Little Punk

Think of Nathan like Clark Kent. Mild mannered. Wears glasses. Sorta timid or shy.

He's quite the gentleman. At Kindermusik, he is the only boy. When the teacher pulls out a box of instruments, all the kids run up to grab theirs. Nathan waits patiently for all the girls to go first, then he gets his instrument. I didn't really teach this, he just is sweet natured and polite. And there seems to be a vacuum of 3 ish aged boys around here. The only two kids he has really hung around much are both girls, little sisters of Abby's friends. He's quite the player with all these girls around him.

And I suppose I've gotten used to well behaved little ones that are gentle and nice with each other. Nathan is very sweet with Anna Grace, the little girl I watch when her mom and I do the school-volunteering-swap. He shows her his toys and likes to play with her.

So imagine if you will the McDonald's playland we went to today. There was a little boy there and I think I heard his mom say he was 2. He was very outgoing with the adults, coming up to say "Hi" and talking with a grandma lady he didn't know and saying he loved her.

However, after watching him, he was quite the demon. An older boy sent his toy down the slide and demon boy grabbed it and would NOT give it back. Mom had to take it and return it. This made the boy stomp his feet and get even more ramped up. Then Nathan decided he wanted to play. Nathan, like I said, is not pushy or all that bold. He was giving the other kids a good 4 foot clearance before approaching the ramps. The older boy wanted to play with him, but Nathan kept acting skiddish and walking away. Nathan went into a little toddler area and was playing by himself when older boy came in with him. I guess this made demon boy jealous because he comes in there are roars like a lion. He did it a few times quite intentionally to "scare" Nathan away. Nathan just ignored it and walked around him, which made demon boy scrunch his face and say "NOT FAIR" like it dawned on him that it didn't work.

So then there was some quibble over a hot wheels that older boy wanted to look at, but demon boy would not share. Finally, the mom took the hot wheels away to end the fight, which got the boy ticked and he started coming after Nathan saying, "I want your glasses! Gimme dose glasses!" and was bound and determined to rip them off his face. Nathan had come back over to me as demon boy started after him, and I point blank told the boy, "Ah ah ah. No sir. Those are his glasses and you don't need them." Nothing threatening, but very firm tone. He looks at me and sees I mean business and gets that defeated look again and yells, "NOT FAIR" and walks back into the corner of the toddler area where he quite a few times laid down the F bomb.

Talk about issues. The mom didn't really do anything. After awhile, they left. I was just reeling from the stark differences in behavior.

So why bother blogging about all this? I suppose I'm looking for comments on either how to toughen up Nathan, or if we need to toughen up Nathan, or if I need to be concerned about Nathan's safety on future playgrounds. It bothered me that this little punk was COMING AFTER Nathan simply because of the glasses. Or that he was mad at authority and was about to target that rage on my son. I'm pretty sure if he had hit Nathan or yanked off his glasses or even pushed him, Nathan would have just come to me in tears. I don't want to teach Nathan to be mean, but how do you teach self-preservation or at least how to say "NO" when the need arises. I don't know that they have 3 year old karate classes. What would you do?