On rainy days, hot days, or cold days
I like to do 1 of 2 things with the girls.
1. Go to the library.
2. Let them ransack the only play place in Brownwood, Texas.
McDonalds.
Today it was hot and rainy and we had just been to the library last week,
so McDonalads it was.
It seems like there is a situation that occurs everytime we go to McDonalds.
One time, Kensington peed in the top of the play area.
Everyone had to come down and it had to be cleaned.
From time to time we witness CPS supervised visitation meetings between
biological parents and their kids who have been placed in the foster care system.
Its always really awkward and little sad for me to watch.
I hate that for all parties involved in those visits. It can't be easy.
I have seen the bully kids.
I have seen 12 year old playing the 3 and under area.
My kids have been cussed in front of by other young kids.
I once saw a young pre-school age boy who could not keep his pants
on for some strange reason.
Today was another one of those days and I have another story.
A little boy came up to Kensington while we were eating.
He had a rocketship toy in his hand and put it up to her head
(as if it were a toy gun).
He said,
"I'm gonna shoot you dead."
Kensington and Anslee just looked back at him,
they had no idea what he was trying to "play".
Thank goodness they were confused.
Yall. I didnt know what to do. His guardians (who looked to be grandparents, possibly?)
were on the other side of the play area and did not see or hear any of this take place.
I just said, Oh - we don't play like that. Thats not a nice way to play with friends.
He ran off and didn't come back.
I just told my girls after he left that it is never
"fun" to play using the words "shoot" and "dead".
We don't need to pretend like thats a fun way to play.
I don't think they really understood too much of what was going on -
But it just makes me sad that I had to have this type of conversation with my 2.5 year old.
It was probably totally innocent play, and that little boy probably had seen something
on TV or maybe has older siblings, or a daddy that goes hunting or something.
Who knows.
I just know it didn't sit well with me - someone pretending to shoot my daughter dead.
There are just times when I don't really know what to say or how to handle
little moments like these that will come up.
What would you do? Could I have done something better?
Am I making this a bigger deal than it should be?
Sometimes, I am just still a silly first time mama!
2 comments:
It is hard to know how to handle something like that, but, as the mom of a boy, I have learned that the majority of the time it's just how little boys play. (They are just programmed completely different that little girls!) We tried to keep guns and stuff away from Hadley for a while, but we've finally realized that it's just in a boy's nature to want to play with them. What we have tried to teach him is that you never point a gun (or knife or sword or whatever) at a person. We don't care if he shoots other toys, books, the wall, etc., just not other people. Unfortunately, as we have learned since Hadley started school (with lots of little boys!) not everyone teaches that same "rule", so we've had to deal with the same situations. I guess all we can do is exactly what you did, and use it as a teaching experience for our little ones.
i think you handled it perfectly!!!! i don't like violent play either and that was totally inappropriate. Kye has picked up on a lot of that kind of stuff from school. We are a military town and most of the boys in his class come from military families so it does make sense that thats the kind of stuff they are used to, but it still doesn't make it okay for me! i wouldn't have probably been as nice as you were about it to him!!!
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