The kid that makes you tense up when you see them heading towards the playground, because you know what’s coming. It’s the kid who’s all screaming and flailing and not listening and NO! The kid who yells and pushes. The kid who’s rude, who orders your kid - and every kid - around. The kid who demands attention from every adult they see, usually by doing exactly the things they’re not supposed to do. The kid who won’t listen. And the kid who won’t leave you - or your kid - alone, no matter what you do.
There’s a kid like this in every playground. And I know it’s not their fault. Sometimes the kid is just spirited. Sometimes there’s something going on at home. Or sometimes there isn’t, and this is just the way the kid is.
Altruistic, patient, virtuous, perfect mother Me knows this, and would of course choose to engage the child! Guide her! Be kind, model kind behaviour, and perhaps be a good influence on her!
However, exhausted, too-much-on-the-go, imperfect mother Me doesn’t have it in me sometimes to engage thoroughly and model perfect personhood to another child, a trying child, a child who actively makes our experience at the park, well, difficult. I have my own kid to deal with and she’s hard enough to watch - and besides, That Kid’s own parent is already right there. Her own parent who doesn’t see when their kid pushes my kid out of a play structure screaming GET OUT! and who laughs when their child angrily yells at another child I DON’T LIKE YOU! and throws something at them.
This isn’t a post to trash the kid or their parent, even though it might seem like it. This is just what happened. I have no desire to condemn anyone for being who they are or parenting however they choose to parent. I have enough trouble worrying about my own parenting, thank you very much.
But what do you do when That Kid won’t leave your kid alone? I don’t want to be the helicopter parent, always hovering to make sure my kid doesn’t get pushed around or get the short end of the stick. I don’t want to make my own daughter get off a play structure just because another kid doesn’t know how to be friendly or how to share. I don’t want my daughter to learn that when someone else bigger or bossier or pushier than she is comes along that she needs to acquiesce and run away. And I also don’t want to just leave her to get pushed around in the first place.
Is this just the beginning? Is this the start of watching people be assholes to my kid and being helpless to stop it?
What do you do when That Kid shows up?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
My daughter is close in age to your daughter, so they are still very young. In this case I do, in fact, stay close. Usually That Kid learns that I’m there and they can’t get to my kid. But if they do something inappropriate and the parents don’t step in, then I have no problem correcting the child. I’m not going to be mean about it, but if they are hurting my child then yes, I correct them. I feel like at this point I am still modeling correct behavior for my child. She’s not sure what to do, so I am demonstrating for her that it’s ok to step up to a bully.
I’m not really sure how to approach this when my daughter is older though and needs to learn to stand up for herself.
I live in fear of my kid been That Kid. She already pushes kids at daycare, and has in fact made a little boy cry on two separate occasions. I don’t know how to make it stop and teach her that she can’t always have her way.
Big Nerf water cannon. Not for the child though, more for hosing down the parent.
We leave. It sucks for my kids. But it sucks more when they get hysterical-upset because they are being pushed or bullied or chased when they don’t want to be chased. Teaching your child to stand up for himself sometimes means teaching your kid that it’s okay to leave a situation if it’s that uncomfortable. Sometimes you can say stop. And sometimes people listen. But sometimes it’s best to walk away.
FireMom recently posted..The Karma Train
My son has been on the receiving end of That Kid. That Kid had him pinned down on his stomach by kneeling on his back, with both hands in his hair, pulling. His parents watched and did nothing. NOTHING. Didn’t even make him apologize after the fact. After my husband safely removed our son from the play structure, it took everything he had not to smash his fist into the father of That Kid… and my husband is not a violent man at all. It took my son about three attempts at the park before being comfortable again, not to avoid the other children. It broke my heart.