Now we hover. And no wonder our kids are as neurotic as they are. A recent article in the Washington Post stated that kids have low muscle tone, poor coordination, and ADHD is being diagnosed at an alarming rate- all because we don't let kids be kids. I am guilty of hovering, don't get me wrong. I see the scars of it in my oldest, Dylan. He, my youngest (Kieran) and I were horsing around on a (for this day and age) precariously high slide. It was helter-skelter, kids shoving each other out of the way to scramble up the stairs. I caught one little bastard (I have no shame) telling Dylan off for trying to keep his own spot in line. The bastard got down the slide first. What really bugged me was the crushed look on Dylan's face. He is, by nature, a gentle soul (at least with anyone other than his brother.) But he has that "I'm-not-good-enough" attitude that comes with ADHD, heredity, and not fighting his own fights enough.
I think it's in every human being's nature to fight- those wacky old Puritans believed that children were wild and inherently wicked. So it stands to reason that a toddler will whack you in the face if you touch his toys. Dylan WAS like that at one time. One of my favorite memories involves Dylan being picked on at the age of two: some little snot was really messing with a few kids in the sandbox. He kept grabbing handfuls of sand and dumping it on other kids' heads, to the chorus of "Hey, stop!" He kept bugging Dylan and this other little kid Dylan was playing with. When the snot finally got to Dylan, this Momma Bear froze and watched- I wanted to see what would happen. Snot continued to dump sand on Dylan and, before I could react, Dylan calmly smiled at the kid- and got him in the face with a wad of wet sand. I'll let this GIF finish my story.
I wish Dylan could have kept that fire in his belly. Ah, maybe he will get it back someday- God knows, if you ask my mother, she'd tell you I was just as big a mushball. Getting bullied in high school taught me to fight back. The hard part is, standing by and watching your kid get handed his own ass.
My youngest? It remains to be seen. He has a personality, he is clever and defiant- not necessarily a great combination, but he rolls with the punches a lot more. He's independent, and I am trying desperately to keep THAT fire roaring. I will tell a kid off if he or she hurts Kieran, but at some point I have to sheath my claws and just watch. I kind of feel like a boxing coach in the corner, you know, massaging the boxer's shoulders and hissing advice. That's probably the best metaphor for parenting in the jungle.
Now, it's the other parents that kill me; if my kid is being a sh*thead, I'm gonna straighten his butt out for him and make him apologize. But you do me a solid, and if YOUR kid is being the sh*thead, you have to do the same. I see many apples that don't fall far from the trees, and I often think the parents are worse. Don't even get me started.
My point is, the playground sucks. But then again, so can life. Better to make the mistakes in the microcosm of life than the real world, I suppose.
