Advise please mum and dads!!
My nearly 4 year old boy is having a really hard time with other kids lately and I'm not 100% of what I can do!
Quickly about him, he is extremely playful, always eager to join in play with random kids, is full of beans and it's not in his personality to be nasty!
However he can sometimes struggle to read other emotions and have empathy, he can upset them sometimes by knocking over a structure on purpose or mucking up a track, he just laughs not realising they are angry with him. But he can play amazing at the same time!! Shares, chases, make believe play etc. he actually wants to engage with other kids and play!
So my issues..
Recently we have been to the play ground or indoor play center, alone or with little buddies and random kids roughly round the same age, boy or girl will intentionally just pick on him. Like for instance he was riding a bike (there was like 10 exactly the same) at a play center and a boy stopped him and tried to shove him off, I stepped in nicely and told the boy to get another bike as there was so many spare ones right next to him. A few minutes later I caught the same boy harassing my son again, I got pissed off and growled at the kid again, sternly telling him in my tough guy mum voice to 'get up and go away'. He did! I stayed around after that watching my son closer to make sure no more problems come up. I know it doesn't seem like that big of a deal but he was waiting to catch my son to give him a hard time, no other kid on a bike, just my boy!
Before this happened I did catch the boys hitting each other in a ball pit but didn't see the beginning, so told them both to stop, pulled my son out and told him to play else where.
Now again today at the park, a group of 3 kids, 1 girl, 2 boys. He approached them to play and they poked him away with sticks ?I walked over and told them all its nasty to hit with sticks and not to do it, they stopped but refused to let him join in with play :( I stood back afar just watching and I could hear the nasty thing the girl was saying to my son, I was crushed for him! But still he hung around waiting to get his moments to join in.
After a few minutes the boys where all playing great together but the little girl was telling them to not play with my son and that he needs to go away, every ounce of me was holding back from calling her a little bitch, I'm a grown adult so wouldn't dare but oh my I had to think long and hard about it!!!
There has been other occassions recently but I don't want to go on about different scenarios. All with random kids, he does have a lot of little buddies that we play with and just about all the time it's drama free!
I should also mention that he's reactions to this are to just stand there and look sad, he doesn't say anything or do anything with these confrontations!
I'm at a loss, I know kids are going to need to deal with this at some point and I cant always be there to growl at a naughty child, honestly I normally just let it go because I feel he needs to learn to assert himself?? Is that right though? Like if anyone takes something from him that he is using, he will just allow it and look at me or tell me someone snatched it. I've only ever seen a few time where he fought back to keep said procession.
hes far from perfect himself but if he does do something, i.e. Snatching toys, hitting kids, knocking towers over I'm onto him when I see it.
Any advice is greatly appreciated! I don't know what I can do to help him,
Thank you for reading xx
4 Replies
My little boy took a lot of crap from kids too, but as he got older, he has grown more resilience. You just talk to him about each situation as it pops up, when someone says something to you like that you say xxxx and walk away etc. that is nasty and they have no right to do that. When my son was in grade one, he was seated next to a nasty girl and instead of asking him to be moved, we discussed what he could do in response to her nastiness (when she says I don't like you, say I don't particularly like you either, with the way you are behaving). You know what worked the best, we made a joke out of how silly she looks when she pokes her tongue out at him and made jokes about things he could say....like (I know it's bad and I knew he would never say it), but tell the little witch to fly away on her broomstick. He was in hysterics and he said the next day when she was rude to him and poked her tongue out, he just laughed and imagined her on a broomstick. I kind of took all the seriousness out of it and he could see it for what it was, just a silly little girl. These things will pop up from time to time, you just deal with them as you go and over time he will get stronger, he is still so young.
I can guarantee this says more about the other kids than it does about your son. We all have to deal with assholes in our lives and as these are random kids all you need to do is explain to your son, that not all kids have learned there manners yet and not all strangers want to play. If someone doesn't want to play that's ok, because you are better than that and know your manners. If someone doesn't want to play tell him to play somewhere else.
Part of learning social skills is learning who to avoid. It's a very important protective skill for as he gets older.
I think it's important to give kids the tools to resolve conflicts on their own (obviously if they're poking him with sticks and such you need to intervene). What I mean is maybe next time you see children excluding him from playing instead of jumping in to fix it for him you could help him find a solution- that may be getting him to assert himself or helping him recognize that these 'mean kids' are probably not people you'd want to play with any way. Just give him the opportunity to see how he handles it to see if he can resolve these issues himself. With your guidance it will build resilience and he'll gain confidence in himself to handle these social situations.
I know it's hard to see our kids be pushed around and our protective Mama bear comes out but I really think this will help him. I know some 10 year olds who can't deal with the smallest conflicts because their parents always step in to sort it out. Obviously he should always know he can come to you for help but these are really important life skills to have.
Also slight off topic, it shits me when other parents do nothing about their kids crappy behavior in public play areas.
It is brutal sometimes, hey? From my experience with seeing little kids being bullied or harassed by others, this is what I have learnt. Teach the child that if they want to play with others in a playground, approach them and ask if they can play. If the other kids say no, they need to respect that and find someone else to play with. Or if need be, you join in and play with him. Sometimes when there's a group of kids who have arrived at the park together they just aren't welcoming and they gang up. It's a learnt behaviour so they've obviously been misguided or gotten away with it too often. Also, getting him to suggest to other kids a game to play if they are in a group, maybe before letting him run off to play say "hey, how about you ask them to play chasy" or something similar and go from there. But if the kids say no, that's their loss!
Another thing I found was taking a few extra toys to the park and getting your child to ask another kid or two if they want to play his game with those toys. So if he has some cars, ask another little boy or girl if they'd like to join in with him and play cars too. If not, play with him and make the game look so fun that the other kids WANT to join in.
Find some ways without you needing to intervene in smaller situations, like when the boy was trying to get your son off of the car. Maybe suggest that next time, he could say to the boy that it's his turn and if he waits he will get off soon and let him play on it then. If that doesn't work, tell the boy that he will tell an adult that the boy is picking on him. OR if there were other free bikes, give the boy the bike and go get on another one. Don't let him give into the bully easily, there's lots of ways to remove himself from the situation.