His spirit has been broken

It took five months but they did it...the bastards broke my 5 year old. He loved school until that day last week when he got off the bus with sad puppy dog eyes and whimpered, "I had a bad day! I got on yellow." The behavior system in class is a stoplight: green--you're good, yellow--you did one bad thing and have been warned, red--UH OH!! Shepard has always been on green. He is my rule follower, my sweet angel. I was very surprised that he ended up on yellow and tried to talk to him about it. He was too embarrassed/upset to tell me what he did so we had to play 20 questions so I could figure it out.

Did you hit someone? No
Kick someone? No
Call someone a bad name? No
Talk when the teacher was talking? No
Say something inappropriate? No

I was running out of bad actions so I asked, "So, was it something you said or something you did with your body?" He replied, "Something I did with my tongue." I was truly stumped and horrified wondering what my 5 year old could have done with his tongue that would get him in trouble. Sage asked him, "Did you lick somebody?" Shepard finally gave up the info, "No, I licked my friend's lunch box. And he went and told on me and then my teacher put me on yellow."

That afternoon I got an email from his teacher that read:

"Please remind Shepard to not put things in his mouth that are not his snack or his lunch.
Shepard really upset another classmate today when he licked the outside of the child's lunchbox.
Thank you!"

I called Alan and this is how it went:

Me: Shepard got on yellow today.

Alan: What?! What happened?

Me: He licked another child's lunch box.

Alan: **Complete silence**

Me: **Hysterical laughter**

Alan: So you're telling me that my son did an Adam Lambert on another child's lunchbox?

Me: Yes, that's what he did

Alan: And he got in trouble for this?

Me: Yes, he got a yellow

Alan: Well, if he wants to be a lunch box licker than that's his right. It's a life style choice. They just need to accept it.

Ok, I get that my child shouldn't lick someone else's lunch box. But is putting him on yellow and sending me an email about it really warranted? I don't really think I need to have a sit down discussion with him about licking lunch boxes. Anyway, it was his first licking offense. But nooooo, she had to go and ruin his love affair with school. Now he doesn't want to go anymore. Here's some advice, Teacher, if it happens again just get in his face and say, "DON'T LICK THINGS!!!" I think he would get the point. Works for me.

Did he-------------------------> just lick a lunchbox?

It's possible.