At this lovely park there are these spinny things, for lack of a better title. A kid sits on a little platform and gets spun around by someone else turning a pole in the middle of the platform. Make sense? Anyway, there was a little girl who had been monopolizing one for the better part of 5 minutes, despite her teary-eyed friend's repeated pleas for just one turn. Her friend hadn't quite gone over the edge of complete meltdown at not having a turn but each time she asked the water works were getting dialed up a notch. Then a few more kids wandered over, each wanting their own turn and asking her, very politely, for a turn. She soundly ignored them and kept spinning herself around.
The Hubs and I were sitting maybe two feet away, watching this little vignette of passive aggression. The little girl's mother was on the other side of the park, paying her no mind.
As I've sat here, thinking about what I did, I've come to the conclusion that I may be an interfering busy-body and probably should have just left them to figure it out for themselves, you know, conflict resolution and all that.
But I didn't. I kindly got the little girl's attention and suggested that maybe she should let the other kids have a turn and that it would make her particularly sad friend happier. She kind of stared darkly at me, like how dare I suggest such a thing and who did I think I was? I didn't really say anything else and soon after had to get up to help one of my kids on one of the toys, but I noticed she did get off and let her friend have a turn.
I said something because it was becoming apparent that this little girl was not going to budge and the kids who wanted a turn were only going to get more aggravated and didn't know how to deal with this stubborn child.
And I just didn't think she should get used to the idea of getting away with treating other kids that way. Sure, kids are selfish and don't know how to share, but that's what parents and adults are for, right? To teach them how to not be like that? And if my kids were behaving that way and I wasn't aware of what was happening, I sure hope someone would say something (kindly, of course).
What do you think? What, if anything, would you have done? Does it really take a village to raise a proper kid and how big of a village is it? Does it include perfect strangers with good intentions?
2 comments:
I would have done exactly the same thing, and probably have in similar situations. It sounds like you handled it properly and she got the message. Think of it this way, what would you have done if one of the kids asking for a turn decided to get aggressive towards the stubborn child? You're action may have avoided a more difficult situation.
I think you were perfectly within the bounds of acceptable behavior. It's not like you screamed at her or called her a brat or something. And I'm betting the other kids were grateful that someone with more authority than themselves intervened.
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