Parenting

The Youngest, aka The Wild Child, was a jerk to another kid in our homeschooling group today. Sigh. I'm still not clear on the details, but it seems my son and another boy banded together to bully one of the other boys in the group, apparently taking his prescription glasses and threatening to throw them or break them or something. He sat in time out the rest of the time we were there and totally missed out on petting the horse that came by, let me tell you. There was also a serious amount of talking about the issue, much to his chagrin, and even the other boy's mom fussed at him.

Where do they get this stuff? That is so not OK, and something DH and I work on all the time with him. He's basically a sweet, tender-hearted kid but he is also impulsive and strong willed and just doesn't think about consequences. He is easily led by his peers, unfortunately, and thinks that inappropriate, sometimes mean, things are funny. (And I'm not saying he was just following the boy he banded with in this case, I don't know who had the bright idea to be mean, it's just a trait of his.) He's also quick to use his physical strength to solve his problems (he's a moose) since he's the youngest in the family; his sisters boss him around all the time and that's how he copes. It's important to kids to feel a sense of empowerment and, as the youngest child, I recognize that he feels powerless too much of the time. I do what I can to combat that by taking him out with me for occasional one to one time and giving him choices as much as possible. I want him to know that his opinions matter in our family just as much as his sisters. He is important.

On the whole he is improving; today was a definite step backwards, but hopefully something he will learn a lesson from. I was very disappointed in his behavior and saddened that he upset the other child as much as he did, then I had to figure out what the heck to do about it, which is the hardest part. Sheese.

Sometimes being the mom sucks.