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- Jun 6, 2010
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- 6,872
My 9 year old son is having some social problems and I am having a hard time gauging how serious they are or what I should do to help him. He's the kind of kid who's typically oblivious to what's going on around him and some of the more subtle social nuances can escape him. There have been several instances over the past few months that have left me feeling uneasy about my son's "social status" (by that I simply mean how well he's getting along with his peers). A couple of examples below:
1. There's a kid on his baseball team who lives a couple of minutes away whom we carpool with to/from practice 3x week. He's never been nice to my son. For example, they are supposed to warm up when they arrive and when my son has said "Hey Nick, do you want to throw", he's said "No, I'm going to wait for Joey"...this has happened multiple times and my son has said that it hurts his feelings. We've encouraged him to say to him "Hey, we're teammates and it doesn't matter who we warm up with", but I guess he isn't comfortable doing so. Well, it's spilling over into school. This kid is 10 months older than my son, so he's a grade ahead of him and today at recess, my son was playing wallball and the 5th graders came out and this kid told my son "only 5th graders can play"...my son kept playing, but Nick kept saying it until finally, my son walked away.
I told DS to say to him "Do you have a problem with me? We're teammates and should have each other's backs"....I'm not sure that he will though and don't know if I should call this kid's Mom (whom I'm know pretty well, even though we aren't friends) and tell her what's going on. I know she'd be upset that Nick is excluding anyone and would talk to him about it, but I'm not sure if that would help or make things worse.
2. DS is in a program at school where the kids are in the same class from 2nd-5th grade (the teachers change) and they work in teams of a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th graders on a weekly basis in addition to within their own grade level. I'm explaining this so that you know that DS has been with the same group of kids for 3 years now. There's a core group of boys who's Mom's are the "popular" ones at school. They are constantly going out together, posting on FB about their trips and parties (complete with drunken photos!), etc. so, of course, their boys are good friends. Well, two of them have been really mean to DS this year. One of them rushed at him on the playground and pushed him because someone else threw a football to him and then poked him in the eyes on purpose (DS didn't tell me that this happened, another mother told me that her son told her what had happened. When I asked DS about it, he denied it, even though I told him it wasn't tattling if he was being physically hurt). I actually invited the family of this kid for Shabbat dinner, along with the only other Jewish family in the group, thinking that maybe if we socialized a bit, the boys would become friends. Well, this mother hasn't even had the courtesy to respond to my email. I sent a second one, just saying...”hey, wanting to see if Sept. 5th was going to work" and she responded that's she's been busy, but still didn't accept/reject the invitation... I have several friends who know her pretty well and speak highly of her, so I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but so far, it seems that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
I don't want to rush in and fight my son's battles for him, as I think that these are lifelong skills he's going to need, but on the other hand, I think that these parents need to know how their kids are behaving. I'd want to know if DS was being mean to others so that I could talk to him about it. My fear is that if these parents talk to their kids, it may make it worse for DS at school and I don’t want him labeled as a “tattler”.
How do I know if this is normal stuff versus a pattern that needs to be addressed? My heart is breaking to see my sweet child excluded or hurt and I don’t know what to do. How would you handle this?
If you managed to read this saga, thank you! I am fiercely protective of my children, while recognizing that my job is not to fight their battles for them, but to give them the skills to fight them for themselves, so I’m struggling with the “right” thing to do.
1. There's a kid on his baseball team who lives a couple of minutes away whom we carpool with to/from practice 3x week. He's never been nice to my son. For example, they are supposed to warm up when they arrive and when my son has said "Hey Nick, do you want to throw", he's said "No, I'm going to wait for Joey"...this has happened multiple times and my son has said that it hurts his feelings. We've encouraged him to say to him "Hey, we're teammates and it doesn't matter who we warm up with", but I guess he isn't comfortable doing so. Well, it's spilling over into school. This kid is 10 months older than my son, so he's a grade ahead of him and today at recess, my son was playing wallball and the 5th graders came out and this kid told my son "only 5th graders can play"...my son kept playing, but Nick kept saying it until finally, my son walked away.
I told DS to say to him "Do you have a problem with me? We're teammates and should have each other's backs"....I'm not sure that he will though and don't know if I should call this kid's Mom (whom I'm know pretty well, even though we aren't friends) and tell her what's going on. I know she'd be upset that Nick is excluding anyone and would talk to him about it, but I'm not sure if that would help or make things worse.
2. DS is in a program at school where the kids are in the same class from 2nd-5th grade (the teachers change) and they work in teams of a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th graders on a weekly basis in addition to within their own grade level. I'm explaining this so that you know that DS has been with the same group of kids for 3 years now. There's a core group of boys who's Mom's are the "popular" ones at school. They are constantly going out together, posting on FB about their trips and parties (complete with drunken photos!), etc. so, of course, their boys are good friends. Well, two of them have been really mean to DS this year. One of them rushed at him on the playground and pushed him because someone else threw a football to him and then poked him in the eyes on purpose (DS didn't tell me that this happened, another mother told me that her son told her what had happened. When I asked DS about it, he denied it, even though I told him it wasn't tattling if he was being physically hurt). I actually invited the family of this kid for Shabbat dinner, along with the only other Jewish family in the group, thinking that maybe if we socialized a bit, the boys would become friends. Well, this mother hasn't even had the courtesy to respond to my email. I sent a second one, just saying...”hey, wanting to see if Sept. 5th was going to work" and she responded that's she's been busy, but still didn't accept/reject the invitation... I have several friends who know her pretty well and speak highly of her, so I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but so far, it seems that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
I don't want to rush in and fight my son's battles for him, as I think that these are lifelong skills he's going to need, but on the other hand, I think that these parents need to know how their kids are behaving. I'd want to know if DS was being mean to others so that I could talk to him about it. My fear is that if these parents talk to their kids, it may make it worse for DS at school and I don’t want him labeled as a “tattler”.
How do I know if this is normal stuff versus a pattern that needs to be addressed? My heart is breaking to see my sweet child excluded or hurt and I don’t know what to do. How would you handle this?
If you managed to read this saga, thank you! I am fiercely protective of my children, while recognizing that my job is not to fight their battles for them, but to give them the skills to fight them for themselves, so I’m struggling with the “right” thing to do.