Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The b-word.

Today was one of those hard parenting days. The kind where your heart breaks for your child because you can see the hurt in their eyes, the conflict between being good or giving in to the anger or fear.
We received a call from school today that Nicholas had called his friend a bad word after he fell on some ice and this friend laughed at him. As the friend laughed, Nick spat "You're a b*tch!"
If I had been there I may have laughed because I'm a momma bear and anyone that laughs at the expense of my kid is a selfish, malicious, unpleasant person. (as websters #3 definition says)
Rob and I waited for himto come home. We waited and waited, watching him not want to come home. Once he reached the door he stayed outside, I said we will just wait for him to come in. Nina finally opened the door to him when he was looking in the window, as if checking if the coast was clear. It tookhim 10 more minutes to come upstairs to where Rob and I were waiting. He had big crocodile tears, and he looked utterly defeated. I had told Rob he could be the "talker" but it became clear to me this boy needed tenderness and the opportunity to tell his side. We asked where he heard that word. (It is not in our regular vocabulary) After waiting out his "I don't knows" He told us that older kid on the playground had called him that when he told them to "get off the soccer field we are playing here." It saddens me that a) this language is used at such a young age and b)that the older kid took a cheap shot at somone younger and smaller then him instead of setting an example.
I guess my expectations are again too high.
We took our turns telling Nicholas what our expectaions are for him in situations like that and he did have to mouth a bar of soap, plus write a letter of apology to his friend for calling him a bad word.
We had also enlisted Papa to call and ask for an account of what happened. Papa asked him what he had called the boy and having just sucked on a bar of soap he was not going to say it again so he spelled it out bich. I had myself a good chuckle out of eye sight of course.
All we can do is love him, teach by example and hold him accountable for his actions.
He is a sweet, intelligent boy who is learning about life all around him, and some times that outside world is a whole lot more cruel and unfair then the world in our home.

2 comments:

  1. It's times like these when you might want to jump off the parent train! But you guys handled it with love. I have to say that my heart swelled a little for Nicholas that he had such a hard time coming home...shows a tender heart! Recently, as we had to do some tough-love parenting for one of our adult children, someone said to me "the pain of parenting is very hard, but the pain of regret is harder" wow, so true. It's hard to lovingly discipline our kids sometimes, but I can't imagine what it would feel like to regret NOT doing it! Hang in there!!!

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  2. Poor sweet kid!!! I got teased a lot as a kid, but I don't remember hearing as many bad words as they hear today. It's so sad and makes me anxious for my future (unconceived, lol) child.

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