we were having such a nice afternoon today, lunch at whole foods with m&k and granny, a tour of a possible neighborhood nearby for granny and pop to live in and a quick trip to a playground to let the boys run off some energy. that is, right up until two boys, about 4 years old, (who were already at the playground when we arrived) had some obvious issues with sharing. so that brings me to ask, how do you handle it at a public playground when other children are not playing nice.
these boys were complaining that they didnt want to share the playground equipment with my children. there were two big play structures, so to avoid a conflict we moved the boys to the other play structure. then the boys came over and said they couldnt play there either. so i replied something like, the playground equipment is for everyone and we were going to share today. the boys continued to complain, all while their mothers sat by idly chatting with one another. we continued to play for another few minutes, enduring the complaining and aggressive behavior of these boys without saying anything other than we were going to share, the equipment was for everyone.
and then it happened... k was attempting to climb a chain ladder and the boys were waiting at the top telling him he couldnt come up. i was standing close by because it was a pretty high climb, and frankly i didnt trust the boys on the top. then the boys, both of them, proceeded to spit on k. i yelled loud enough for their mothers to hear, "NO, do not spit on him!" finally the mothers got up and investigated. i overheard one of them scold the boys and tell him to apologize. she did walk him over to apologize, which he half-heartedly did. the other mother went to her car to get something and seemed unconcerned at all about the events occuring. the mother who did get involved did not make eye contact or say anything to me at all. i know in her position i would have been mortified, and probably would have said as much as i over-apologized for the disgusting behavior. i was pretty shocked that she said nothing at all to me. we left about two minutes later, because it was clear the boys were going to continue being bullies and the mother was not interested. what would you have done??
2 comments:
I think first I would have said something to the moms, and then if they still didn't care I would have started to firmly, verbally discipline the other boys since clearly their mothers weren't. I am sure they would start noticing if you were saying something to their kids.
Besides, then you teach the twins to stand up for themselves and that they have every right to be there too.
Wow - it's so hard to know unless you're right there. I think that I would have said something to the kids first, just like you did, and then, if they kept being brats I would have asked them where their moms were. Hopefully that might have nipped it a bit in the bud. If they kept it up I would have started disciplining them in a loud enough voice for their mom to hear, too. If still nothing worked i would have told them to go play on the other structure, as obviously they didn't know how to share. At least, I would have been that firm about it in my head!
Post a Comment