Miles is by no means an innocent child when there’s rough-housing going around. Oh god, no. Earlier today, I had to explain to him that just because he’s dressed as a ladybug doesn’t mean he gets to bite people. (The girl’s dad said she said that he didn’t actually bite her, but Miles says he did.) I think in the past three hours (and most of the time when we visit this play place), I’ve had to pull him aside and explain to him:
- We do not bite.
- We do not push people or shove them to the ground.
- We do not sit on people.
- We do not snatch toys.
- We need to respect people’s bodies.
I get really anxious about this last one. I don’t want parents to think that I’ve reared a bully. At the same time, I can’t follow him everywhere and make sure that he’s being as respectful as possible. I can only teach him by telling and by example.1
Frankly, until today I hadn’t seen him engaged in rough play that he hadn’t instigated — and the only time I haven’t stopped it is when both parties are a) not hurting each other, and b) clearly having fun.2
So when I hear Miles, somewhere up in the play place, making a noise that might be laughter or might be distress, I went over to check. I watched for a second to figure out what I was looking at — was he being an active participant? Was he hitting?
A child I don’t know (but whose mother I was sitting next to, so we had chatted) was throwing and shoving him, and kicking him.
Hi. Excuse me while I see some red.
I raise my voice a bit to be overheard over the yelling kids. “Miles! What’s going on?” Because I can’t scold another person’s child (you may recall, I have baggage about that sort of thing), but I can use the Universal Mom Voice to get the attention of all children in a five foot radius.
The kid backs off. Miles isn’t crying, but also isn’t making fun I WAS PLAYING A FIGHTING GAME faces. I ask him to climb down so I can talk to him.
As he climbs down, I stand by. He says, “Fight somebody.”
So I asked him, “Were you fighting with someone, or was someone fighting with you?”
He keeps coming down and says, “Somebody fight Miles.”
The time had come to change the conversation a little bit. I want him to be able to defend himself — despite being charismatic as hell, he’s probably going to be bullied some day.
At the same time, three-years-old is not the time to have a conversation about self-defense in an eye-for-eye kind of way, at least not for us. Miles’ increased vocal skills have finally moved us away from him hitting out his frustration, and I don’t want to lead him back to that.
We sat down, and I said to him, “You don’t have to let someone hit you if you’re playing, if you’re not having fun. If you’re getting hurt, you shouldn’t stay and play. Just like we need to respect other people’s bodies, you also need to respect your own.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Miles — if someone is hurting you, you need to walk away, okay?”
“Um, okay.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you scared?”
“No.”
“Alright, go play.”
Maybe I overreacted — if this kid had been out to really hurt Miles, he could have been a lot harder than he was. while I interpreted Miles’ responses as distress (and I don’t think I was wrong), the feeling clearly didn’t last.
But with all the emphasis we’ve had on respecting people’s bodies and not hurting other people, it was clearly the right time to discuss that it’s not Miles’ burden to always be quiet, that he also deserves the respect that he owes others.
(And I overheard the other boy’s mother explaining to him that there’s a difference between play-fighting and hitting, which helped me feel better about the whole thing.)
1. This is hard for me, because my instinct is toward example — the famous, “See, it hurts when we pull hair,” by demonstration. Except it’s no way to teach respect for bodies, when I clearly don’t respect his enough to give his hair a yank. However, I suspect this is a YMMV issue.
2. This isn’t because I really abhor rough play; I think when everyone is on the same page and having a great time, sure, give each other some bruises. But in these public settings, I have no way of gauging a stranger-child’s actual feelings, and I don’t know how their parents feel about rough play.
