Swinging Sticks

This is not what I wanted to write about today, but I'm shaking all over and I'm mad and I'm going to sit down now and write about it while it's fresh in my mind.   I hope my daughter will be fine with her two friends outside unsupervised while I write this.   My son, on the other hand, had better stay in his room or there will be consequences that I don't want to mention here for fear someone would call Child Protective Services on me

We have two children, a boy and a girl.   We have the same expectations for both of them, even though my daughter is eleven-months younger.  I know the sayings including, "boys will be boys" and "girls are sugar and spice" but my son baffles me.

Boys have a need to be physical and my son definitely has that need.   He seems to have what I would call, "poor impulse control" coupled with a desire to tell everyone what to do and always get his way. It looks like aggression and I fear other parents are going to think we don't discipline him at home or that he has behavioral problems.   Bottom line, he can just be mean.

This afternoon his two friends came over to play when they saw the small bounce house we have in the back yard.  I had asked my son if he could help me and that the help would involve a hammer.   He dropped everything and came straight away.  My husband handed him the mallet from the garage and we went outside.   He spent time hammering the play house, the slide, a swing and then he pulverized the blue, plastic, twelve-dollar pool by hammering it while it was upside-down.  (The pool should be fine, those things can take a serious beating.)

When I got it all in place, we turned on the bounce house and I asked my son to help hammer in the four stakes to keep it in place.    He helped me and did a careful, thoughtful job of the task, not hammering them in too far.   I told him he couldn't use the hammer if he got it near anyone's body.   He tried with it, but swinging it around to do "work" but that was a little to much in the small space so I took it away.

I went inside, expecting the four children to play happily together for a while.   I look up only moments later to see my daughter trying to get away from my son around the brick column.   I saw him haul back with a large stick and swing it at her head, missing her only because he hit the brick and she dodged.   She screamed as he prepared to swing from the other direction and I ran out of the house screaming at him.

The words, "bloody murder" come to mind, because I was so upset.    I'm pretty sure he didn't want her to turn off the bounce house again (she likes to do that) and decided a reasonable response to such an affront was to try and physically harm her.

He ran.  He ran fast.   I ran faster and grabbed his shirt collar.   I dragged him inside the house, screaming and not giving a damn if a neighbor heard me.   I shoved him and he ran up the stairs.   I yelled at him and told him did he like it when someone bullied him (and then I shoved him down.)  I asked him if he was scared and he said, "yes."  I said he'd better run to his room then because I might get a stick and try to hit him with it.  I asked him if he though a stick swung at his face would feel good?   Would a bleeding face from a stick be something he thought he would like?   (I shoved him down again.)   He got to his room and I told him he was not invited out until dinner time and I would let him know when that was.

He was mad.   He was very angry he wasn't allowed to go back outside.   My daughter came in about that point and wanted to know if they could have snack.   I ignored my son, which he hated.   He yelled at me to answer his questions and I continued to ignore him.   I helped my daughter get some strawberries to go back outside and share with her friends.   He bellowed.   He wailed.   I informed him again that he would not be going back outside today.

There were more interruptions from my daughter and their friends.   I told them (within earshot of my son) that he was in trouble and would not be coming back outside.   I sent them back out with bananas.   My son miserably complained that he was missing all the fun.   I told him I was sure tomorrow he would remember to be kind to his friends.   I also told him friends don't have fun together by trying to hurt each other.

I later asked Keira if she had seen what happened (she's eight.)  She said he was trying to hit her with the stick and that before I came out he'd pushed her head into the brick wall.   I short while later Keira's mother called to request her children be sent home.  I asked her if she'd heard me screaming around the neighborhood and she said she hadn't.    We talked about the situation for a few minutes and she told me of some similar things they'd had to contend with with her older child, Keira, who is the more physically aggressive of their two children.

The good news is, my son is miserable he's missing out on playing with his friends, which hopefully will be a deterrent and a lesson.   The second good news is he's been staying in his room and not defying me, even though I'm two floors away.   Hopefully today was a good lesson-learning day.

The Big Boy Update:  Per above, my son tried to hit my daughter with a stick.   There have been consequences.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had an eye exam today at the hospital under anesthesia.   It was a lot of hoopla just for a bit of anesthesia.   The good news is her vision doesn't need corrective lenses.   She has some artifacts in her eyes as a result of her development and growth that may be attributing to her vision, but that will hopefully improve as she matures.

Fitness Update:  I don't really feel bad at all today after the marathon.  I'm not sore or tired.   I can't feel bits of my toes still, but that was a shoe issue, not a training one.