Regarding another child pushing my kid
Hi there,
my 4.5 yr old starting Tball tonight and he's loving it. When all the kids were standing in line to run the bases my son was talking to a boy who's about maybe 6 months to a yr older than him and my son was laughing and having fun. All of a sudden the boy pushes my son in the chest. Not violently but a push then proceeds to do it again like 3 more times. As I watched I was like WTF? All the coaches were preoccupied with the other kids and hadn't noticed. I also scanned the crowd for a parent of the kid thinking they would step in and say something. Finally I couldn't take it and my mommy bear claws came out and I yelled ( my sons name ) push him back. Now I don't agree on fighting only as a last resort if the kid is bullying and takes the first punch. But this kid wouldn't leave my son alone. My husband said to me you are embarrassing me in front of all of these people and I didn't mean to sound mean but I didn't know what else to do at the time. I now know that next time I will go up to then and tell the child that we don't push or you can't be here. Any thoughts on this???? Thank you my son seemed to be running and playing with the child on the way to the parking lot
Re: Regarding another child pushing my kid
If this is the first time this happened I probably would have handled it differently, i.e had a conversation with DS afterwards about how to handle the bullying himself. Or I would have quietly alerted the coaches to what was happening. From what I've noticed, boys sometimes get physical/push as a way to initiate play which may have been what was going on.
That being said, I do think at some point kids need to know that they're allowed to defend themselves. There's a boy at the kids center of my gym that was bullying DS for weeks everytime he was there (following him around just so he could push him to the ground and laugh etc). I taught DS to ask the boy not to touch him and walk away. Well a few weeks ago, in the 30 seconds it took me to sign the kids in, this boy pushed DS down 3 times even after he was asked not to. So I quietly pulled DS aside and told him that if the boy won't leave him alone after he's asked him nicely a few times, he can push him back. And he did, and the kid hasn't touched him again. But again, this was after weeks of the behavior, not the first time I saw it.
I worry about this with my kids. We have a very strict policy about "mean hands" and "mean feet." It would never cross their minds to physically aggress back. In your case I'd be concerned that my child would adopt that type of play. Your DS seemed to enjoy the attention- odds are the kid wasn't going to really hurt him, but letting it continue would have signaled to him that screwing around during t-ball is okay, and that that is an acceptable way to interact.
DD is in tae kwon do and there is a child who is hyper, and in line bumping into everyone and shoulder checking everyone. My daughter is a rule follower and was standing at attention and didn't know what to do. I just walked over and told her to turn around him to stop pushing her. ANd then I told her to do it louder.
I don't let my kids put their hands on other people's children, so you bet I am going to equip them with the strength to defend themselves in a way that works with our family values. And if I don't and DH saw it, he'd likely have gone over and picked the kid up by the collar and roared at him to keep his hands off DD- LOL!
As a teacher I can't stand when kids are getting into a fight and they tell me how their mother told them if someone hits them to hit them back, then again as a mom I get annoyed when DD tattles about every little thing. Today we were at a bounce house and 2 boys kept crawling up the slide making it impossible for the kids to go down and completely ignoring me when I asked them to go around. I told DD to go ahead and go down because they weren't following the rules so if they get hurt it's their fault.
I don't think I ever would have yelled something like that out, you never know how people will react, and if I hadn't noticed my kid pushing someone and their parent told their kid to push mine, I'd flip out. I would have yelled for my kid to move away from the other kid or walked over and talked to the coach. In private later I would have told my LO if someone keeps pushing you and you've told them to stop to walk away, if they keep it up, knock them down.
I'm also not sure why you think it's relevant the kid's age. At this age 6 months-a year doesn't make much difference, and it's also really hard to nail down a kid's age so closely. People always think DD is about a year older than she is and I get frustrated, especially when she was 2, because I feel like people expect alot more from her.
I would absolutely not have told my son to push back, loudly or otherwise.
In that position I would have tried talking to the pusher and, if he ignored me, removed DS from the situation and alerted the coaches to the pusher's behavior.
My Blog
I agree with Auntie. I have a 4 and 7 year old boy. I am at playgrounds a lot and see many boys playing. They are often pushing each other around. They are not being malicious they are being playful. While I have a hands off rule at school and playgrounds I let my boys wrestle in the backyard. They love it. They boy pushing your son was most likely playing around and not being mean. The coach needs to be more clear on his expectations and you need to volunteer to help or be quiet.