At a year and a half old, Little Man doesn't really play with other kids. He does, as the professionals call it, paralell play--doing his own thing alongside other children.
But because of his size (he sees eye to eye with most three year olds and towers over the average two year old), older children often try and play with him and get frustrated when he doesn't reciprocate. Little Man gets easily overwhelmed by his older counterparts, so he often hangs back for a bit before diving into the fun.
Such was the case this weekend, when we spent the morning at the big bookstore with a train table in the kid's section. It's one of our favorite rainy day haunts, and today there were two other boys, both between 2.5 and 3, playing as well.
When Little Man joined in, one of the other boys just orbited around him, zooming his train as he pleased and when Little Man was in his way, he stepped around him and carried on. "He has a little sister at home," his father told me.
The other little boy wasn't so thrilled with Little Man's addition to the play group. "My choo choos!" He immediately started to yell. "My choo-choos!"
Little Man doesn't really fight back when another kid steals his toys in a public place like this (especially when the other kid is screeching). He seems content to hand the object over and find something else. I don't know if this is his age, or is he is just really mellow.
I was particularly thankful that the parents who belonged to the grabber jumped right in--there's nothing worse than having to parent other people's kids...and I tend to do it without thinking due to my nanny background.
I was also glad that they seemed to be on the same wavelength that Husband and I are. They gave their son a few chances to share, but when the grabbing and the tantrum got out of control, they left. I could tell they were embarrased, and did my best to assure them that my feelings weren't hurt (and neither were my kid's, either) but that I appreciated what they were doing and I didn't think their son was a monster, even though he was acting like one at the moment.
Because every kid has--or will have--a temper tantrum in public, an issue sharing, or a meltdown. I'm not niave enough to think it won't happen to us--Little Man has already had some doozie meltdowns at home and I'll do practically anything to avoid one in public. I'm the mom who leaves her shopping cart full of groceries and exits the store with an unhappy child.
Fights at the train table over who gets the green train are how little guys learn to be big guys. All the other parents and I can do is act as advisors and guide them to the right behavior and dole out consequences when the wrong behavior erupts. And they'll eventually get it. How do I know?
The little boy with the sibling watched this whole thing go down from his corner of the table. When the screaming died down, he looked at my younger child and said, "he has to go to time out. He didn't share."
"Uh oh," agreed my son, and nodded at him. And then they went back to their respective choo-choos, next to each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment