That’s a nice picture courtesy of the internet. Some kids happily smiling at the camera. Maybe they are long time friends, maybe they just met today at the pool and are having fun. Their parents are sitting on the pool deck excited to have some me time while the kids play. They are ecstatic to have invested in those swim lessons so they don’t have to spend all their time in the pool holding hands with a kid bent on drowning them in their fear of being left alone in all that water! These parents keep a watchful eye on the kids trying to ensure that the play doesn’t get too rough, but inevitably some minor infraction starts a bout of rough play and he said she said. Anyone who spends anytime with children knows that even the best of friends fall victim to an inability to solve disagreements peacefully. Play time can be interrupted by the least thing when dealing with people who are all feeling with little experience in working out differences with words not designed to hurt as much as they feel hurt by what is happening. This has happened often while out wth my kids, both with friends of years and friends of minutes. I keep an eye on my kids but I don’t hover and when my kids do something wrong, or handle disappointment in a bad way, there are consequences and a teaching moment about how better to handle it and why. But sometimes you get parents who aren’t as understanding of the kid tussle as some. We all come to the defense of our young, I think it is hard wired into most of us. I like to believe that many of us try to understand that our young are learning and testing the rules and aren’t always on the side of right in an argument and deal with this in a loving and teaching way. Yet I have seen the videos of parents acting worse than the kids on their children’s behalf. They are spouting angry words and threatening posture in defense of their children and I have always thought that this isn’t the best example of how to handle conflict, disagreements, or frustration. All things we have to learn when living in a society and all our children have to show them the way, is us. I never really had to put this into action, and then a fun time at the pool resulted in security and police called on my 9 year old son and I had to pray hard and dig deep to back my words with actions that matched.
It was our second day at the hotel’s family pool. It was a bit more crowded than the day before but the kids love the water and it is a great way for them to burn energy. The staff provided towels, popsicles for the kids and water toys. The most popular had been a very large beach ball that was making the rounds. Kids would periodically monopolize it, and had spent time explaining that my kids were not allowed to fight over this ball, it was for everyone. NO, not everyone would share well, but they WERE expected to at all times. There was also the inevitable games of let’s dunk each other in the pool. I always talk to my kids about respecting who wants to play the dunk game and who doesn’t, always ask and always respect a no. So, there had been dunking, and tussling over the ball. I had taken time to remind both kids of expectations about the ball and pool games. Reminding them to respect others and not be too rough in the pool, it is easy for games to go too far in the water. All of a sudden there is a man yelling “Whose kid is this?”
We look up and realize, hey, that is our kid. Our kids get out of the water and come to us, the man is following our son yelling at him about hitting children and finally his son and he has had enough! I’m shocked. Why are you yelling at my kid? What happened? I just looked up and saw nothing amiss, what is going on? Now I must say, in our marriage I am definitely the hot headed one, liable to jump to conclusions faster that a speeding bullet while my husband calmly takes it all in and then shuts me down with a few well spoken sentences. Yet, I have nothing but defensive mama inside me and mute shock on the outside. Thank goodness my husband was there, who calmly tells the man to talk to him, this is his son. He yells about my son punching his and that we better stay because he is pressing charges! Now, my son is 9 but looks younger as he is tall and thin and barely weighs 50 pounds soaking wet! I look over and I see the man at the information hut, his son is holding something to his nose and he looks pretty solid from where I am standing. He has my son by 10-15 pounds and probably a couple of years. We immediately ask our son what happened. He says they were tussling about the beach ball, then they started pushing each other, the boy hit him and he hit back. He says “I didn’t mean to hurt him.” Dear Lord, I am sure you didn’t but in my head I am like, looks like you got in a very lucky shot, now what is this man going to do. These are kids, they were rough with each other and got hurt, I am not sure this requires the police. I look around to see if anyone else saw anything, no one says they did, they just keep saying they were playing and seems like they got out of hand, it happens and shrugging their shoulders in confusion. I was confused too, where was the ‘hey, the kids got into it, please talk to your son’ parenting I was used too? This man was irate, he kept walking back and trying to confront us, he kept making demands and trying to discipline and frighten my son (he was succeeding) without going through us, his parents. We try to calmly speak to the other father, he wants no parts of it, he is just pacing across the way like a large angry cat, think lion, while we try to reassure our son. This went on for almost two hours while we gave statements to security, were told my son couldn’t get back in the pool, waited for the sheriff’s deputy to arrive, had the police talk to our son, were told the man wanted an official report, then finally have the other father come over with the deputy and shake my husband’s hand and explain he was sorry and upset about his son, but there would be no report or other action. While this wild wait was happening, many people came up to our family to offer support, to ask to speak to our son and reassure him that he was not a bad person, mistakes happen when you are playing. To share their own stories of being kids and fighting with friends only to be friends again 10 minutes later. That other father showed me some of the bad that can happen when we don’t take the time to think about our actions and reactions, many others at the pool reminded that we haven’t all become too angry to care about others we don’t know, haven’t lost the memory of being a carefree kid trying to learn how to navigate the world, haven’t stopped being kind when being aloof is easier. I don’t know that other father, will probably never see him again, though he retains the right to seek us out over the incident, but while I was angered, shocked and hurt over his treatment of the situation and my child, I am trying to remember that most parents defend first and it often works in their favor. He saw his child hit, then bleeding and reacted. It probably wasn’t his finest hour, haven’t we all been less than we should in a situation? I endeavor to not be too angry, what about you?