The Bathroom Ninja

When you’re a parent, you expect to get a few calls from your child’s teacher. We were not prepared for the call we got last week from our 7-year-old son’s second grade teacher.

Apparently, he was climbing to the tops of toilets and catapulting himself over the stalls. When questioned about this behavior, the child indicated that he was “being a bathroom ninja.”

This is one of those times I was really glad my husband had taken the call. Quite honestly, I’d have laughed until I peed my pants, which is not the most dignified of responses when your child’s teacher calls you during the day about what she believes to be a serious issue.

I had some fun thinking about what our responses to this situation might be:

“Clearly, son, if you’re being caught, then you need to work on your ninja skills. Real ninjas don’t get caught…”

“The term ‘Bathroom Ninja’ does not mean the same thing as you think it means, kiddo, so you really shouldn’t call yourself one...”

“We know you have catlike reflexes…but what if a clumsy kid sees you and decides to try it, too? Mommy and Daddy could get sued…”

Our youngest child’s antics are such that it’s hard to discipline him with a straight face because so often the things he does are cute, or funny, or both. We will have no problem coming up with stories to regale his prom date, or his bride when that time comes. What we do find it difficult to do is to disguise the fact that this kid does comical stuff, for better and for worse. It’s his world, and we just live in it.

What we’ve taken to doing is telling him that it’s “funny but wrong.” We don’t want to squash his imagination. We also don’t want him sent to the principal’s office. So, for his “bathroom ninja” tomfoolery, we have instructed him that it’s “funny but wrong, and also unsafe,” and if he does it again he will be sent to the prinicpal’s office and also grounded at home from the TV, the computer and the Xbox.

We wanted to know why our son became the bathroom ninja. After some uncomfortable questioning, the boy revealed that the bathroom monitor (another child from his class, performing a duty that gets rotated) had said it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.

“So,” I tried to follow his logic. “This boy told you that your trick was the coolest thing he’d ever seen, but then he told the teacher what you’d done.”

“Yeah.”

“Were you expecting that the kid wouldn’t tell on you? Even though it’s your job to be the bathroom monitor?”

“Keep it straight, mom. He’s the bathroom monitor, I’m the bathroom ninja.” (See what I mean? It’s honestly hard to keep a straight face…)

In the end, it became important for the boy to understand that he was lucky to not have hurt himself, and that he has other qualities that will have his classmates thinking he’s cool and that he doesn’t have to resort to dangerous physical stunts.

I do think we’ve gotten his attention and that he knows not to do his bathroom ninja thing anymore. I do not, however, believe we are finished with this child doing silly things to try to impress his classmates, nor are we finished with trying not to laugh at him. Time will tell.