I took Spen out a couple times today, and now that he’s getting bigger, he’s starting to have more contact with other kids, especially “big” kids, and that kind of freaks me out. Our paths crossed with two different kindergarten age boys today.
The first was at Barnes and Noble. There’s a little table in the children’s section that has a track for little wooden train cars. Spencer doesn’t quite play correctly with these yet so he doesn’t know not to take toys from other kids and not to throw the trains on the floor. There were two other little boys at the train table. The older one was about 5 or 6. Spencer kept grabbing his train and I expected the boy to get upset or yank it away. Instead, I was really impressed when he repeatedly, and without any prompting from his mom, shared the toy or sweetly told Spencer “no, play with this one instead.”
The second 5/6 year old we met was at the mall, in the kids play area. I usually don’t like him to play in there when there are bigger kids because it gets wild and I don’t want him to get knocked over. Most of the other kids were babies like him, except for this one boy.
Spencer had no sooner toddled in there when this boy bounded over and smacked his nose. The mom jumped up and said “don’t be mean” then let him keep playing while she stared at her phone. Just a few minutes later, the kid ran by Spencer again, stopped, turned around and deliberately smacked him on the back, then ran off. His mom was too busy talking on her phone to notice, so I snatched Spencer up and left.
It makes me mad that there will be bullies out in the world and that I can’t keep Spencer isolated and safe from the meanness and hatred that’s out there. I never want him to get hurt, but I know he will. It’s part of life, unfortunately.
I’ll do what I can to prepare him for the real world as he grows, but I don’t want to teach him to dish more meanness back out. I hope he has the patience, compassion, and self-confidence to walk away, forgive and forget, and be a light that shines instead of burns. It won’t be easy. I’m 31 and I still don’t get it right all the time.
Kristen Stewart, Writer 