Is any mystery as mysterious as whether or not a 6-year-old is too sick to go to school on a cold and wet Monday morning?
Because the child’s claim and its need for resolution happen under the intense time pressure of the morning rush and its multiple emotional stressors, involving unironed shirts and other children who won’t brush their teeth, it is almost impossible to accurately gather, weigh and interrogate the evidence.
Also, there is no evidence. If there was evidence, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. If a judge walked into the sorry scene at 8am and had to make a decision, she would have no choice but to summarily dismiss the child’s case, even in the face of the child complaining that he doesn’t know what “circumstantial” means. Easy for the judge. She doesn’t have to live with him.
On the rare occasions there is evidence, it is scanty and contradictory. For instance, my 6-year-old’s “sicknesses” are always worst on Mondays, which suggests a mental issue, but as we now know, mental issues are health issues. They are also probable causes of the sore tummies that are his most prominent physical symptom.
Last Monday, as usual, he told us he was sick and I told him he had to go to school and he told me he wouldn’t, and things continued to escalate until he eventually screamed at me and ran away. He returned 10 minutes later, only to throw a piece of paper at me before running away again. On it, he’d written in increasingly large and angry lettering the words, “sick sick sick sick sick sicky SICK!”