Thursday, February 23, 2012

My Heart, it breaks

Chuckles came home from school the other day a little sad, maybe even a bit teary.  He doesn’t know the cool naughty words that other kids do (since he doesn’t have older siblings or much TV exposure).  He feels a little left out.  I’m sure #3 will know all the cool naughty words (and teach them to the other kids whose parents will then hate me).

Since he didn't know the naughty word, he was saying that word meant something (which it really does).  He didn't get the "joke".  He doesn't have the social skills yet to just blow it off and fake like he gets it and go along for a little while. 

Because the slang word he didn't know was male anatomy-related, I put his father in charge.  I will talk about respect for women and not objectifying them by body part.  Dad can discuss what are approrpriate slang words for the locker room.

Today, The Tribune had an article called "What to do when your kid says they ate lunch alone and had no one to play with at recess".  This is one of the best parenting articles I have read for the 6-9 year old set.  I'm out of my depth with these "Big Kid" problems.

2 comments:

  1. You'll figure it out.

    We got a sneak preview about a year ago, when Pumpkin pronounced that she had no friends at day care. It does break your heart to hear that, but we got through it. (She did, in fact, have friends, but not the one "cool girl" she wanted as a friend at that moment. They are now best buds. Kid social lives are hard to navigate.)

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  2. Yeah, this sort of stuff is just barely starting to creep in with my 4-year old boy, but already it's making me dread the really social school years in the near future. Leaving daycare he wanted to give his best friend (a girl) a hug (which he usually does NOT want to do), and she would have none of it, and ran away from him. My son cried and cried. It broke my heart, but of course I also knew that 4 year olds are nothing if not fickle and nothing if not resilient. But still. Anyhow, that Trib article WAS very good. I definitely would have defaulted to "interview for pain," thinking that the right thing to do is to help my child get his feelings out and have them validated.

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