We had a great day yesterday! My niece and her 3 1/2 yr old daughter came over and spent the night and she, my hubby and I took all the kids to a Touch-a-Truck event that raised money for the March of Dimes.
The kids had a great time. Littlest and cousin had a blast, sitting in the trucks and tractors, pretending to drive around, blowing the horns. The 2 1/2 yr old loved looking at all the big trucks, but he’s the shy one and with so many people around was happier to just look and hold on to mama like I was going to leave him. He takes forever to warm up to situations where there are big crowds of people, probably because he never has to deal with all the noise and commotion of more than two other kids at a time.
One they’d had their fill of dump trucks, fire trucks, busses and tractors, we took them over to McDonald’s to have some lunch and play in the Playplace. Now even though he freaks out in large crowds, smaller crowds of mostly kids don’t bother K at all. Once he got done eating, he jumped right up and started playing and making friends with everyone in sight. Well, everyone but one little boy…
As they were running around, he decided to follow this cute little boy around. I think he might have been a bit older than he looked and maybe just didn’t want a preschool kid following him around, but I couldn’t believe how mean he acted toward K. He started walking back toward his family’s table to eat and when my sweet, defenseless little guy who just likes everyone started to follow him, he turned around and screamed in his face, then shoved him backwards. I started walking over and looked at the parents who did nothing but tell him his food was getting cold. Poor K just looked so confused, not understanding what he did wrong.
I did notice that when he was putting his shows back on later, that he had braces on his legs, so maybe he’s been teased and picked on and developed a mean streak, but his parents saw everything he did and said nothing to him. It took everything I had to not go off on these people. Yeah, little kids can be irritating to older kids, but there is no excuse for out and out meanness. I know I can’t control what other people teach their kids about how to treat others, but I have am certainly renewing my commitment to showing my children that everyone deserves respect, whether they are older or younger than they are.
How do you react if you catch your kids treating other children poorly? Do you ignore it and chalk it up to kids being kids or boys being boys or whatever? Or do you take the time to use the actions as a teachable moment and tell them that being mean is just plain unacceptable? Inquiring minds want to know…am I overreacting or did these parents just not care that their son was acting like a complete jerk?
I’ve always taken the moment to scoop my kid up and talk to them loudly (so the other parents can hear) that we are going to go and play over (wherever) with other boys and girls that are nice and don’t hurt people. I’m not shy about it – I will look right at the other parents when I say it too. I might even throw out the comment, “He doesn’t look like he wants a little guy following him around so we’ll just go back over here.” Whatever it takes to get their attention that meanness isn’t acceptable.
Unfortunately you’re going to get “all kinds”. I’m Sorry K had to have his first run in with mean kids.
Yeah, when J was that age, oh-so-many years ago, I never ran into a situation where the parents didn’t reprimand their child for being mean. It just really threw me that they sat there and completely ignored that their kid was screaming in someone’s face and shoving them. Maybe that’s the norm at their house…