Question 2 -- social interations

[hillview]

Ha I am full of ?s today. We went to a bday party this weekend. DS was upset that he had a yellow balloon, not a blue one. I talked with him about it and he seemed ok. He was sitting near 2 other boys. After a while he got very upset/cried and I took him out of the party room. We talked and he got back to being ok (cake was about to happen!). Then I saw the 2 boys picking on a 2 year old calling her names and my DS was getting involved. I went over and said name calling was NOT ok and (mostly to DS but loud enough for the other 2 to hear) that it needed to stop NOW. I was PISSED. Then I saw the other 2 boys talk to DS about his balloon (AH HA). Ok they were telling him how much better their blue balloons were etc and I could SEE he was getting upset. I went over and told DS they were being mean and that he could tell them they were not being nice. I told him they were TRYING to get him upset and he had this BIG AHA moment. And I told him he could tell them he loved yellow and they'd top bothering him OR he could tell them that they weren't being very nice.

I was pretty angry/upset. DS is 4 and isn't around a lot of this sort of thing -- at school (Montessori) am sure he gets some of it but not a ton as they run a tight ship.

What could I have done differently. How do you explain to DC this sort of behavior? I HATE it. Really HATE it.

Sorry so long :)

TIA!
/hillary

[SnuggleBuggles]

I think you did a really, really good job. Or, at least, it is what I have done so I hope it's good!

I really hate that. I think that by letting him know it's not ok hopefully you are raising him to be above all that.

Beth

[Laurel]

I agree that you did great. Getting him to understand that they were TRYING to upset him is huge. Having skills to cope with that at a young age is great! Nice work, mama!

[ThreeofUs]

I think you did a really great job - you watched, saw what was happening, and described it to your son, allowing HIM to deal with it.

I have this problem with kids in my school (a set of pretty backward twins) telling my DS1 how he and the things he makes/has are "not cool". He brought the language and the "making fun" home, and I was as frank as I could be with him about it. We talked about what was said about whom/what - all the way through why people might feel they need to say this kind of thing. You could see the gears click in his head as he took the message home.