When Children Attack

I witnessed one mom’s complete mortification today. It was painful to watch.

I was in the daycare bathroom at the gym, changing baby’s underoos, when I heard the two nursery monitors telling a child to sit down and take a time out. Normally when that happens, things  quiet down as the kid sulks off to the naughty chair. But the two women kept talking very sternly and repeating no-no-no. A diaper change and hand washing later, I could still hear the scolding that was happening on the other side of the door. Something was up.

When I opened the door, I saw a little girl, probably around 4 years old, sitting in a chair. At that moment, her mother walked in with one of the nursery monitors. The one monitor started to explain that the little girl had hurled part of a toy at the wall, so hard in fact it left a dimple and a small streak on the wall. Then the other monitor jumped in and said while that was obviously a big problem, the other problem was that when the little girl was told to go to time-out, she repeatedly told the monitors to shut up.

I was feeling so uncomfortable being in the middle of all this, so I was just trying to pack my kid’s stuff up and strap him into the stroller as fast as possible. But I wasn’t out of there before I heard the second monitor giving the mom a serious talking-to about how that type of behavior is unacceptable, the nursery often has babies as guests and the chucked toy could’ve hurt one, and if it happens again her child will no longer be welcome at the gym daycare.

All of that was spot on, but I still wanted to die for that mom. How completely embarrassing. And not in the getting-yanked-out-of-exercise-class-to-change-your-kid’s-diaper-because-his-drawers-are-stinking-up-the-place kind of embarrassing, which actually has happened to me. That’s a strike-you-to-the-core, make-you-doubt-yourself-as-a-competent-parent kind of incident.

I didn’t know that mother. I had never seen her or her children at the gym before. But I couldn’t help but thinking, “That could be me.”

I am paranoid that my kid is going to be a hitter. He’s already smashed one kid on the head in the Stride Rite store over the summer and then more recently whacked another kid in our French group with a toy. Of course, on both accounts, I apologized profusely to the parents and children and scolded baby quite seriously.

But sometimes when I’m course correcting his behavior, he looks at me and cracks a smile. Other times, he’ll give me a little smack on my arm or leg. I’ve read that it’s a phase and that all children go through that. I also understand that my kid at this age is not really being intentionally defiant and more just reacting to my knee-jerk emotional reaction to whatever he did that was bad. But how can I be sure that I won’t end up with the violent four year old who gets kicked out of the gym daycare?

As parents, there are limitations to our control over what our kids pick up and what they don’t. We can model excellent behavior 99% of the time, but it’s always possible that what our kids retain is that 1% of our not-so-good behavior. My best friend, for example, recently learned that she needed to figure out a way to deal with the inevitable rush-hour road rage after she figured out her three year old was saying a**hole instead of something in Spanish. Whoops.

For me, I know I need to think more about my interaction with my dog. There are just those days where his chewing the corner of a couch pillow, stealing baby gear out of the stroller, or digging up my freshly mulched garden sends me over the edge. And the next thing I know, I’m yelling at the dog and swatting at him. Not really model behavior for someone who is hyper paranoid about having a kid who hits.

For now, my kid laughs when all this dog drama goes down. Usually it’s because, at some point, the dog gives chase and there I am, trying to discipline the dog while running up stairs and around furniture. No doubt I absolutely look like a stark raving idiot, so I guess I’ll give my kid props for appreciating the ridiculousness of my losing it. Now if I only can get a similar sense of humor.