The S word

A few days ago I was grading papers and I looked up to see a pale faced Jaxon and his first grade teacher Mrs. Hull (Jen's mom) standing there. She said, "Jaxon needs to talk to you about saying the S word in class" then she quickly left the room leaving Jaxon beside my desk and my entire class watching to see what my reaction would be. Jaxon was about to cry as I gave him the meanest look possible. Under his breath he said, "it wasn't S-H-I-T, it was shut-up." In my mind I was wondering why in the world she was making such a big deal out of him saying shut-up, but I guess that it really isn't a nice thing to say so I let him have it. I really let him have it, telling him that Santa may not come if he behaves this way, and why would he ever talk that way, and he is grounded from friends, XBOX , and TV until he could earn it back. Then I sent him back to class. About 10 minutes later, I get a call from Mrs. Hull. "What has he done now?" I thought. Mrs. Hull tells me that she just found out what the S word was. She tells me that a little girl in her class tattled on him for saying the S word. She assumed it was S-H-I-T and called Jaxon back to her table to have a talk with him. He told her that his mom says it all the time and that it is OK if he says it because his mom lets him say it. Well, she couldn't believe that I let him talk that way and that is when she brought him to talk it over with me. She felt bad, but I felt worse. I had just scared the crap out of Jaxon for saying shut up.