Blog Makeover...Mother Bear

My blog is getting a makeover...so keep a close look out in the days to come, little changes here and there (thanks to my Christy B. hard work) and a very big change very soon...hope you all LOVE it!

Wanted to share a story that happened on Thursday at Dorbrook Park.  It was just me and the kids, as usual, enjoying the sun-shiney day, minding our business, going down slides, climbing, running, and playing, and trying lots of cool stunts on the monkey bars and balance beams and all the cool equipment they have at Dorbrook....when two little boys started harassing my daughter!

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Now mind you my daughter may be girlie and love dressing up, but she can hang with the best of them!  She's fast and athletic and always willing to try something new.  And she watches the big kids and tries her best to keep up, especially at the park.

At the park I have two very mobile children now who play on OPPOSITE equipment, but a few minutes before we were about to leave she came over to me with a whimper in her voice, "Mommy, that boy said I'm a bad girl!"  What?! Nobody calls my baby bad.  She is NOT bad.  She might make bad choices or do something naughty, but all kids do.  I don't know why this little boy called her this, but the MOTHER BEAR came out, and I said, "Who called you bad?"  She couldn't find the boy at the time (this park is HUGE) and I just continued to comfort her and tell her she was not bad or mean, and I even said, "You know what Julia, he might be jealous because you were climbing so high on that rock climbing wall!"

As I rounded up both kids, and we headed out sure enough the two little boys who must've been taunting her (they are so lucky I didn't see this happen because I would've marched them right to their mothers or at least told them to watch their words and be kind!) The taller boy started to follow us and say, "Good riddance!"  Oh, my, word, I wanted to give him a good spanking!  How rude?  Poor Julia was truly broken hearted, she just couldn't understand why those boys could be so mean, and hurt her heart.  It was a good opportunity for us to talk about the power of words and how we need to watch what we say because we can hurt people's hearts with our words.  We talked about how that little boy's behavior was not nice or friendly.  What would you do in an instance at a park when you see or hear your child being harassed?  My first instinct is obviously to remove my child from the place, but my teacher instinct is to address the bullies, bullies were never allowed in my classroom.  I always had a bully talk at the beginning of each school year, and I told my students that behavior would NOT be tolerated because our classroom was going to be a safe place where we would all feel comfortable to be ourselves and learn together.

Let's remember to teach our children to treat others on the playground with respect and to be kind.  And how about if you see your child being mean or saying unkind things you give them a time out or a talk?  Julia got two time outs this particular day because she threw sand up in the air, even though no kids were around that is our rule that we don't throw sand because it could get into someone's eye.  She had 2, 3 minute time outs...but it was worth it because the behavior stopped.

 What do you do when you feel the Mother Bear coming out of you because your child has been harmed?