Debatable Parenting

Hard to believe this is the first post with that title. Yesterday we had a lovely visit with friend Stacey and her daughter Aria (2.5 years) and new baby Jude (3 weeks). Aria and the boys had just about the most successful play date you can ask for, in that no one was injured, the only crying/whining was the everyday crying/whining that would have occurred with or without the friend present, and the kids seemed to enjoy each other's company and played together rather than only parallel. So that was actually pretty stellar parenting, or rather, sitting around and talking about babies while the toddlers played amongst themselves.

The afternoon, however, entailed having the boys help with work around the house. Great, right? We went up to the attic to do some filing in the filing cabinet, and then I found a bunch of stuff that could be recycled, and some stuff that could be shredded. So I taught the boys how to shred! What's the worst that could happen, right? They did a great job and totally wrecked the pile of paper. So that turned out great, definitely better than it could have.

Then we went to Santaro park, one of the ones pretty close to our house, that has a great playground and a huge paved, fenced-in area where they can ride their bikes. Theo climbed up the rock climbing wall and was reaching for the top when a boy at the top came up to the railing and refused to let Theo by. Theo was whimpering and I told him to ask the boy to move. The boy grinned and said he wasn't going to move. Theo asked again. The boy again grinned and refused. Then I said "You're going to move away from that doorway or I'm going to climb up there and make you move, and you're not going to like it." He moved so Theo could get by, but then gave him another hard time when Theo tried to go down the slide. Luckily his mom came over and distracted him so Theo was able to get down and then left that structure.

Then the boys had several interactions with another little boy maybe 5 or 6 years old, who upon meeting them almost immediately pushed both of them in the chest and belly, and poked them in the eyes at their sunglasses. Both ran over to me near tears and I restrained myself from slapping this kid off the play structure and told the boys to look at him and tell him not to hurt them anymore, or to play somewhere else. They went back and said something to him and then played by themselves for a while. Then we were going to leave but the boys saw him again, this time biking in the paved area, and he invited them to come bike with him. Once we were back inside with their bikes, he ran into each of them once or twice, and generally was being a jerk. Meanwhile his mom was sitting nearby and kind of smiling at her son. The boys again came over to me near tears and said some variation of "he's being mean." Again, I restrained myself from picking this kid up by his throat and shoving him against the chain link fence. I told Theo and Beckett they could bike somewhere else, and told them they could tell him to leave them alone. They started biking away from him, and stayed away. The other (older) kids who had already been biking/scootering in the area were avoiding him too. Then the rotten kid came over to me and whined, "No one is playing with me. Someone has to play with me." I said, "No, no one has to play with you." He said "Someone has to be my friend." I said, "No, no one has to be your friend. If you're being mean to other kids, no one will want to play with you or be your friend." He paused for a moment, and said, "I'll be nice! I'll be nice!" So he raced after T&B and said, "I'll be nice!" They seemed to accept that, and biked around with him for a while. In all, it was one of the most stressful experiences I've had in recent memory. I was literally flexing my hands repeatedly, trying to remind myself why I was not going to go over there and slap this kid upside the head. I think it was the right thing to do to keep from intervening myself (except in the climbing situation, when I was afraid for Theo's safety because of how high up he was) and encouraging the boys to advocate for themselves. But man, I was definitely looking into the future of watching the boys struggle and doing my best to give them the tools to protect and defend themselves rather than rushing in to rescue them, and realizing how difficult that is going to be....