You take him to the park, he'll find himself a gang of kids to play with.
Today I had an appointment to look at some lease space. The appointment was very near one of the swimming pools that Mo and I frequent. I decided to combinde business with pleasure and set the meeting up near the "open swim" time at the pool.
My meeting didn't last long so we drove to the resident McDonalds figuring Mo could have a little snack and play on their indoor playground until time for swimming.
He fell in with a bad crowd of bigger boys.
One father had repremanded his son and the other boys for playing too rough. The father explained to me that a kid had his ankle broken during one of these McDonald's smackdowns so he was very cautious of rough-housing in the smackdown area.
A few minutes after the reprimand, Mo emerges, walks straight past me in a beeline to the reprimanding dad and announces "You stop bothering us".
<imagine me, in beautiful slo-mo, turning and screaming "WHAT!?" with an absolutely horrified look on my face and the flush of terminal embarrasment >
Mo can be a little sassy but at four he isn't confrontational to adult strangers. Not like that.
(The slo-mo was gorgeous though... the hair especially...)
I'm trying to remember. This, as usual, has me nodding reflexively but I don't remember exact circumstances. Something like that.
I just did that, the "WHAT??", the talking to, the that's not OK, the let me know if anyone does something or says something to you that you're not comfortable with, and left it at that. And didn't happen again.
(Whatwasitwhatwasit... it will come to me...)
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littlek
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:03 pm
They definitely put him up to it!
I'd guess it's some sort of defense mechanism probably learned/developed from before you were mom. But, maybe 4 is too young for such things.
Stopping it in it's tracks is tricky, but better done earlier than later. Be firm, be sincere, be empathic, but be clear - that (whatever that is at the moment) is not ok.
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littlek
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:04 pm
Yeah, and don't make too-too big a deal about it.
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boomerang
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:17 pm
I absolutely want Mo to speak up for himself in the face of injustice or even concern.
I don't want to to accept the absolute authority of adults.
But this was just so not like him.
Usually if someone scolds him he hunkers in, gets close, gets shy. After a few minutes he'll start talking about it "that man told me not to stand up in the grocery cart seat" and I'll explain to him why that is and that if he would have just listened to me in the first place blahblahblah.
So this made my jaw hit the floor.
It was downright out of character.
I really don't want him to be one of this lemmings kids. I do want him to speak up for himself - with adults or with kids.
This completely freaked me out.
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sozobe
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:28 pm
What part of it, boomer?
In terms of out of character, remember that part of what's going on at this age is that they're forging their character. It's in flux. It's very much teenagerhood round one. So they try things on -- is this me? No. This? Hmm...
How we react helps them decide if it's something they want to keep, and a big outsized reaction is interesting even if it's negative. I like how littlek summarized it, firm, sincere, etc. That (which I'm sure you did) really should put a cork in it.
This is also (feel free to bonk me over the head with something for bringing it up again but) something that preschool has really been good for. Hard to explain -- something about known quantities, the same effect could probably be achieved by regularly playing with the same group of kids (which is what preschool is in effect, actually.) About navigating acceptable and unacceptable peer behaviors. Sozlet has definitely figured out a ton more about what she accepts and doesn't accept from her peers.
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sozobe
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:29 pm
Ha! have to say now that I was all set to apologize after reading the title of the thread because I thought it was about peer pressure to send him to pre-school...!
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littlek
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:35 pm
This is a prime example of what scares me away from parenthood. I have a fear of being responsible for someone elses life.
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boomerang
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:37 pm
Ha! Indeed.
You have a good point about learning the ropes form the same group of kids.
The big question is how do you teach them to respect adults or authority when its something like "no rough-housing" and to question adults or authority when its something like "I want to touch you but don't tell your mommy".
I don't want to be paranoid and think everyone is a nut case who wants to hurt Mo but crap.... it only takes once and it only takes a minute and you spend the rest of your life hating yourself for failing to protect the only thing in your life that matters.
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sozobe
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:37 pm
I think I might have remembered what it was -- conflating a few things, there's been the put-up-to-it-by-older-kids part, and the "who are you and what did you do with my kid" part. There was one time shortly after we moved when she was still highly unsettled that we had an increasingly bad day and by bedtime she was just unreachable -- she was being sassy and uncooperative and none of my usual methods of getting through to her were working. Eventually, she was standing at one end of her room, I was sitting on her bed, she was glaring at me, I was fighting back tears, and finally decided whatever, she should know how much this is affecting me and I went ahead and cried. (This is not something I do often in front of her.)
She instantly melted, came and sat on my lap, stroked my face, looked concerned. It was a turning point, though we had to work through it over the course of the next week or so. (God moving sucked.) She'd do crocodile tears more often as she'd cottoned to the power of tears, we'd do role playing, etc.
Point is, just showing your emotion/ shock can be powerful, too.
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sozobe
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:40 pm
Boomer, yep. I've written about that many times here. I dunno. I just try to encourage independent thinking, say the thing about how she doesn't have to put up with anything that makes her uncomfortable no matter who is doing it a lot, encourage criticial thinking (like the whys of things, why would that person do/say that?), and hope.
Lots of hoping.
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littlek
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 09:45 pm
Well, Boomer, he could have come to you and told you that the father of the other kids was bossing them around. You see the difference? Sorry, I'm bustling around and being anything but verbose.
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sozobe
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 10:01 pm
Yeah, I've definitely emphasized the "if in doubt, come talk to Mama/Papa" stuff. That covers a lot of situations.
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CalamityJane
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 10:08 pm
I think you're reading too much into it boomerang.
The older boys put Mo up to it and he followed their
instructions without thinking of the ramifications. That's
normal for a 4 year old wanting to be part of the crowd
and not realizing that he's manipulated.
I'm sure he didn't mean to be disrespectful to an adult,
Mo wanted to please his new friends and was probably
proud of it.
He is too young yet to understand that "friends" do not
always have his best interest at heart.
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Noddy24
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 10:15 pm
I'm with Calamity Jane.
Life is complicated, isn't it?
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boomerang
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 10:17 pm
Usually he DOES talk to me about such thing.
Thats why this was so weird and unexpected.
I know I have a tendency to over react, Calamity Jane. I had successfully ignored every single aspect of parenting until I was 42 years old. Two years later I find myself cramming for finals.
I just really don't want to goof this up.
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boomerang
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 10:21 pm
Life is way too complicated.
Back in my not-even-that-olden-days it was so much more understandable and managable.
Pick yourself up.
Dust yourself off.
Move on.
Not so anymore.
Now I have ramifications.
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littlek
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 10:23 pm
ouch, ramifications.
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CalamityJane
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Mon 10 Jan, 2005 10:26 pm
You won't boomerang, trust me!
From what I have read so far, you're doing an absolute
great job.
It's just, that sometimes the power of peers can be greater
than the bond between the child and the parent. This
is a valuable lesson Mo will learn here, as he is getting
"punished" for something that he was put up to.
And it is a good thing boomerang. That's how he learns
to listen to his own voice and not to others. He will learn
that he get's in trouble with you if he follows orders
from his peers that are not kosher.
With every lesson he learns, he emerges as a winner.
You just have to let him make this mistakes too. I know
it is the hardest thing to do, but protecting them from
these things means not teaching them how to cope with
them.
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