We are camping this weekend (well P and the kids are camping. I am going and hanging out with them during the day and coming home and sleeping in my bed). This afternoon, G and I decided to take a walk down the reservoir to play in the water. He held the dog leash and I carried the play buckets. G ran ahead. We had not gotten it through his head yet not to cut through people campsites, and once again he ran through an RV site. It went a little badly. I was a ways back but I could see the dog pulling him over (over the metal picnic bench, ouch) and I could hear an adult yelling. I could see G trying to regain control of the dog and I was trying to hurry myself to help. But waddling is not an efficient form of movement.
Still I hear an adult yelling.
When G makes it back to me, I asked him if someone was yelling at him. He told me "Yes, she was screaming for me to get out of her campsite."
Quickly, I wonder if I would be yelling at a child who had done the same thing. The obvious answer I come up with is no. I have yelled at my kids. I have probably yelled at your kids. But I would not yell at a stranger kid who lost control of his dog at my campsite. While I am trying to decide if I should take my bad ass 8 month pregnant self over to confront her, she comes out and looks at me and raises her arms in a "What the heck" motion.
So I tell her calmly and without yelling (but with heavy snarkasm) what I think- "I apologize that my child acted like the 7 year old that he is, but it is not appropriate for you to yell at a child like that". I am pretty sure that is all I said, but l am 8 months pregnant.
We walked away.
This created a lot for G and I to talk about. I asked him if he was afraid. He told me that if he was still a "little kid that it would have made him cry" but that it did hurt his feelings. He told me it was "kinda weird" how I talked to the lady. We played in the water for a bit and went back and he told P what happened. So we talked some more.
I figured out what he thought was weird about what I said. We teach our kids that to ignore mean people- G hit it on the head this afternoon when he said "someone being unkind to you does not mean that you have to be unkind back" and that it true. But I pointed out that she was not unkind to me, but to a child. P told him that it is okay to be firm with people. P pointed out to him that if it upset the mean lady so much that she could have come talked to me about it, but screaming at kids is not okay.
(apparently P thought I handled it perfectly at the time and that Jesus would not go back there without kids and be "firm" a little more aggressively and/or light fire crackers under her trailer in the middle of the night)
I pointed out to G that that I did yell or call her name (he wanted examples- he came up with poopy head. Not really the name I was thinking when it happened). I wondered if I should have just kept my mouth shut but thought about it more and realized that my kids NEED to see me handle stressful aggressive situations calmly but firmly (there is that word again). While my kids need to learn to walk away, they also need to learn how to deal with bullies and how to stand up for someone being bullied especially when a much larger person is bullying someone who is smaller and weaker. This is one of the few times G has seen me handle conflict with a stranger and I think it is good for him to see that mommy doesn't yell, she doesn't call names but she does not let people abuse her or her family.
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