I’m not digging this month. I didn’t expect to dig this month. But I didn’t expect to have as many problems with it as I have. Of course, I’m not one to just blame a month, am I? I haven’t ever done that before, have I? Regardless, I can hardly blame August. Not when it’s generally a pretty decent month. My anniversary is in August, after all.
But this month has been hard on us. Last month was too. It’s been a rough couple of months period. I’m still riding this hormonal wave and it’s driving me nuts. I did better at the birthday party we went to yesterday but I believe “the damage” was already done. Or maybe my hormones are reading too much into the frosty temperatures I picked up yesterday and today. Why the hormones? Why NOW? I hate hormones. But I also don’t have a lot of patience for bad behavior.
Harry’s been dealing with friends who haven’t been exactly friendly lately. The things he tells me (after I’ve had to almost literally drag them out of him) have gotten steadily worse and the things I’ve seen myself have gotten bolder and more frequent. And I know, once your child gets to a certain age you can’t protect them from that sort of thing. They need to learn how to deal with their friends themselves and work things out. But if I’m in a position to alleviate some of his pain I’m going to do it. If that means stepping in and standing up for him, I’ll do it. And if it means removing my child from the situation, well I’ll do that too. Boys will be boys but I’ll be darned if you’ll call my son a name 10 steps away from me and I’m going to ignore it.
Kids do embellish a bit, I know that. Harry doesn’t have much of a record of that yet, thank goodness. Any time he’s even tried to fudge the truth a little he’s been so easy to read that we’ve caught it right away. For now, he’s straight as a poker and even when trying to get him to tell me WHAT name he was called, he is loathe to repeat the vile word (even when the word isn’t that vile to begin with). Even then he’ll use “code” (the “BH” word took me a minute to figure out). I’m afraid this doesn’t make him too cool on the playground, however. He may never be a “cool kid” and have a small army of kids clamoring for his attentions. I’m fine with that, I wasn’t a “cool kid” and neither was his father. And we’ve both decided that we ended up better off for it too as many of the “cool kids” we knew has a lot of pressures and stresses put on them that we were glad to escape. Plus, you know, they were jerks. Being a jerk is part of being a “cool kid” half the time these days and I definitely don’t want my child to be a jerk. Better to have only one or two good friends and retain his self than to sell his soul for popularity.
Anyhow, I think I’ve gotten off track here. I’m looking forward to this month being over and done with. A little less than two weeks now. I don’t know what will make September so much better but at least it will be a fresh start.
{ 5 comments }
Other friend 08.20.07 at 1:27 pm
If nobody else knows what the issue is then what the hell are we supposed to do to help fix it. We aren’t sure how to help you and don’t know why you’ve been the way that you’ve been lately. Whenever a problem arises the issue has been handled, but without our knowing there is an issue then we can’t come to a solution. You did the damage yourself, when you treated us the way you did, what did you expect. So I guess this is a closed book on the issue of friendship, since you have decided to remove your son and yourself from any situation.
Loralee 08.20.07 at 1:58 pm
I’m guessing that “other friend” is a parent of one of the kids picking on your son?
“You did the damage yourself, when you treated us the way you did, what did you expect.”
Seriously???? I don’t know what or who is to blame for the “Situation” but are you really saying that having a kid who is a bully is OK and justified? For whatever reason? SERIOUSLY? Are you saying that if your kid was subjected to an increasingly escalating pattern of being picked on my friends at 7-years-old you would leave them IN the situation??
Look, finding out that your kid is being mean to other children isn’t fun. It’s humiliating and bad and yes, you may be pissed and frustrated that she brought this to her blog instead of bringing it to you, right? You sound mad that she didn’t call you up and say that your son is having problems and how do we fix it? Well, she should have, I agree. You being upset about it is understandable. Maybe she felt that you wouldn’t take it seriously or didn’t feel comfortable with you. That if she did talk to you about it you might, oh, I don’t know… get defensive about the issue and blame her for it. (I know…how could she think that, huh?)
Your issues with her are clouding the issue. if your kid is bullying (For whatever reason), it’s in your court. Fix it and stop blaming everyone but yourself and your child.
Liz (56 comments.) 08.20.07 at 8:51 pm
What the heck? Who leaves a comment like “The Other Friend”– and seriously? grow a pair and own your comment.
Why should you ever apologize for standing up for your child.
It would seem to me–figuring that this comment was left by a parent of one of H’s friends, as Loralee suggests–that the bullying is a learned behavior. FROM THIS PARENT. It’s fairly basic math, Other Friend. Your child learns how to act by following the examples of others. Most importantly their parents. And clearly, given your behavior on this site, your child has learned from you.
Marilyn, you continue to stand up for yourself and your family. You’re raising a son who’ll do the same for himself and HIS family.
Kile 08.20.07 at 9:31 pm
First off I have to say that in this particular situation the issue is not bullying and Marilyn isn’t trying to point any fingers. More on that in a minute. We’ll be the first to admit that we are alot more aware and sensitive to playground politics than most and for very good reason. Because of this we find we need to temper our reactions to things that happen to our son and weigh his best interest with the playground politics he is dealing with and also with our relationships with other parents and teachers. This is not always an easy thing to do but we do our best and hope we are making the right decisions. We also know from past experience that many kids build themselves up by tearing other kids down all in the name of being “cool” and that these are usually attacks on the other kids self-esteem and 99% of the behavior takes place without the knowledge of parents, teachers, or other adults. Kids are usually very tight-lipped about whats really going on for fear of retribution. So when we talk to Harry and find out he is being excluded from play and called names we can only assume that this is a small percentage of whats really going on. The key word here is “assume” and we also know there are other sides to every story and and that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. We also know that kids go thorugh phases and chances are whatevers going on this week will be all but forgotten next week. In the meantime we don’t feel there is any harm in removing Harry from the situation temporarily since keeping him there really does not do him or anyone else any good. Especially when he is asking specifically to be removed.
Confused & Concerned 08.20.07 at 10:31 pm
I’m extremely disappointed at this point, for numerous reasons. I hesitated to post this on the blog as opposed to call or email it. But, since the rest of the world is now involved, what can it hurt right? First, my son is not a bully, nor has he ever been, and we squash problems that we “know” about — INSTANTLY. Where did this all come from, I’m so confused. For the record, these three boys that play together all the time, are constantly picking on EACH OTHER! It has nothing to do with one being picked on more than the other. I can recall countless situations where your son has freaked out and been extremely mean to the other two boys — they are BOYS. Have we made a huge issue of it, no. They all do it. Is there also going to be a zero tolerance policy for your son being mean to other kids? It must go both ways. It’s amazing that these kids have played with each other almost every day for the past 2 years and this is the first any of us are hearing about this. They’re on the same soccer team! They are such good friends that their class teacher had to split them apart because they were too chatty with each other. I again ask why are we just now hearing about this?! And more importantly, why are we learning about this on a public blog. It’s offensive and has really hurt my wife’s feelings. She/we have always gone out of our way to help out in every way possible. Even more hurtful is that we are treated horribly on a day when our son turns 2 and we’ve invited everyone over for a nice BBQ and fun. And yet, we are the one’s giving off a frosty attitude! Two parties in a row you stayed just as long as you had to, that’s it. There was hardly a word spoken to anyone right from the start, and I was straight shot down with major attitude when I tried to get you involved with the Wii, followed by even more outward attitude “No, H…we’ll be leaving soon anyways”. I also received a call from my wife today because you’ve decided to drive your son straight to school instead of walk with her. What is that about?! She was devastated and as confused as I am. And WE’RE the ones with the frosty attitude? I’ve read the numerous posts leading up to this one about hormones, but only you can control how you treat people and choose whether or not to discuss things. I suspect that this issue is more about hard feelings for us than it is about the kids. If that’s the case, what did we ever do? Is it that I allow my son to “gloat” because he’s excited about a new backpack? What? I’d love to know as I’m completely in the dark and if I knew, it might help me console my wife — she’s more devastated about this than I am.
The real unfortunate part — the children will be the ones that suffer.
I hope these “mysterious, as of yet, unknown issues” resolve themselves as we’ve all had some very good times in the past. At least, we thought we did. But who knows, maybe we were the only ones having a good time.
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