When Dia attended her first week of Kindergarten she’d really never had any sort of "formal" early socialization. I was expecting some bumps and a little bit of culture shock but I wasn’t ready for her to have to switch desks away from a child the first week. It turns out that child was taunting Dia, telling her she didn’t know anything. Dia, who took this quite literally since she had never known teasing prior to that very moment, tried to explain to the little girl that she did too know stuff – like she knew a ton about dinosaurs. Little Miss refused to accept that and just continued with her mantra that Dia, in fact, didn’t know anything at all even about dinosaurs. After a time, Dia began to get hurt feelings and her teacher decided that this particular pairing was not a good one. Call it a personality conflict.
Dia took this all in stride. She wasn’t overly hurt and was given a seat opposite an invisible child (the poor dear had yet to attend class – I don’t know if she was sick or withdrew from class, but she had a desk and a name plate all the same). Dia was happy at her new desk placement. Everything was OK in the end.
Except that I think we are doing it wrong.
I agree with what Dia's teacher did in this instance, but disagree that nothing was ever said about it. There was no discussion to Little Miss about why Dia was being moved away. There was no sit-down with the kids to explain that, really, calling someone stupid is quite unkind and we shouldn't go out of our way to say hurtful things.Do we send our children to early education for true socialization or is it just to toughen them up for what is to come? I mean, what is preschool's version of socialization exactly? It looks to me like it’s adults dumping their children in a pile and letting them sort it out with a modicum of guidance as to ‘how we behave’ with one another. “Hands are not for hitting” and “teeth are not for biting” themes resound, but we aren’t teaching our children to be gracious or kind. I truly believe that perhaps a better alternative to early socialization might be early civilization. As in being civil to one another.
Stay with me a moment on this one because I really do feel like I’m alone here and I want to provoke a thought or two out there. Contrary to popular belief kids aren’t mean to each other by nature. We teach them that. We teach them that it’s OK to talk to each other that way. We teach them that it’s OK to be cruel to their siblings. We teach them that kids just say mean things to each other and that “kids are mean.” But kids are not mean people.
That wasn't an amazing mom moment there. Most moms I know would have said similar things if not just cutting to the chase with the "we don't ask such questions, it's rude" answer. That's OK too. In some way, shape or form we teach our kids that they shouldn't point out adults' flaws - whether we label it rude or hurtful, we do let them know it's not OK.
But what we do NOT do is bring our kids up short when they do that to other kids. The children do not start out taunting each other. They start out genuinely curious. If they see a person that's different than they are, they want to know about it. That's all. Often the way they learn about differences is by listening to us speak about people. They hear OUR errant comments about fat people, too-skinny people, dark people, light people, and people who don't dress well. Later, if our little sponge-babies share this wisdom we've imparted by relaying it to an adult, we redirect them in a second. Yet if they do so to other kids? We let it go. Why? Because kids are mean to each other. Whatcha' gonna' do?
Same thing with siblings. My thesis in college was on sibling placement so I'm not going to try to say that there's no natural sibling rivalry, but there isn't natural sibling abuse. We allow that too. We don't think twice about it because that's what we endured, that's what we heard our parents tell stories about (often somewhat fondly) and that's just how brothers (particularly) and sisters behave. Right?
Wrong again. We teach them that. Yes. Yes we do. Think about it. If your kid wallops on the dog, you grab the kid and tell him we don't treat dogs that way. We must be gentle. We must be kind. That stance never changes. We never allow the child to abuse the dog.
It starts out the same way with our children when a new sibling is introduced. While one is still an infant we teach them to be gentle and kind with the baby. Once the baby becomes a toddler, though, those restraints get loosened. Sure we start out with redirection away from physical harm but once the younger sibling shows signs of strength and resilience, we stop. We only break up the big ones, the ones that end with someone's eye about to be poked out. From that day on, we silently teach our kids that it's OK to fight with their brother or sister or to be too rough or too physical with them, not to mention the mean things we allow them to say to each other. We let it go. Why? Because siblings fight. Whatcha' gonna' do?
Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep the course that I was on with my first two kids. I'm going to teach Dia to be kind, to be thoughtful, to consider other people's feelings whether they are grown or small. I'm going to teach her that manners are, in fact, the respect of others and she should know how to employ them. Her older siblings can help her out a little and share with her how hard all that can be sometimes. It's NOT easy to be the 'better person' in some situations and, contrary to what we all want to believe, kindness doesn't always pay. The good guy doesn't always win and it sure would be a bummer to miss the opportunity to land a zinger on someone who deserves it. Still, if I can set one more adult out to this cold, hard world who maybe isn't so cold or hard, I will have done one (more) good thing in my life. This world definitely could use it!
No comments:
Post a Comment