Playdates and bullies
True mama confession: I hate playdates. The thought of standing around with another mama that I don't know that well, trying to make small talk while our kids play totally stresses me out. Which is why I usually try to arrange for my kids to play with the children of my friends. Though lately, even these arrangements have become increasingly fraught with the parenting land mines.
Case in point. My two boys are 4.5 and 2. They play together a lot and generally have a really good relationship, aside from the normal bickering over toys, etc. But lately we've been having trouble when my older son's friends come over for playdates. In most cases, the older kid doesn't want my younger son to join them, and tries to actively exclude him. Then we have to intervene, explain about sharing and including people, etc. Strangely enough, none of the other parents ever seem aware that this is happening, or else they do nothing about it.
One friend in particular is posing the most significant problem. Admittedly, this kid is dealing with a lot right now - a new sibling and a very stressful financial situation that's putting a huge strain on his parents. So he's kind of acting out because he's craving attention. But every time he comes over, he waits until someone's not looking, then does something really mean/dangerous to my little guy. He has pushed him down a hill, dumped gravel on his head, turned on the hose full in his face, repeatedly knocked him down and ripped toys out of his hands. All of this while his parents are supposedly watching him, and they do absolutely nothing. He does this stuff right in front of their faces, and they just ignore it. In fact, they are constantly going on about how well-behaved and kind their child is. Meanwhile their kid watches you, follows you around and waits for you to do something like go to the bathroom, then he acts.
I don't want to make my older son responsible for the bully, and I try to keep an eagle eye on him whenever I can. I was hosting a party the last time they came over, and enlisted another pal specifically to watch this kid...and he still managed to rip binkies out of little kids' mouths and dunk a baby underwater. These friends live close by and come over a lot. They don't deal well with any sort of criticism. But this behavior is getting worse, and I'm tired of my little son taking a beating at the hands of someone 20 pounds heavier.
I am thinking that I should enlist their help the next time something happens, and say, "How should we handle this?" Or I could just lay it out in the context of: "We've been having some issues with D's friends not wanting to play nicely with T." But I'm not sure if that's strong enough to get the point across.
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dead. on. i like how you are impeccable with your words, mama.
I can write some tomes online but offline, I am usually quite reticent. I'm a shy person and tend to minimize conversational time...no beating around the bush because that just drags out my social anxiety aaaaaaaaaaagh 
how old is the child who you are talking about? i remember when bella was born, max was 27 m/o and even before bella was born and i was preggo with her, max was super mean to one of my friend's babies. no, actually, it wasn't that he was being mean, he just didn't understand how to touch a baby yet. i on the other hand took it as he was a mean kid and omg he's gonna be a bully! it totally freaked me out. my friend, who had an older son and this new baby, was so chill about it and was all like, "eh, he'll learn, and as long as he doesn't draw blood!" but i was on max like a hawk when ever he got near that baby. are these people use to being around kids this age? i have noticed that people who are used to young children are way more relaxed about the roughness kids exhibit. maybe you can let them know it makes you nervous and that you'd hate to see anyone get hurt because they have not learned out to touch softly yet. it is totally within normalcy for you to express this concern if ya'll kids are going to spend time together. and you know, kids are physically tough and i think it is totally acceptable for you to get down on one knee in front of that boy and show him how to touch your baby. talk to him about it. sounds like his parents are totally dropping the ball on that.
i don't do play dates with anyone who is not my friend anymore. i use to when my kids were young and i was getting to know my momma self and other new moms at the same time.
sucky situation. i really like mercs suggestion. i can see some anxiety with the 5 y/o having a new sibling and all. but the parents need to be more proactive with helping him learn how to touch gently. five is def old enough to get this skill. sounds like the parents are dropping the ball in this area. it happens.
Ugh... rough situation!!
I get that you don't want your older son to be responsible for the bully's behavior but I don't think there's anything wrong with letting him know that you expect him to protect his brother even if it's just by telling an adult if another kid is getting too rough. I think 4.5 is old enough to understand that it's wrong to stand by and let an older kid beat on your little brother whether you're directly participating in the bullying or not. So if this other kid knocks your 2-yr-old down in your 4-yr-old's presence maybe you can tell your son that his friend (the bully) needs to go home if they can't play nice with the little one. The next time this kid does something rotten you can say "That's it [bully] needs to go home." If the kid's parents protest then play it off like you're doing what you need to do to discipline your kid. Say that your 4 year old knows the consequences if he or his friends mistreat his brother. It might seem like you're unfairly punishing your older son but all you're doing is asserting that any of his friends who bully his brother will need to go home. Hopefully it will open your friends' eyes to their kid's bad behavior but if not at least you have a semi-diplomatic way to handle the situation...
I also agree with what Madame Filth said about reprimanding the bully kid directly. You can do this without being super harsh or yelling at him. Something like, "Please don't do that. That hurts [2-yr-old]. You don't want to hurt him do you?" If you see it again you can do something like I suggested above like ask the kid to leave with the explanation that you've made a rule that if your older son OR ANY OF HIS FRIENDS are mistreating his little bro the friend will have to go home. You've made it your rule for your kid so they can't really say anything about it.
OR if he does it again after you've nicely asked him not to you can go to the bully kid directly again and say something like, "I think we need to talk to your mommy and daddy about this." Bring him over to them and ask him to tell them what he did. Best case scenario he listens to you and confesses. If not you can tell them... something along the lines of "well, I saw [bully kid] playing a little rough with [2-yr-old] and asked him to stop because that is dangerous - right?" Let him confirm this and then say "But just now [bully kid] was doing the same thing again to [2-yr-old]. I told him we'd need to talk to mommy and daddy about this." Try to say it sympathetically like you're all on the same side (which you are really) and act like there's no question in your mind that they will be concerned about this behavior and will address it with their kid. You haven't said their son is a bad kid - you've just alerted their attention to his misbehavior. And you're not really criticizing them as parents - you're showing that you have confidence that they will do their best to correct the behavior. If you go this route I would do it even if you think the kid's parents saw what he did. It sounds possible that the parents are stressed/exhausted/burnt out... whatever. They might be watching what's happening and may be concerned about it but are too worn down to jump in and take action. If that's the case they could be rationalizing their inaction by telling themselves that you haven't said anything about it and no one's really gotten hurt so maybe it's not a big deal. If you let them know that this IS a big problem for you while maintaining the illusion that they must not have seen what happened (or else surely they would have taken care of it) that might just be the kick in the ass they need to deal with their son.
I mean... if you do this and you're nice about it I really don't see how they can be pissed off unless the kid denies what you're saying and they believe him over you. In that case the friendship btwn you and them is doomed anyways - if they think you'd make up a lie about their son bullying your son then they can't think very highly of you. If they DO believe you then what are they going to do? Argue that they don't see anything wrong with their 5-yr-old doing the things you described to a 2-year-old? Again, if they think that way you don't need them as friends!
it is so rare to have a one-on-one opportunity with your children when you have a few in the house. if you are comfortable with the big boys playing together maybe this is your chance to have some focused time with your little guy. it can be special for him and the big boys can have a chance to be big kids together. maybe your boy will be a good influence on him.
though i also agree with the direct "what do we do about this" approach.
one, the older kid can play without his little brother from time to time and there is nothing wrong with excluding him. personally, i would say to the older kid before his friend comes over that i think he's big enough to play with a big kid for a while and that i will keep the little kid busy, in hopes that it would make the bigger kid feel special and enlist his help controlling the other child.
the other child is being a douche and someone needs to correct him. if this were happening at my house i would correct him, if the parents failed to do so. if it comes down to it, i would also tell him and his parents that his being invited is contingent on his not hitting or hurting the people who live there, and if he can't keep his hands to himself, he will have to stop coming over. i would also consider saying no for two weeks, show him a calendar and tell him that in two weeks i will invite him over again but if he hits or mistreats again, he won't be allowed back at all.
all with/in front of the parents of that kid, of course. and all after trying ONCE to talk to the parents about it. it's not your job to exhaustively discuss your kid being bullied and hit, not that they've made you do that but you seem worried about it. it's not something you need to negotiate or make a big deal about, you take action when it happens and everyone moves on. you don't need their permission to keep your kid safe. and if i were that kid's parents, i would totally be on board with that kind of correction and i'd back you up. conversely, if i were the other kid's mother i would respond more negatively to a discussion than someone just saying something appropriate in the moment. when people have drawn out talks with me, it tells me they've been ruminating about it for a while and got nervous about how to handle a situation. and when the situation is a simple one, like this is, i would be insulted that they thought that little of me that they avoided the topic for that long.
just a thought. good luck.
oh, and i refuse to use the term playdate. it's so 1990.
far into the future. i do this too, and it railroads most chances i have at things going well.
in this situation it may even be better for you to be the one who says it can't happen at your house. think of kids in school, they act up all day at home but you send them to school where wholly other adults tell them what is and is not accepted and they're fine. perfectly normal for this age too. i would seriously just go to the kid and say if you can't keep your hands off my baby, you can't come here. then, when it happens again, inform him that he can't come back for a while. even if you say for two days as punishment, at that age he has little concept of time, and that way it's not like he was going to be there anyway. but i've seen this work on kids. then when you invite him back, before letting him cross the threshold you inform, "you're keeping your hands to yourself and not hurting my baby. that's the rule."
yeah, i thought about how i would react if someone came to me and said, "how will we handle this?" and i would not react well. a five year old acting like this isn't so far out of the norm that you need to have a discussion. i would prefer if my kid were acting like this, the other parent would say something to me right then and there like "this happens too much, it needs to be dealt with." that kind of directness is a whole lot more respectable to me. i would act on the issue either way, but the conversation would go better if it were handled in the moment, rather than having a "talk." a talk would make me feel played.
With the hating playdates and trying to make small talk:
One of my pet peeves is when people close themselves off into their own circle of friends and aren't willing to branch out and then come to find a bunch of irritations with those people but still don't want to branch out. I think sometimes we end up with the lessons in life that we need to encourage us to grow. How about finding a mama with children you admire, tell her that, and see if you can arrange time for the kids to play together and then bring a little snack to share or have them over for coffee or meet a park and see if you can try to tolerate the small talk. If you are positive, upbeat and pleasant if should actually be easier to watch the children because you won't get into any too-deep conversation. Often what I do is try to think of six or so conversation-starters and do a lot of polite asking questions when they talk. Then you might make a new friend and this other family's issues will be less threatening as it won't be your only option.
Right now, it looks like a situation that could become ugly and end this friendship (if you keep sublimating your needs or if they blow you off) while meanwhile you could be missing out on an inspiring mama-friend. Also, it's nice to model allowing new people into our lives for our children.
a lot of people are introverted. it's a personality trait, not a flaw.
I think we introverts get a bum rap. I totally get what you mean when you say it's stressful trying to connect to new people. Not that it never pays off - I've had some really good friends who I really dreaded seeing at first because I felt like I had nothing to say to them. For whatever reason with those people we would just keep running into each other or whatever and eventually we formed a friendship. Yet that doesn't make getting though that initial awkward period any easier.
I've been accused of being a snob and not open to meeting new people/expanding my circle of friends and it's SO frustrating because it is completely untrue. I can't think of a time in my life when I didn't wish being social with strangers came easily to me but it's hard and a constant source of anxiety.
I actually stress myself out just thinking about when DS gets a little older in terms of him having friends, etc. Especially when he goes to school because I know I'm going to be forced into those situations. I also worry that my shyness and social anxiety will have a negative impact on him - like if he wants to hang out with a group of kids whose moms are all friends but misses out on invites because his mom is so "stand-offish" and "unfriendly". But it's not on purpose. I want to be friendly. I want to be able to engage in small talk and join right in with new groups but that's not me and I don't think it ever will be.
So yeah... go easy on us all you extroverts.
and I've posted here bout my struggles with meeting people before, right? But here's the deal, my advice here actually works FOR us. Yes, it involves stretching yourself, which also isn't a flaw. If all introverts increased their efforts at meeting others then we, as humans in the world would be more often approached and have to do less of the work of reaching out ourselves compared to the amount of reach-outs we recieved.
Why can we have threads about how lame it is when men don't help but then we also don't want to stretch? Also, if it's a cop-out when parents turn a blind eye to their kid being bullied then it's a cop-out when we could reach out in kindness to our fellow man but let fear stop us. No hate
that last paragraph what threads we can or can not have was just confusing to me. were you responding to me?
I'm saying that we rightfully ask men to reach beyond what they've learned/are used to to be the kind of excellent caregivers they could be. Similarly, barring mental illness, many of us can reach out more to people than we are used to.
i get it now. i had a pounding headache when i read that and really just didn't get it. well i see it more like a personality trait than conditioning. some people are introverts, naturally without consideration for grooming or development. so asking someone who is just naturally shy to reach out is like asking someone to change their personality. but you're referring to the socialization aspect, and going beyond your comfort zone.
like with my kid, she's naturally shy, even though she booms onstage and she can play freely with other people around. it's just how she's always been. people are always telling me what i can "do for that," but i don't see it as something to fix, just who she is. and both she and i do just fine in social situations, because people with a good understanding of how different people work interact with us. others see us as rude or standoffish. but, what can you do? if i were a loud talker, that'd be rude too. or if i'm the type to talk too much when uncomfortable (i do that too actually). gregarious people like me, they make a sport of seeing how long it takes for me to make a joke and whatnot.
but i can totally relate to the pre playdate dread. having to talk to the parents, think of things to talk about, hope i'm not saying something upsetting or offensive, or committing some weird social faux pas that they'll remember. i feel now, ten years later, that i'm getting the hang of it. i assume it's as painful for everyone else as it is for me, and think of it as "we're in this together." somehow that makes it easier.
you just reminded me, a mother invited me on a day trip the other day and i still haven't responded because i don't know how.
I hope yours stays away, .
Yeah, I just mean moving outside your comfort zone. I see the socializing issue as a societal one. If each person offers their friendship just once more per year than they would have naturally, that's hundreds of millions more people, at a minimum, getting a compliment even if it goes nowhere. I'm not asking naturally shy people to be like gregarious people or for gregarious people to sit on their kiesters and say "job done". Everybody could kick it up a notch.
People telling you how to fix your kid is messed up. As an adult though, it is always good to look at oneself and see what one can do, even a small thing might make a difference. Not to the point of having a heart attack, but definitely when you have a problem see if you can't BE the solution as well as try to get others to change.
I get playdate excitement and nervousness and take a while to think of things to say. Please call that person back. I have "not-called-back" paranoia that stems from often not being called back. She's in it with you and it probably took some guts to invite someone, put herself out there and risk rejection. Maybe if a day trip is too long to be assured of having things to say you could tell her you can't make it and suggest something shorter for a specific other time.
I get you and I totally applaud and admire making the effort and stretching oneself. And I get the inclination to encourage other introverts to similarly extend themselves. Where it gets frustrating for me is making the leap to say you've got a pet peeve for people who don't do this. Because then you're running the risk of adding to all the pressure there is in the world to be LIKE an extrovert even if you're not one naturally. KWIM?
I don't think it's the same thing as men not helping out because although they may have been socialized in such a way that they are ignorant of the extent to which they should share responsibilies of keeping house, care-giving, etc., that's not an inate part of their personality and brain chemistry. Same things with parents turning a blind eye to anything. That is a symptom of a learned behavior. And yeah, it's totally a struggle to un-learn ingrained behavior but much easier than setting out to live or act in a way that is against your very nature.
I can't speak for anyone else but for me the DESIRE to extend myself is there, believe me. But often it's the case that I simply cannot make myself do it. I just think it's important, especially for those of us who are introverts, to be as supportive and understanding as possible. As I said, I completely get you wanting to encourage or even push others to stretch beyond their comfort zone. It's just the critical tone that kind of struck a nerve for me.
Velma, I've got nothing but love for you so please don't take offense or think I'm coming down on you. I'm actually kind of surprised to have found an instance in which we (somewhat)disagree because I find that you and I are so often on the same page. So yeah... no hate right back at ya.
while socially anxious people are usually introverts the reverse is not a foregone conclusion. Not all, or even most, introverts have social anxiety - I do. So maybe we should be talking about separate issues. Social anxiety is one of those conditions where many people who don't suffer from it don't believe it exists. Like ADHD or OCD, etc. There's a misapprehension that overcoming the problem is as simple as buckling down and putting in more effort. Not doing so is seen as laziness.
I'm not saying that's what YOU were trying to convey here Velma but I did want to clarify that in speaking about my own struggles it is more apt to describe them as products of social anxiety rather than mere introversion.
you taking anything for your anxiety? if not try st. john's wort and/or 5-htp. I take both and I have such a delicious feeling of calm and deep muscle relaxation, which really helps me when I get all weirded out by other people. which is like, on a daily basis. I still feel twinge-y when some stranger or even acquaintance tries to talk to me or when having to speak at one of my group meetings or whatever, but now I don't have the heart palpitations and sharp feeling of terror, you know I mean? that used to go along with it. I still have to 'force' myself 9 times out of 10 to socialize, but it's not so much a scary tense situation anymore.
and I always try to tell myself, what's the worst thing that can happen? I thought this was helpful but my therapist suggested I'm perhaps a bit too imaginative to go that route LOL, meaning I tend to really get wrapped up in the worst possible case scenario and that amps my tension levels.
I didn't say anything specific about introverts to begin with. Extroverts do it too, get comfy in their own pattern and then that pattern becomes a rut, and then they're frustrated with the people around them (instead of changing themselves which is the only thing they can change). I'm wasn't even sure guava was doing that, but it's a pattern I've seen and it ticks me off and this thread reminded me of it on more than one level: let's not forget that both guava and her friend might be in this very situation right now because someone else somewhere, introvert, extrovert or whatever, failed to reach out to them. Maybe the friend's crisis wouldn't be so bad if she'd met someone else recently to help her share the load. Maybe guava would already have seen this handled well before and her son wouldn't even have been injured more than once if more people had reached out to her. I see his pain as just as important as any mama on here complaining that her partner isn't helping when she's sick: guava gets in there for a moment and disciplines but her son does keep getting hurt just like the man who does the dishes once then forgets about it. **edited to say that her effort's not lame, and more than she should have to do, but still he keeps getting hurt as an end result**
Here's what I'm saying, there are things I can't make myself do and there are things I choose not to make myself do. I'm not pressuring anybody to do anything they can't do, but just take a hard look at what's in those categories and make sure they're not mistaking one for the other. There was a long time I would have said I could never give up gluten, eggs and dairy. There was a long time I would have said I never could cook all my our own meals. Currently, I figure I "could never" manage to work full time outside the home (before kids I couldn't do it and I still feel like it's part of my nature). It's not for me to decide which category your socializing fits into, but yeah as a whole I think many of us--like the men who don't help--need to get up and practice what doesn't come easy. Lets say we all just are supportive and understanding regarding the situation guava and her friend are in: I understand the other family has a crisis, I understand guava shouldn't have to do all the disciplining, I understand the bullyer is hurting, yada, yada...Still they are in the same sitch--nothing changes and her son's still getting hurt. She asked for advice and I gave mine and she can chuck it. If guava says she stretches, then she does and my advice isn't useful here to her, but I think it's important nonetheless to say that for those who really DON'T stretch guava's situation is the kind of thing that results.
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Especially the "what should WE do about this?" because it puts the onus on them to pay more attention and come up with a solution, but it doesn't feel blame-y.