One of the things that we hope to develop in our son is a healthy self-esteem and strong sense of self-confidence.
Our (highly biased?) self assessmen of our son is that while he is generally a cheerful and obliging boy, we were a little worried abt his total lack of assertiveness which we have observed from his interaction with other children. If someone takes something away from him, our son will look at that person puzzledly and stare in wonder for some time. He wd not fight e other children for his toys and wd in fact give way to other kids who want to play w e playground facilities. While we r pleased that he is not one of those bullying brats who ride roughshod over others, we don't want him to be a doormat to be walked over by others too.
Today our help reported that xt's teacher had informed her tt our son pushed another kid in his class at sch n at e playgrd. We were caught off guard by this comment for we have never seen him exhibit this before. Just e other day, he was being chased by ano little girl for e slice of watermelon in his hands. That silly boy just kept backg away from fm the girl and nearly fell backwards in his attempt to protect his watermelon and save some for himself. So we r rather taken aback by this report.
We don't know e full context of e incident and I will try to find out more. Yet I am also of e view that for kids, e playgrd is a testg grd for their lifeskills and survival instincts. To be able to hold their own in life, e kiddos need to survive e playgrd first. I have met many a meek and timid people who were chewed up and spat out by other hunters in e corporate jungle. On e other hand, I have also met cowardly bullies who just basically push others ard wout any consideration or empathy for eir coworkers. Either archetypes r not what we want our son to grow up to be.
And so while we r def concerned tt our boy may not be having approriately and in a gd way, we also want to provide e space n opp for him to grow. I guess it is a balancing act that we will need to handle w care and finesse.
And isn't tt what parenting is abt?
And isn't tt e toughest part of parenting?
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2 comments:
One of my best friends has this problem. Her daughter (in her words) has no concept of self-defence. Younger children snatch her toys and she looks at them in puzzlement and then at her empty hands with sadness. On many occasions, Friend told her to get the toy back, little girl went up and POLITELY asked the bully to 'please return my toy.' You can imagine what happened next.
I don't have kids but back when I was still teaching and I see a kid bullying another, I never step in. I wait to see if the victim hits back. If he/she does, I cheer for him in my heart. If kid doesn't, I step in to terrorise the bully. We all know most teachers don't have so much time. Only crazy people like me like to bring a little justice into this fallen world of ours by terrorising the little bullies. Hmm... in turn I guess that makes ME a bully! Yay!
That's my fear for XT. And thing is it is really hard to teach 'self-defense' (if I may use your friend's term) and not have it contradict with the values and manners one is trying to inculcate. On one hand, I tell him that he must not be selfish and should share his toys/food/etc with others. On the other hand, I expect him to stand up for his own rights but he is way to young to comprehend that. However, if he constantly only mixes with adults or only play with other children under adults' supervision (which is what happens when we meet up with other frens and all), the adults will never act mean and the kids who do wd have gotten told off by their folks (least most of my frens don't condone such behaviour). so I guess the best way for him to learn is to learn to survive in the natural env. of a playground. He needs to learn to fend for himself.
Tis actually quite tough to be a kid! The world is such a confusing one.
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