rather than let the board handle it, e-mailing parents about how unlikely it is that the co-cop will be able to find a replacement with her "experience" etc.) just ridiculous behavior, the woman does not know how to leave a job. my wife really had to bite her tongue through the whole process.

Wow.

haha maybe not the first ILP thread you should have clicked on...

Hah well I'd followed this earlier. I will say one of the things I am not looking forward to is dealing with a wider assortment of mentally ill people in San Francisco.

jesus christ can you imagine what her kid is gonna be like?!

is it just me who was all 'yay!' when they read kkvgz's asshole neighbor died???

You would be joining my wife. : ) I was certainly repulsed by and lived in fear of the guy. We had an alarm installed after one incident with him. We seriously considered buying a gun for home-defense.

But like in many, if not most, abusive relationships, he wasn't 100% always an asshole to his kid. So the memories of him hollering at the boy and the squalid and dangerous conditions the poor kid had to live in are offset a little by memories of the man fixing up the old dune buggy he kept in his yard and taking the little boy out for ice-cream this summer. It's a balance. I imagine the kid's memories of his dad will be bittersweet and Christmas might be a more difficult time of year to deal with now.

It's all I can do to hope that the boy's life gets better from here. I don't know how much better it will get, but I'm pretty sure it will.

(all of which as a way of saying that I'm not exactly all "yay", but more just like cautiously optimistic)

why wasnt he living with his mom in the first place?