Friday, December 17, 2010

Public Spaces


I took the boys to a Christmas Party at the park this morning, with some of our home-school friends. All in all it was a wonderful party, but Nico had trouble getting along with some of the other kids.

See, Nico and some of the kids from our group made this super, awesome fort out of tree branches and moss. It was off to the side of the park, out of sight from the picnic tables where I and most of the other adults were spending our time. Nico worked really hard on the fort, and was really proud of what he had done. There was a door, and sleeping quarters for everyone who wanted a place to stay.

Then come along the kids from a small private school across the street. The first group of kids to come over were pretty nice, and didn't really bother our group too much. (Although one boy in our group ended up in tears because he wanted to play with these new kids, however they were instructed by their teacher not to play with anyone outside their class!? Such great social skills those kids are learning, eh!) After about 20 minutes, the first group leaves, and along comes group number two.

The first thing these kids in group two did, was tear down Nico's fort. Nico, understandably, was furious. In tears, completely red-faced, wanting to go over to yell and scream at all of them. I felt his pain. He had been working on that fort for over two hours, just to have them come tear it all down. But I can't condone fighting. I made him stop and take some deep breaths. I tried to explain to him that this was a public park, and nothing here actually belongs to him. Yes it was incredibly rude of those other kids to tear down his hard work, but there was really nothing we could do about it.

After a few minutes of talking him down, Nico was able to rejoin the fun. He is still peeved about the incident, but thankfully was able to enjoy the remainder of the party.

Side Note: Pictured above, check out Lucas and one of his new friends on their home-made seesaw. My kids were being all kinds of creative today.

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