Evoking Martin Luther King

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Angry at Each Other Update:

My son and I came home after school to find his sister and her friend playing, “family” in the children’s bedroom.   My son is not one to want to play “family”.   In fact, I don’t ever remember him wanting to play “family” once.   But there’s a first time for everything.

I was letting the dog out when I heard a commotion from inside.   Well, yelling and screaming.   I came back in to a daughter in tears and an angry son.   It would appear my son wanted to play with them but the girls didn’t want him to play.   They said the game was only for two people.  

My son knows the rule that you can’t exclude someone from a game in our house but the girls weren’t having any of it.   They explained (in angry tones) that this particular family, the one they were playing in this specific game, had no brothers or fathers or uncles or grandfathers so my son couldn’t well play in that case.  I’m not sure if my son would have been okay playing a sister or mother or aunt, but that didn’t matter to him; it was all about the exclusion.

He cited Martin Luther King, explaining how you can’t exclude someone just because they were different than other people.   He told the girls how Martin Luther had taken a bullet because he believed so strongly in this.   And, well, they just couldn’t keep him out of the game!

The girls said he was being bossy and that fine, they would go to another room and play.   I told them they had exactly four minutes to work out a peaceful solution or Madison was going home and the game would be over.

Madison went home.   My son got sent to one room and my daughter to another.   They complained and asked when they could come out.  When I went up ten minutes later I told them each, through the doors, they could come out when they could make a meaningful apology to the other child.  

My daughter kept crying but my son came to where she was and gave the most sincere and touching apology, explaining calmly how it hurt his feelings that they didn’t want to let him play with them.   He wanted to give her a hug, but she was so upset and crying still she said she couldn’t breathe.   And then he got concerned about her not breathing so he gave her advice on how to calm down and take deep, steady breaths.   He was really sweet.