Today we have a post and an inquiry from guest-blogger Samara:

Recently, I took 21 month old Henry to the doctor for a run of the mill virus. We arrived at the clinic at the same time as several other families.

We hung our coats and waited. Paid our copay and I sat down while Henry wandered over to the aquarium.

Two other little boys stood at the aquarium too and before I knew it one of them had pushed Henry over. Hard enough for him to fall backwards on his bottom and start crying. I quickly looked over to see if the boy’s mom had seen her son push mine, but she was still at the counter checking in.

I smiled and told him he was ok and he got up and stood again at the aquarium.

Now I know that Henry is no innocent angel, he does his share of poking and picking and doesn’t like to share. But when it comes to hitting and pushing, he really doesn’t do that. (Well, knock on wood at least.) I don’t even think he would realize he could just get up and push that boy back and get a reaction himself.

As I watched the three boys at the aquarium some more, that boy pushed Henry again.

My eyes darted over to the boys mom again and this time she was indeed seated and saw this escapade.

She said nothing.

Silently fuming that this is a teachable moment, I said nothing.

Until, her son pushed Henry over again.

While the sitting mom sat quietly, I walked over and broke a cardinal parenting rule. I reprimanded another womans child. In the pediatricians office.

I grabbed his little hand and I said, “Pushing is NOT ok. Please don’t push Henry anymore. He just wants to look at the fish with you.”

The woman glared at me with her jaw dropped in disbelief, but I was not sorry or embarrassed.

Here’s my thoughts: our job as parents is to advocate for our kids. We do this at the doctors office when we want the doctor to make sure everything is ok. We do this at school, when we want what’s best for our kids in classrooms and opportunities.

A little piece of my heart broke as I realized that this was just the first of many times that situations like this would occur for my little man in the years to come. I won’t always be able to protect him nor should I be. But knowing that there will be many more shoves and hurts that can’t always be solved with a stern talk makes me a little bit sad.

So what do you think Cribsheeters? Has something like this ever happened to you? Would you have said something to the child or would you have kept your mouth shut?

Samara Tilkens Postuma
http://simplicityinthesuburbs.blogspot.com

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 9:19 am and is filed under Guest Bloggers, Main, Parenting, Solicited Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.