Mom Angry After School Draws On Son's Head With Marker

 

The mother of a middle school boy is demanding an apology after a school administrator drew on her son’s head with a marker.

Monica Esquival’s son, Kobi, has a haircut that his mother says is on-trend, according to Texas news station KCBD. “The style that’s coming out is the comb over,” she says. The cut features a shaved line in the side of Kobi’s head, intended to look like a part. Kobi has had the cut for five months, but Esquival says that last week, officials at Coronado Middle School in Plainview, Texas decided his hair was a distraction, and could be interpreted as gang-related.

As a solution, Esquival says the school’s assistant principal colored in the shaved line with a black marker, without her permission. “My son is not in a gang, he’s not trying to be in a gang. He dresses in khakis, a shirt, not in loose pants or anything, just real nice and casual,” Esquival told KCBD. She’s hoping the school will apologize to her son, and insists that his hair does, in fact, comply with school rules. “When I got copies of the dress code, on there it says, ‘designs shaved through the head,’ but I said it’s not a design, it’s the haircut.” She suggested that the school should consider updating the dress code.

Photo by KCBD.com

Officials at the Plainview Independent School District did not respond to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment, but Executive Director for Administrative Services, Greg Brown, addressed the incident at a recent school board meeting, according to the Plainview Daily Herald. “I can’t comment on the details of the specific incident you mentioned due to confidentiality,” he said. “Our dress code prohibits designs shaved into the scalp and this includes lines. The dress code is a part of the Parent/Student handbook that is made available to all students online and in paper form (if requested). Each year in the spring and early summer the handbook is edited and developed to get it ready for the next school year. The dress code is specifically looked at by the administration who makes any changes that need to be made. In its final recommended form, the handbook is presented to the School Board for approval, usually in July.”

After speaking to school administrators, Esquival told KCBD that Kobi will be given time to grow out his hair, and he won’t have to endure any more markers.Coronado isn’t the first school to punish a student for a haircut deemed inappropriate. Last January, a Florida school issued an in-school suspension to a boy who showed up with the Miami Heat logo and the city’s area code shaved into his head. In 2012, a Texas middle-schooler got the same punishment for showing up with the face of one of the San Antonio Spurs designed into his hair. And in 2013, a 5-year-old kindergartner with a mohawk was sent home for violating the school dress code. He was allowed to return once he shaved his head.

Original post found here: https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/mom-angry-after-school-draws-on-her-sons-head-112063547452.html

Why Mom's Opinion Matters in Love

PHOTO: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

WASHINGTON (AP) — Guys, if you want to get the girl, try bringing flowers — to her mother.

With Valentine’s Day coming up, it’s something to think about: Winning over mom may sound old-fashioned, but it’s still a smart strategy in today’s fast-changing, app-tapping, hookup-happy world of dating.

In a new poll, 6 in 10 young women say when they’re thinking of getting serious with somebody, their mother’s approval is “extremely” or “very” important.

"She makes the call," said Jessica Wilhelm, a 19-year-old college student and self-described "mommy’s girl."

Wilhelm, from Brighton, Michigan, said she learned her lesson in high school when she tried going out with “the guy your parents don’t want.”

"It’s not a good idea," she said. "It doesn’t go smoothly for anybody."

Indeed, 4 in 10 young women say they would consider breaking up with someone their mom didn’t like, according to the Associated Press-WE tv poll. And 16 percent say they’ve actually dumped a guy for that reason.

In contrast, a mere 6 percent of the young women, ages 18 to 29, say their mother’s opinion of their dates matters “not at all.”

Sons worry a little less about what mom thinks, the survey found. Still, half of men under 30 say her approval is extremely or very important when a relationship might get serious.

Andy Lowney, 22, of DeWitt, Michigan, said if he were dating a woman his mother didn’t like, he wouldn’t ditch her immediately.

"I’d see if it’s something you can change over time," he said. "But long, long term, that’s going to be an issue."

Dads, the stereotypical gatekeepers for teenage daughters, still have some say, too.

Half of young women and nearly 40 percent of young men put high importance on dad’s opinion when a romance is getting serious. A father’s view outranks what friends or siblings think, according to the poll.

Kelsley Broomfield, 21, said her parents deploy different tactics when sizing up boyfriend material.

Her mother, always friendly and chatty, asks the what-do-you-want-to-do-with-your-life questions. Dad listens and doesn’t say much, but he’ll signal his verdict later with a few subtle comments.

"He’s kind of the test," said Broomfield, of Englewood, New Jersey.

Of course, dating a guy your parents like isn’t the same as dating a guy who’s like your parents.

And it turns out men aren’t necessarily looking for a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad, either. Among men and women of all ages, a slim majority — 51 percent — think it’s better to go out with someone who’s the opposite of their parents, instead of someone who reminds them of the folks.

And how do the folks feel about all this?

We’re not asking for much, they insist, but couldn’t you just listen to us now and then?

While few parents say they want a lot of sway over their grown children’s love lives, the vast majority of parents of all ages — 7 in 10 — would like to exert at least a little influence.

Alas, fewer than 6 in 10 parents believe they have, or will have, any influence at all.

Some may be underestimating their lifetime impact, however.

L.D. Ross Jr. of Clinton, Maryland, said he made his expectations known early through years of dinner-table conversations about values and how to judge character. By the time his son and three daughters were old enough to date, he said, “they were very good about the people they selected to bring home.” Three of the four are married now, and he has five grandkids.

"I don’t think anybody really wants to bring home somebody they know their parent is going to just totally disapprove of," said Ross, 59. "It’s not going to be a happy family."

What about when he was going out as a young man, did he give his own parents cause to worry?

No, Ross says, laughing — but they didn’t know about everything.

"I was a sneaky little sucker," he said.

The poll of 1,315 adults was conducted ahead of the premiere of WE tv’s new show “Match Made in Heaven.” The poll was conducted online Dec. 19-21, 2014, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Respondents were first selected randomly using phone or mail survey methods, and later interviewed online. People selected for KnowledgePanel who didn’t otherwise have access to the Internet were provided access at no cost to them.

Original post found here: https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/mother-knows-best-even-on-valentines-day-110073890632.html