To Serve And To Protect. . . Or Not??

I'm one of 'those' people that sits at the park or shopping centre and says quietly to myself "I hate other peoples kids."

Today is a great example of me keeping my mouth shut while wanting to knock someone's kids out.

But not because they were playing unfairly, pushing in line, speaking rude, throwing loud tantrums in shopping centres. That's why I usually say I hate other peoples kids.

Today was different.

It started when I picked the kids up from school. They got into the car and I asked the 'mum questions'
"How was your day?"
"What did you do at school?"
"Who did you play with?"
Mr3 is always happy to answer these questions but Miss5 usually refuses (and she has since she started 3 yr old kindy)

Today was a whole other story. Miss5 started mouthing off about police officers.
I would just like to say here that I have the MOST respect for police. I think they do their job,  I agree with high speed police chases, I agree with speed cameras etc etc. I don't have a problem with them. I never bad mouth them and I never blame them for things going wrong when bad people do silly things (eg high speed chase ends up with the bad guy dead, bad guy shouldn't be doing something illegal is my theory)
So hearing my daughter bad mouth police was pretty strange.
She was telling me how police do the wrong thing, how they are naughty and how sometimes they kill good people. WOAH!! This was pretty serious stuff she was getting into. WHERE had this come from??

I tried the gentle approach. I never want my kids to fear police officers, I'm not one of those parents that say "if you don't brush your teeth the police will tell you off." I never threaten my kids with police because if they ever are in trouble I want them to go to the police, to seek help and not be afraid of being sent to jail for not brushing their teeth.
I calmly explained to Miss5 that police have an important job and that job is to ALWAYS do the right thing. They are never naughty, they don't do the wrong thing and they don't kill people. I told her it's their job to make sure everyone does the right thing, and if SOMEONE ELSE is being naughty the police take that person away to teach them to be good again. I explained that if people steal things, or break into houses or hurt people the police are there to HELP. I told that if she ever got lost or hurt or someone was doing something bad that she could talk to police and they would help her.

Miss5 told me I was lying.

Well that got me pretty pissed off. I was actually thinking "some white trash little shit from her school has been mouthing off, obviously they heard their white trash parents talking bad about the police." I was getting so angry. I didn't want my daughter to form this opinion of police and dammit I wanted her to believe me when I told her important things.

I asked who had been telling these horrible stories at school. I was ready to hear about a particular bully I know of, instead she said "my teacher."

Well you could have knocked me over with a feather. On Fridays there is a different teacher, a relief teacher, in the classroom and I'm not familiar with them.

But this. Well this should NEVER be said by any teacher. It's their job to teach children, not bad mouth police officers in the classroom. I don't know how this topic came up at school or why they felt the need to say that police officers were naughty and killed good people but I am definitely not impressed.

The conversation ended soon after this statement from her, because no matter what I said she refused to believe me, she told me I was lying and that her teacher was always right.

I myself, could quite happily whack the teacher over the head next time I see them.

Over the next few weeks I'll be sure to make a point of saying how police officers are good and helpful. Casually slipping it into normal conversation, or when we see a police car I will be pointing out that they are on their way to help someone, I want Miss5 to get the message that they are there to protect and help people and to take the bad guys away. I'm worried that if she doesn't change her mind, she could end up in a bad situation and not want to call the police later in life.

She's too young to have such a negative view on things like that.

This afternoon I was all prepared to start hating someone's child. And that could be the case-maybe another child brought up the topic, but I'm really disappointed that Miss5's answer was "my teacher" that doesn't give me much faith sending her to school next week. . .