New "socialization" territory:please advise

[BoZeeCo's Mom]

My kids are relatively young. My oldest is almost 7 and the only boy on a street full of girls aged 7 and below. While this is great for my two little ones, (most of the time), it's not so great for him. In particular, he has trouble with the girl next door, (6), and sometimes the girl down the street, (7). When the two girls are together they are often very rude to him. Yesterday, he went out on our porch, saw them on the porch next door, and greeted them very nicely. I heard them immediately groan, and the six year old yelled that they didnt want to play with him and he was a boy and to keep away. Now, im very pregnant and hormonal at the moment, and i didnt trust myself to say anything helpful to them in the situation, so i asked my son if hed like to come inside and play a game with me. The girls of course then said "no dont go inside!" and he seemed like he wanted to play with them. I guess this kicked off many exchanges between them, culminating in the mother of one of the girls telling me today that my son seemed very angry and confrontational with the girls. Apparently he told them to leave him alone and not talk to him at one point, which the mother found aggressive. I will admit, my son does get very angry after listening to "go away, we don't want to play with you" all the time, for no apparent reason. He is a very gentle kid, especially with girls because he's been trained to be with his little sisters. I feel that they are targeting him solely because he is a boy and apparently boys and girls don't play together in schools at younger grades, so it overflows to the neighborhood.

 

We belong to a very inclusive homeschool group made up of kids 9 and under, where all the kids play together, and even my two year old gets invited to the bday parties of the older kids, boys and girls. I guess I'm having a really hard time seeing my son so upset all the time, and he's having a very hard time understanding why they don't want to play with him. How do I explain this? He's somewhat of a parrot, and I don't want to say anything that will hurt anyone if he repeats it. but, I also don't want to hang my son out to dry. Today, they were all taking turns on a swing, except none of the girls let my son take a turn. He was crying, and instead of saying anything to the girls or the mother, I just took him home. I'm really kicking myself over this.

 

Sorry to ramble.

[Harriet Vane]

Did you tell the other mothers how their children are treating your son? That's step one. Another good step is to tell the little girls, "I heard what you said. That was mean."

 

One thing I can guarantee is that this will absolutely not get better if the behavior is not brought out into the light, both with the girls and with their mothers. It has to be discussed, and in addition, it has to be corrected each and every time it occurs.

[BoZeeCo's Mom]

I'm one of those slow processors, and this is all kind of new territory for me. Thank you for your advise. It's all taken me by surprise, I always knew this behavior was going to come out of boys vs. girls, I just thought it would be in a couple of years. They seem so young to be doing this!

 

I'm going to make sure that I am always out there when my kids are.

[marbel]

I know what you mean about being a slow processor.  I am always thinking that I don't know what to do, and after it's done, realize that I could have done better.

 

Were the mothers there during the swing incident?  Was it at a public park? It would have been fine for you to say to the girls, "it's Tim's turn to swing now.  He's been waiting patiently."    I understand it's hard to correct other peoples' kids. 

 

Do you know the mothers of the other girls?  If not, ould you invite them over for coffee and get to know them?  Invite the girls to come too, and play.  The girls will likely be on their best behavior so the mothers won't see what's been going on, but such an event might help the girls see your son a different way so they might be more open to playing with him.   Maybe it won't, but then it might be easier for you to talk to the mothers in the future, if you know them better.

 

You can also tell your son that you don't know why the girls don't want to play with him, but that some girls just don't want to play with boys. Then make the effort to invite his friends over more often. 

 

In my experience it is very typical for younger schoolkids not to mix outside their grade or sex.

[BoZeeCo's Mom]

I do know the moms, quite well actually. The swing incident happened in front of the house of one of the girls. This was right after her mother had told me my son was being nasty to them the day before. (the above mentioned "leave me alone don't talk to me). I didn't know that this is what he said, I went back to question her further about what had happened after I took my kids home since he was crying.

[Jen in NY]

We have this behavior in our neighborhood, too... except the kids saying 'mean' things to my kids are ~7 and my kids are all teenagers. Two little neighbor boys will sit in their trampoline next door and hurl insults at my kids. Yesterday my 18yo dd was painting the deck and they were yelling all sorts of things at her... I know she was thinking something along the lines of, "Keep it up, kids, and I'll squash you like bugs!" LOL

 

My mystification comes in when I realize that the parents are perfectly aware of what the boys are doing and do not step in to stop it. (?) Truly, my kids could not care less about what these boys are saying... and my kids are always polite to them no matter what... they are little, after all ... but I sure am glad my kids are older. Eek. I hate to think what would happen if these kids decided they didn't like one of their younger neighbors....

[lea1]

Well, I wish you lived next door to us because my two 7.5 YO sons would love to play with your son. We have more boys in our neighborhood than girls but there is one little girl up the street that is around the same age and she is included without notice of girl VS boy when the boys are all playing together. I hope you can talk with the moms and they can influence their daughters to be nicer to your son. I feel for your son.

[ktgrok]

Did you tell the other mothers how their children are treating your son? That's step one. Another good step is to tell the little girls, "I heard what you said. That was mean."

 

One thing I can guarantee is that this will absolutely not get better if the behavior is not brought out into the light, both with the girls and with their mothers. It has to be discussed, and in addition, it has to be corrected each and every time it occurs.

I agree. Say something to the girls. If you don't want to be the meanie, make it light hearted like, "oh wow, are you girls doing that "no boys" thing still? Thought you were old enough to be over that by now. Come one, how about I get a ball and you all can play kickball?"

 

But I'd probably say something more along the lines of, "Girls, I heard that. Do you have something you want to say to me?"

[BoZeeCo's Mom]

Yeah, I think that parents not stepping in when kids are that little is really strange! I'm going to generalize here, but a lot of parents just don't seem to care what their child is SAYING.

[BoZeeCo's Mom]

Also, not only do I worry about how this is upsetting my son, I also don't want this behavior to influence my girls at all. I'm really worried about that part, too.

 

I'm off to make coffee and practice being a "meanie" ;)before the kids wake up. I think it's the road I'm going to have to go on.

[marbel]

Yeah, I think that parents not stepping in when kids are that little is really strange! I'm going to generalize here, but a lot of parents just don't seem to care what their child is SAYING.

 

I think a lot of parents are truly blind/deaf to their children's social shortcomings.  Those girls sound poorly socialized to me.   And some parents take the notion of letting kids work things out for themselves a little too far.

 

Since you know the other moms well, are you comfortable going to them to discuss the problem?  "I know you were upset by son's comments to your girls the other day.  I should have mentioned it at the time, but here's how it all started... what can we do to help these kids get along?" 

 

I'm sure there are more eloquent ways to say it.  But I think you have to acknowledge the fact that they didn't have a complete picture of the incident, and go from there.  

[Tammyla]

:grouphug: It hurts when people are mean to kids, even if they are kids.

 

 

Please don't think of yourself as being mean; the other kids are because they are allowed to get away with it.  It has been my experience that mean does not want to be seen by adults, and that a mom or dad listening and responding is often a very good cure.  Just say that...xyx is mean or hurtful.  Basically you are just repeating back to them their unkind words and calling them on it.   If the bullying behavior continues, say something like...I guess  a and b can't play nicely today, so we are going to xyz.   I would make sure that xyz was fun and leave it at that. 

 

Your ds will eventually learn from your example how to react and respond to mean and bullies by your modeling appropriate responses.

[GSOchristie]

My personal experience: girls in our CC group are AWESOME and girls in our neighborhood SUCK! The girls that live around us and we have to deal with at the pool and playground are catty, devisive (is that a word?), and obnoxious. I just make sure I am right there when they start playing their mind games (boys are stupid, we don't play with boys, come over here...oh, just kidding, we don't want to play with you, hehehe) and I shut it down immediately, and then the pouty sulking starts. Seriously, I am so blessed to have mostly boys in my cul de sac, if I had to deal with that carp next door, I'm not sure I could handle it. And they cry over everything, they pick and poke and try to wrestle with Asher then cry when he wrestles them back. One time recently we were at a trampoline place and we had 5 boys aged 6 jumping and wrestling on a trampoline. They were throwing each other around and bouncing away while the moms watched. A 7 YO girl got in the trampoline with them, after they had been playing like this for 45 minutes, and her mom came to me and complained when Asher threw her down. Seriously??? There were 3 other UNOCCUPIED trampolines and she chose to get on the one trampoline with the five wrestling boys. Mostly I'm like "go away" when I see the ones in our neighborhood coming...seriously, I tell them to go away. I dare one of their mothers to say something to me, because I will seriously type up a list of the obnoxiousness perpetrated by their daughters. If I EVER catch my daughter acting like them, there will be serious consequences. This is obviously a sore spot with me :/.

[Tarreymere]

Yeah, I think that parents not stepping in when kids are that little is really strange! I'm going to generalize here, but a lot of parents just don't seem to care what their child is SAYING.

 

This has been my experience in this kind of situation. I've seen the mothers sit and watch and be perfectly aware of what was going on, yet get upset with me if I brought the issue up and asked if they would speak to their child. DD9 ran into this at girl scouts all the time, and the worst offender was my granddaughter (7)! My stepdaughter and daughter-in-law are co-leaders and sat by quietly numerous times while DGD led the other girls in being verbally abusive to one girl after another. DD9 is no longer in Girl Scouts, and I am the 'bad guy'  :glare:

 

I wouldn't allow my child to interact with those 'mean girls' at all, and I would tell him very honestly it was because they didn't know their manners. You could try talking to the mothers, but I would be surprised if that went anywhere. 

[BoZeeCo's Mom]

GSOChristie-- I loved your rant! It's how I feel all the time! I have to bite my tongue so hard when I see those two coming, and until now have just pulled my kids inside. Now that my kids are older, and it's nice weather, etc, I feel it is so unfair to penalize my kids because they might sass back to one of the sassy girls.

 

I totally hear you about your trampoline incident. This happens all the time in the neighborhood. A perfect example is yesterday, the girls are pushing each other othe swing, and then my son takes a turn pushing this kid on the swing and she immediately starts whining "stop it!" getting more and more shrill, and of course, that was another example of aggressive behavior that the mother pointed out to me. I often wonder about this mom, just because she only has girls, and things that wouldn't phase me for a minute about a boy, really seem to bother her. As a mom of a boy and girls I feel so lucky. If my son was pushing one of my daughters and she started whining petulantly I would immediately tell her to stop that horrible whining and tell her brother no. Then I would spell it out to my son that she was saying no.

 

These girls egg him on, and then get annoyed with him. He try's to think of games to play with him, and they shoot him down every time. I'm over it. I saying limited contact and I'm going to have to be right with them the whole time.

[BoZeeCo's Mom]

Rainefox: wow your situation sounds horrible! I did just have a talk with all three of my kids about manners, and how playing with the neighbors is not very successful at the moment and outlined that I'd be hanging out right by them from now on while they had interactions with them.

[KungFuPanda]

My experience was the opposite. The girls in the neighborhood were delightful with my son. The homeschooled girls were also wonderful. The homeschooled cub scouts were horrid little pack animals that would gang up and poke at my son until he lashed out then tell on him for reacting. I only saw it because they didn't know I was nearby. It was all very stealthy and creepy. My son was weaker and slower and they could sense it like wild dogs.

 

The question is, do you WANT your son to play with these girls? If you want to cultivate a relationship, you'll have to use language that is more helpful and cooperative that accusatory. Saying "Your daughter ________" won't get you very far. You also need the other mothers on board. If they're fine with their daughters not playing with your son, it might be hard to make progress. From their perspective, everyone gets along until your son comes along. They might not want the hassle and their daughters are probably not being mean when the parents can hear. They may ALL require some supervision until things improve, but this means that someone has to be willing to supervise or else when things blow up you can only go by your kids version of the events.

 

If it were me, I'd lead some sort of game that all the kids like. If you're sitting in a circle playing pass-the-whatever, you can work in a little speech. "You all are such good kids. I love how you are playing so nicely together right now. When I was a child, there were these mean kids who did XYZ. What do you think of that? It wasn't very nice, was it. I'm glad you kids know how to get along." When they slip up (and they will) you have to follow up with "Oh no, that's what mean kids say. You're not a mean kid, are you? What do nice kids do when they hurt someone's feelings? (I'm sorry) And what do you say? (It's okay) Alright, can you all play together now or do we need a break?"

[arnold]

If I heard the girls make a snarky comment I would call them out on it, not necessarily mean but certainly direct.  If it doesn't stop, then don't let your son play with them.  He doesn't need all the kids in the neighborhood to be his "friends".  When he asks why he can't play with them just tell him directly that you think their mean and you don't tolerate that kind of behavior.  If I had to guess, I'd say the parents are aware of their behavior and either don't see it as a problem or don't care.  That's just the way some people are.

[Ravin]

I would go and talk to their mother and make sure she has a clear picture of the entire situation. My DD had a problem with an older girl picking on her when she was 5 or 6, and a chat with the girl's grandparents put a very rapid halt to the bad behavior. The girls are now friends and get along great.

 

Another neighbor kid was a great playmate up until age 8, when he randomly decided he found my DD "annoying" and refused to play with her. He still plays with other neighborhood kids, but refuses to interact with my DD. She was old enough at that point that I told her not everyone is always friends, and to just ignore him if he was going to be so rude. I had gone to his mother and she had no idea what his issue was, really, and when that didn't resolve it (as it would have a year previously) we just wrote the kid off DD's playmate list.

 

There are some boys in our neighborhood, that when they play together they can be rude to DD if she approaches, but if she approaches just one of them and not the lot of them in combination they'll play together well enough. I've usually just advised her to only hang around where she's wanted, and that it's okay for her not to want to play with someone (in the past before two of them moved away these boys had also talked her into playing games she didn't like--as has the girl in the first story, esp. when her younger sister who is younger than DD is also playing with them) and leave if they're being rude.

 

I certainly hope that if my DD seriously misbehaved toward other children someone who was there would tell me! I certainly never assume she is 100% in the right in a given situation, either. The older she is, though, the less likely I am to intervene with parents. At this point I don't think I would unless something physical or repeated teasing was going on.

[Mom0012]

Do you have nice playgrounds in your area?  I spent many hours on those playgrounds until my kids hit a certain age.  That might be a way for you to meet some boys he could play with and it would give you an opportunity to get friendly with the mom, so that you could do playdates.  I know the kids separate by gender in the school.  From what I have seen, it is a pretty strong line and I wouldn't expect that to change at this age.  Sorry for your son.  That has got to be rough.

[Paige]

I feel for you! We have a similar situation with some neighbor girls about that age. They are just plain mean and they think it's ok. It's hard because my girls like to play with these girls. My DS is usually very good with girls but he has decided that he will not play with the offenders and will stay inside if they are out or leave and play with somebody else. Fortunately there's some nicer girls he can play with but we have no boys nearby that are his age.

 

The mean girls also like to come, knock on my door, and tattle on every little thing he does. I do not go to the mothers about it, but if they were to come to me, I would tell them exactly what has been going on. When they tattle, I will have DS apologize if he has done something inappropriate but I also tell the girls that they cannot expect to be mean all day and then have other people want to play with them. I know that these girls' home life is not as stable as ours and I am trying to be understanding. I really think that these girls think that it is cool to be mean and they don't really see it as mean. I think they think that boys don't care.

 

One rule I have for my children is that they must not allow their friends to treat their siblings badly. If someone is over and they are being mean, we ask them to leave. My daughters will get in trouble if they join in with the mean talk and they will also get in trouble if they sit quietly and allow it. If they are at her house and she starts being mean, I want them all to come home.