metaphortunate | from hell's heart, I stab at thee

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from hell's heart, I stab at thee

Did I do right?

The Junebug came home from daycare the other day with the story of how his friend* Prince** had kicked him when they were lining up to go out to outdoor play. He said it had hurt. That he hadn't seen it coming, that it had come by surprise. That the teachers hadn't noticed or hadn't interfered. Which seems legit, because the teachers tell us about incidents of fighting, and no one told me about that one.

At his daycare they teach the kids to say "No!" and block the other kids with their hands if they try to push or hit or bite. He said that he said "No!" but that Prince kicked him anyway.

I asked what he did. He said he had cried. He said he thought he'd cry till I came.

(That small dry snapping sound you just heard was my heart breaking in half.)

(I should note for the record that when I actually did come to pick him up he was laughing and running around outside, totally non-traumatized, and that he told me the story without seeming to suffer any emotional pain in the retelling.)

I said that Prince should not kick him. People shouldn't hurt each other.

I pointed out that if Prince keeps hurting him (and Prince did bite him the next day, hard enough to leave a mark; and also pinched him, according to the Junebug; and the teachers did tell me about that one) then he should think about whether he wants to play with him anymore, or whether it would be better to play with other kids.

(Note for the record that the Junebug had grabbed Prince's puzzle pieces right before Prince bit him. We talked about how that's not the right way to play with someone else too.)

I generalized from that that if we hurt our friends, then they won't want to be our friends anymore; so he should not hurt other kids.

I told him that if Prince tries to hurt him again, he shouldn't just say "No!"; he should yell it as loud as he can. That way the teachers won't be able to ignore it. I told him that was the one time it was okay to use his outside voice inside. We practiced yelling "No!" as loud as we could, outside. He's, uh. He's naturally gifted in that area. He can produce a very loud "No!" We'll practice some more.

I told him that he must never kick anyone smaller than him, or who can't defend themself. Like, he must never kick babies; he must never kick Rocket.

I told him that he must never kick anyone first. (Visions of Han Solo dancing in my head.)

And then I told him that if someone kicks him again, and he screams "No!" and they don't stop, and the teachers don't help…to kick them back.

Did I do right?

I feel like you should never tell your kids to hurt another kid! It seems wrong! But I could not think of what else to tell him. Kids are gonna fight. Kids are gonna attack each other. I know my parents told me never to hurt anyone else. It seems like the right thing to say. But in reality I remember that I just took that to mean that my parents were completely out of touch with anything like my reality and there was no point in asking them for advice. "Just ignore them," my ass. "Just walk away," yeah sure I'm going to teach people that they can kick me out of any space by lifting a finger. That'll give me a peaceful time in the future, no doubt. My. Ass.

And there is no way in hell I'm going to tell him to tell a teacher. Yeah yeah, in an ideal world that's the way it would work; if there were people in charge of enforcing the social contract in a space, you could report violations to them and they would take care of it. Back to childhood reality: it's social suicide among the kids AND the teachers. Nobody, not even the supposed social contract enforcers, likes, or listens to, a tattletale.

So….what do you tell them? I'm serious. I'm officially asking for advice. If you have a solution that's worked for you, I want to hear it.

I think I did wrong. But I don't know how to do better.

------------------------------

*Yes, friend; one of the two kids he plays with all the time.

**Not his real name.

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Um, if you're wrong, then so are we. We tell them to de-escalate, of course, and to get away if they can, to go for help. But if they're up against a wall and no help is in sight, they're to fight to disable their opponent - and yes, I've taught them to throw a punch, we're working on kicking - and then run like hell for the nearest adult, and if that adult won't help, to at the very least tell me and/or their father. It's our job to get them to adulthood safely and even my pacifist Catholic mother would go toe-to-toe with any authority figure over her grandkid's right to use force against someone who meant them harm.

eta: Sorry if I sound way militant about this. I kind of am. But especially this week when I've been trying to coax Lu to wear whatever he wants to school (he has a couple new "girl" shirts that he loves to pieces, but won't wear to school because kids will laugh at him) I've kind of got my teeth set against anything that wants to hurt my kid.

eta2: feel free to PM/email me if you want to discuss this, too

Edited 2015-02-05 08:48 (UTC)

I had the idea last night, based on this post, in fact, to begin teaching my kids the prisoner's dilemma as a way to talk about threat and use of force: if neither kid fights, they both get ahead! if one fights, and the other doesn't, then the aggressor (hopefully) gets a comeuppance BUT the kid who got punched, well, still got punched; if they both fight, they'll probably both wind up getting injured, which does typically spare them additional consequences but is the least desirable of all the options because bleeding and bruises.

I mean it's not an exact map and I'm still working it out, but I'm definitely thinking about this.

Iterated prisoner's dilemma is definitely a good way to look at it! See tit for tat, tit for two tats.

Nope, that's the plan, right there.

As our kids aged, we have had to modify it for their personalities. (K won't defend herself; M will attack at perceived wounds that are not realistic.)

But you did right.

Welp. :/ Maybe not. See follow-up.

Sounds good to me. (Mine are 14 and 17 now, and there was some fighting and bullying. The older one was a target, and in his school culture it was totally needed for us to teach him to fight back. The fun part was the tae kwon do!!! :D Excellent grounding in the idea that fighting is for self defense only.)

Do want to get them into martial arts someday, for sure!

Sounds spot on to me. That's how I handle it.

We are "run" and "tattle" parents. Self-defense I see as something that needs to wait for judgement to come in first; I'm almost totally focused on teaching de-escalation at the moment. But you didn't do wrong, honey, you just did different.

Yeah; looks like we should be aiming more that way. Thanks for the advice.

I was not trying to imply a should - this stuff is tricky. Just saying what we do. We also do a lot of talking about two other things:
1) how people's bodies belong to them and it is NEVER okay to do something to someone else's body without their permission
2) how it is possible for both people in a situation to act wrongly (i.e. there is no "my fault" or "your fault")
This plus a pretty forgiving "learn and move on" approach to mistakes? I don't know, I'm muddling through this same as you are.I'm thinking about putting both of them into martial arts soon because I DO want them to be ABLE to fight back once they are old enough to make the "back against the wall no other option" distinction.

My two cents:

I think you did right. I think "physical violence is not okay, but it's sometimes the only way to protect yourself" is an okay message for a child. You can't always be there. They may have to be able to do less-than-ideal things -- to "misbehave" -- in order to stay safe. Like disobeying grown-ups. Or shouting inside. Or hitting.

Plus, nonviolence takes complexity and work and a commitment to the knowledge that you may be hurt for turning the other cheek. That's a lot to put on a grade-schooler.

You're modeling nonviolence in the day-to-day. Fighting is (and should be) the exceptional circumstance, but it has its uses.

(Lyrics from my current favorite song-on-repeat:

If somebody hits you, hit 'em back
Then negotiate a peace contract)

Unfortunately appropriate violence also takes complexity and work! There is no way to avoid the work. :/

You're absolutely right, and all day I have had the inkling that part of the thing is that these little people are *people* who will, in the end, make their own choices about this stuff, and that's kinda terrifying, but yeah.

Ha. I would actually like to teach my 5-year-old to fight back when necessary, but it's starting to look like she's always going to be a run-away type of kid (like I was), so we acknowledge running away as a strategy because it's something she'll actually do. (Of course at her school, the girls tend to do less physical violence and more verbal violence, at which point my tack is a) Make sure it wasn't a misunderstanding, b) tell them they are wrong, and, if it still is happening, c) walk away, you've said your piece and you haven't convinced them, but you know you're right. At some point this will be insufficient and then I don't know what I'll do.)

Hmm. Right now I'm emphasizing the "tell a teacher" because in E's preschools it seems to be the case that the teachers are pretty invested in upholding the social contract, and (probably for that reason) there doesn't seem to be the same stigma against "tattletales" (unless of course you're always doing it for minor infractions; I had a kid once at church who did that and it was super annoying, whereas I would have wanted the kids to come to me if it was a major issue). I expect that changes dramatically when she goes into the public school system (which is where, in my experience, I remember tattletales being disliked).

On the other hand, the advice to yell so loud that a teacher can't ignore you kind of covers both situations, doesn't it! I like that one a lot. The only problem is to figure out how to explain to my kid the difference between minor stupid infractions, for which she doesn't have to yell and scream, but frequently does, with actual major ones where it's a good thing...

Yeah, that is absolutely why I urged screaming. It's like calling for a teacher right in the moment.

I'm hearing that "tell a teacher" is more of an option here and now than it was where and when I grew up. Which is probably a good thing.

I watch fairly sizable groups of kids (four on a regular basis, five occasionally) and if one of them started dealing with conflict using violence and told me his parent said it was okay, I would not watch that kid anymore. As a caretaker with a bunch of charges, it is flat-out impossible to reach every fight in the amount of time a kid thinks is reasonable to wait for adult intervention. And you can't contradict the parent's rules on basic shit like that--not effectively, anyway--and when one kid is officially approved to handle situations by kicking people, you can bet they're all gonna follow his lead.

Maybe it makes me out of touch with reality, but yeah, I teach them that if another kid is being violent, they back away out of that space and use their words. If that's not working, they get the adult's attention, and the kid who was being violent gets consequences, and the victim gets their space back. Seems to work okay for us. I get that it's harder when you're not present for the problem and able to reinforce the efficacy of that system, but I do not think offering violence as a viable option is helpful. Especially for a basically-white boy.

if one of them started dealing with conflict using violence

I don't think that's what we're talking about, though. We're talking about self-defense: what to do when, if you've already told them to stop, or already tried to get away, and neither of those has worked, AND there is not an adult to hand. There's a difference between that and "dealing with conflict using violence," which to me reads more like "punching this kid for saying something mean, or disagreeing with me."

You're obviously entitled to determine whether you would continue providing care for a child who's been authorized to use force; it's just not clear to me that this particular comment of yours is addressing the same situation.

I teach them that if another kid is being violent, they back away out of that space and use their words. If that's not working, they get the adult's attention, and the kid who was being violent gets consequences, and the victim gets their space back

This, this is closer to what I think is under discussion - violence is first met with attempts at de-escalation and disengagement, and only becomes self-defense if there isn't an adult to hand. This is a bigger problem when you've got, say, twenty or twenty-five kindergarteners to a teacher, because adult attention and intervention is harder to come by. I'm not just gonna tell my kids to let themselves get beat up, you know?

Edited 2015-02-05 17:58 (UTC)

Kids that age suck balls at making that kind of distinction, especially in the moment. When they get kicked, all they're going to remember is the "it's okay to kick back" part, not all the conditions under which that rule applies. I do think it makes sense to fight back if you legit cannot get away, but I also think that under those circumstances kids will fight back regardless of whether it's sanctioned by adults. (Boys will, anyway. This gets trickier with girls.)

I don't disagree with any of that.

It is something I keep in mind, of course.

I don't know. I mean, I grew up under the parental teaching of "do not start fights, but you are permitted to finish them" -- but my memory is that this mostly came into play when we were older, like first grade and up. So far violence hasn't come up much in our kids' lives, aside from Sibling Violence, which we let them sort out themselves, mostly (while discouraging violent solutions in general, and encouraging de-escalation, disengagement, and cooling-off).

I...have a certain feeling of satisfaction from the Fights Finished of my childhood, I have to say. There was always kind of a fierce, firm pleasure in defending myself, or in witnessing or assisting my siblings' defenses of themselves. The kid who thought he could push me around in first grade, who I kneed so hard in the balls that he never came near me again? The bully older than I am who decided to go after my younger brothers, and ended up with one of them holding him in a headlock while the other punched him?* There weren't adults around for those, and I'm glad we were able to fight for ourselves, because running or finding an adult simply aren't always options. (I was at a bus stop waiting for a schoolbus; no adults around and if I'd run I would have missed school; my brothers were in a boys' locker room in an almost-empty school after basketball practice.)

* Note to bullies: twin boys who are trained wrestlers are probably not easy targets. They are slippery, strong, and good at incapacitating opponents, and there are two of them. How dumb was that guy? Well, he was 14 and they were 10, so maybe not THAT dumb, but I gotta say it didn't work out for him.

I asked my 24-year-old son what he thinks, and he thinks you did the right thing (which is much like what I told him, he says). Self defense is the right of every living thing, including your children. Teaching all children that they have the right to say no is important, it's not the wrong thing to do.

Additionally starting them learning about relationships with "this is how you tell someone you think of as a friend is nevertheless not treating you in the way a friend treats you" is great!

It is, sort of, but at this age they do push and bite and hit; my kid as well as others. It's not possible to say "only play with the 3 year olds who never hit", because I don't think there are any in his class. It doesn't make them bad friends if they do it once in a while! Consistently, though, yes.

And of course this will change! It is always changing. Am I keeping up? I DON'T KNOW. Aargh!

My kid was one of the ones doing the biting and sudden burst of aggression stuff last year, so I felt that telling her that it was okay sometimes to hit back when someone else had done it to her wouldn't help. That's pretty much the main reason, though. She was able to see that sometimes the other child had had too much (provocation, silly winding up, whatever) because she knew that she got there sometimes, too, and thus "Tell $person that you need a break" fit as a logical puzzle-piece.

I dunno. If it helps at all, this year (at four) she had the capacity to tell two 3yos, "Stop fighting! Get a teacher! Someone needs to say, 'Stop!'," which made me laugh quietly later--not while she was telling me. And then I felt compelled to remind her gently that she's not a teacher and needs to let them work stuff out unless they're really hurting each other.... Round and round and round. She was really appalled by the fight, since it's two kids who rarely do so--and she's totally forgotten her own occasional biting and kicking from last year.

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