My daughter pushed a little girl out of her way yesterday. I had her stop playing and apologize (though I am well aware she didn't actually mean it) to get the message across: NO PUSHING. But she wasn't trying to hurt or bother the other girl, she was just determined to get to the slide. My son is experimenting with hair-pulling; will his sister cry every time he yanks on her hair? At not quite fifteen months, he doesn't really understand why he gets a time-out when he makes his sister cry, but he is doing a lot less hair-pulling.
So it's not like I'm the mother of perfect children who are never aggressive. Kids are selfish little creatures, it's natural that knocking other children over or grabbing their toys if fine with two year olds. But what about the three year old who hits and pushes just because? Twice this week at the park (not the one with the Stepford mommies), Ironflower has been pushed and hit repeatedly by slightly older boys. Who did not stop when she asked, did not stop when I said something and whose hands I hand to move away from her. One boy's grandmother was across the park on her cell phone - she watched the situation but did nothing. The other mother didn't notice until a few incidents later (Ironflower was not his only victim) when Hot Guy said something very loudly to the boy. Then she made him get off the jungle gym and sit on the bench for awhile, at least.
It wasn't the hitting and pushing that shocked me per se, preschoolers can be pretty rough and tumble. It was her scared voice telling them to stop and those boys ignoring her. If my daughter or son did what those boys did, we would leave the park (or playdate) immediately. And my kid would know that I was angry.
I taught preschool for two years. And first and second grade for nine. There's the thoughtless aggression common to all small children, and then there's what I call mean kids. The kids who go out of their way to hurt others. The kids who would rather push the child holding the ball than play with the ball.
I don't know what makes some kids mean kids. Their parents usually don't notice or care until late in elementary school, where fights and suspensions force them to deal with the problem somehow. Depending on the parent, the response seems to be either spank and punish the child every time there's a physical altercation, or to find counselors and medications to excuse the child's behavior. And I always wonder, what if those parents had dealt with the meanness when the child was four - would it still be a problem?
It seems to me that too many parents wait to discipline their children these days. Limits and boundaries are shaky and parents never express real reactions to their children's behavior. It's always "S/he's too little" until they've got a teenager who's a complete mess.
1 comment:
Okay, I hate these parents... I simply can't help it, I really don't like them. Most of the time I think their kids run amok because the parents don't have the structure to follow through with discipline - ie, they're lazy!!! This just kills me because, yes, it's harder on the parent when a child is punished or grounded... that means no tv, playdates, or anything else that might give the parent a small break - but, really, did someone ever tell you being a parent was an easy job?
Every kid will push their boundaries and some kids, I think, are naturally more agressive than others. They can't discipline themselves, they need you to teach them.
Try this one and see if it works - a friend of mine took his son to the park and two older boys kept shoving him and taking his sand toys. The boys' mother stood there the whole time and didn't say a word to them about it - she just let her sons pick on and steal from a much smaller boy. The father didn't say anything to the boys or the mother, he simply walked up, took his son's toys back and started to walk away. His son said, standing right next to the mother, "Daddy, why didn't they have to say they're sorry?" (because he, most certainly would have had to) My friend told his son, loud enough for the whole park to hear, "Some people just have rotten parents."
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