The New York Times Motherlode ran an interesting article about a common conflict on the playground. A two year old boy started kicking a three year old boy, presumably because he wanted to engage in him in play. The three year old used his words and asked him to stop as did the three year old’s mother from her perch on the park bench as she was busy nursing her younger child.
The two year old (whose parent did not seem to be present) persisted until the three year old, having lost patience, pushes the younger kid who starts hysterically crying. You know what comes next, the other parent suddenly appears casting blame on the three year old and his mother.
Obviously, the three year old’s mother could have moved him or coached him better on how to handle the situation, but she also could have coached the two year old since his parents didn’t seem to be around. I can feel everyone’s jaws tensing up at this suggestion. Discipline another child? How dare you?
One commenter on the New York Times article noted as much, saying “I’ve heard parents talk about how hard it is becoming, culturally, to intervene with someone else’s kid. It’s currently very uncool to tell someone their kid is behaving inappropriately, and touching someone else’s kid on the playground — esp. if the parent isn’t right there — can be very tricky. It’s a weird dynamic, because unless you DO intervene, like it or not, you are sending that kid the message that he can do what he wants without consequences that are negative to him.”
I’m sure there will be some strong opinions on this one. Let’s hear them!
One Comment
This is my first time on your website here and this is the first article that I read. I love it! “Discipline” is a strong word and I think it often conjures up negative thoughts. But I think there are very positive ways to discipline – or maybe a word that is easier for people to accept would be intervene. The key is for the active parent to stay very calm and as neutral as possible. I don’t think it is appropriate to lose your cool or yell or spank or anything like that with another child (I don’t think it’s appropriate to do any of those things with your own child). But to use your words (as we teach our children to do) and to just say “that’s not o.k.” or something along those lines is perfectly acceptable in my book. And if the tables were turned I would have NO problem with someone using that approach with my child.