Have you ever had a situation where your kid was accused of doing something and you thought to yourself “Nope, not my kid”?

A few years ago Zach was accused of being a bully. It was so far out of his character ~ being a bully. He was afraid of his own shadow at that point. He wouldn’t even sleep in his own room ~ he would crawl into Lucas’ room every night or make a bed for himself on our floor. When the accusations about Zach being a bully came out both Stan and I were adamant that Zach was not the culprit. We stood by him but I’m not sure we did the right thing.

Do I think he was a bully? No, not necessarily. Do I believe now that he was innocent of all charges? Not at all. I believe the truth was somewhere in between. At that point, though, we chose to bury our heads just a little bit more than we should have. I am not sure we did Zach any favors by standing by him as vehemently as we did but the people leveling the accusations were just so nasty in their approach it got my hackles up and I wasn’t about to back down. Not a good excuse ~ no excuse is good for behavior that is less than savory and his behavior was less than we expected (and expect) of any of our kids.

Zach was recently involved in another incident where his behavior was questionable. This time, although we wanted to say “Not my kid,” the evidence was too overwhelming and absolutely no favors would be done for Zach by burying our heads in the sand. He will have to face the consequences for his behavior and we ~ well, we have to own it and say “it was my kid.”

Oh, for the love of Zach…