Thursday, May 04, 2006
Parenting Dilemma
Ed and I are in disagreement about the way I handled an incident at a local playground yesterday. CJ was playing with three other children close to his age and he was getting along really well with two of them. There was a little boy that refused to listen to his mother and repeatedly chased the other children with sticks, threw rocks, vandalized trees and had a very ugly demeanor toward the other children. The mother kept insisting that if he didn't stop his behavior they would go home. In the thirty minutes we were there I heard this threat more than 6 times (part of her time was spent in her car talking on her cell phone). The other children were doing a pretty good job of avoiding confrontation with the "wild child" and continued to play together. However, as they were taking turns coming down the big slide, the "wild child" threw two handfuls of wood chips and dirt into CJ's face as he came down the slide. Needless to say the debris got in CJ's eyes, mouth and clothes. I checked CJ over in front of the mother while CJ explained what had happened. When she made no offer to apologize or punish her son, I took Hunterman and CJ and we left the park.
I complimented CJ on his decision not to retaliate against the "wild child" and told him that sometimes you just have to walk away from mean people instead of becoming mean yourself. Ed thinks I'm teaching CJ to be a wimp and that CJ should have done something to the boy even if it was to yell at him (but he would have preferred CJ throwing wood chips and dirt at the little boy --- eye for an eye). I felt that CJ was right in not confronting the boy but it did bother me that I didn't say anything to his mother. I've never been one to avoid confrontation so I'm not sure why I didn't do anything yesterday.
Am I teaching CJ and Hunterman to be cowards?
I complimented CJ on his decision not to retaliate against the "wild child" and told him that sometimes you just have to walk away from mean people instead of becoming mean yourself. Ed thinks I'm teaching CJ to be a wimp and that CJ should have done something to the boy even if it was to yell at him (but he would have preferred CJ throwing wood chips and dirt at the little boy --- eye for an eye). I felt that CJ was right in not confronting the boy but it did bother me that I didn't say anything to his mother. I've never been one to avoid confrontation so I'm not sure why I didn't do anything yesterday.
Am I teaching CJ and Hunterman to be cowards?
1 Comments:
You are SO RIGHT Dana! I admire your instincts as a mother, and I think you made exactly the right decision. It takes a much stronger person to walk away, and a much more mature person to drop the need to "make things even". It's that "eye for an eye" thing that causes wars. You're teaching your sons strength, courage and the right thing to do. My applause to you!
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