On our walk, my son figures out how to wrap the retractable leash around the dog’s legs to make her trip. I catch him at this as he stands by the fence where the neighbor’s pooch is sniffing furiously through the posts. Bug keeps his back to me as he bends to twist the leash into a tangled knot. Fenway tries to stand but ends up hopping around in an erratic circle, finally plopping back down. She implores me with her big eyes.
I am at the fence in three strides, taking the tether from my child and releasing the dog. I do the latter with much more tenderness than the former. We march home, Bug whining, "But I want to hold the leash!" while I lecture him about kindness and care.
It could be the divorce, his developmental stage, the lack of a sibling who forces humility. Perhaps we have overbuilt his confidence or underemphasized compassion. Whatever the explanation, I cannot avoid the facts: my son is displaying all the characteristics of a playground bully.
It chills me to admit this out loud. I would prefer to gloss over the encounters I witness.
Bug sits at a doll house with another boy at school, telling him repeatedly, “No, this is how it is going to be. You have to do this.” The other boy slumps in frustration, eventually giving up and walking away.
The cousin from Germany comes for a visit. He is a bigger kid with more physical prowess than Bug. Regardless, Bug manages to determine the rules of every game and every interaction. Several times a day, the older cousin dissolves into tears. Bug shrugs and juts out his chin, sauntering away as his cousin cries.
A primal, self-protective instinct surges through me as I see these things. What have I done to create this monster? The spotlight glares directly on my failings. I can almost hear the smug whispers of the people with intact homes whose kids organize canned food drives. It is so easy to project my own distress onto the tabula rasa of the collective witness. To the deaf court, I want to shout, but I love him well! I guide him and teach him with all the focus I have in my possession! He is a good kid, really, under all that!
This first response is useless, though. Self flagellation is just another manifestation of self absorption. Dig down and I unearth a complicated parenting instinct: tough love. Helping a child succeed in the long term means hard choices in the now. Ultimately, the objective is not diagnostic or even punitive, but prescriptive.
How can I help my son learn the skills necessary to care for others?
This is the much more complex task. My boy will live a very lonely life if his sense of entitlement grows unchecked. How his behavior reflects on me is irrelevant when he is the one navigating the social universe. I desperately want my kid to know how to make friends and how to be a good friend, but Bug ultimately must learn the costs and benefits of his methods of interaction. He has no idea yet how important people outside his family will be to him.
I know very little about the mechanics of compassion. Nel Noddings has written in detailed and surprisingly rich ways about caring. There is much more to it than what comes "naturally" to us. In order to thrive, the relationships in which a person lives must be strong and balanced. Each person has responsibilities to maintain the well being of those relationships. Such simple things as doing chores and following the rules etiquette are versions of care, and they can be done without "feeling" caring.
I don't know if Bug is at a stage yet in which he can feel or act on surges of compassion. The mysterious depths of my son's mind and heart belong to him alone. All I can do is name the expectations, live them myself, and follow through on enforcing them. If I do this with care, perhaps he will learn the same.
The past few days, I have been on Bug's behavior like a hawk. I took him to his favorite park over the weekend -- the one with the train and mini golf -- during a pause in the rain. He was on the playground, frolicking nicely for all of three minutes. Then he began lording over the other kids. My lovely boy cut in line for the slide, elbowed other children out of the way as they protested, then lied straight to my face about it. I warned him that he needed to back down or no mini golf. He continued to jut his chin and ignore me. So, I did the thing no parent wants to do: I hauled him off the playground while he sobbed. We got right back in the car for home. No mini golf, no train. Our entire outing was over and the engine hadn't even cooled.
With each repetition of this scenario in different venues, we dry the tears then talk about what could have happened differently. It stuns me to hear Bug list his alternatives. Every suggestion he offers up has to do with how to "make" the other kids do what he wants. The egocentrism of the four-year-old should not surprise me, I suppose, considering how hard it is for many adults to navigate these tricky waters.
I understand now that this will be a long journey indeed. We will need to practice showing kindness in a variety of settings. We will have to reflect on what comes of our approaches, and be awkward as we attempt new vocabularies. We will have to get it wrong, and keep on loving each other regardless.
My son will need to learn to hold the leash. I will need to learn to trust him to do so. Thankfully, the dog has the patience of Job. I could use a little of that as we three set out on our walk together.
This is the much more complex task. My boy will live a very lonely life if his sense of entitlement grows unchecked. How his behavior reflects on me is irrelevant when he is the one navigating the social universe. I desperately want my kid to know how to make friends and how to be a good friend, but Bug ultimately must learn the costs and benefits of his methods of interaction. He has no idea yet how important people outside his family will be to him.
I know very little about the mechanics of compassion. Nel Noddings has written in detailed and surprisingly rich ways about caring. There is much more to it than what comes "naturally" to us. In order to thrive, the relationships in which a person lives must be strong and balanced. Each person has responsibilities to maintain the well being of those relationships. Such simple things as doing chores and following the rules etiquette are versions of care, and they can be done without "feeling" caring.
I don't know if Bug is at a stage yet in which he can feel or act on surges of compassion. The mysterious depths of my son's mind and heart belong to him alone. All I can do is name the expectations, live them myself, and follow through on enforcing them. If I do this with care, perhaps he will learn the same.
The past few days, I have been on Bug's behavior like a hawk. I took him to his favorite park over the weekend -- the one with the train and mini golf -- during a pause in the rain. He was on the playground, frolicking nicely for all of three minutes. Then he began lording over the other kids. My lovely boy cut in line for the slide, elbowed other children out of the way as they protested, then lied straight to my face about it. I warned him that he needed to back down or no mini golf. He continued to jut his chin and ignore me. So, I did the thing no parent wants to do: I hauled him off the playground while he sobbed. We got right back in the car for home. No mini golf, no train. Our entire outing was over and the engine hadn't even cooled.
With each repetition of this scenario in different venues, we dry the tears then talk about what could have happened differently. It stuns me to hear Bug list his alternatives. Every suggestion he offers up has to do with how to "make" the other kids do what he wants. The egocentrism of the four-year-old should not surprise me, I suppose, considering how hard it is for many adults to navigate these tricky waters.
I understand now that this will be a long journey indeed. We will need to practice showing kindness in a variety of settings. We will have to reflect on what comes of our approaches, and be awkward as we attempt new vocabularies. We will have to get it wrong, and keep on loving each other regardless.
My son will need to learn to hold the leash. I will need to learn to trust him to do so. Thankfully, the dog has the patience of Job. I could use a little of that as we three set out on our walk together.
