Mom Doesn't Want 'Incredibly Destructive' Neighborhood Kid To Play With Her Son — 'I Have Tried To Be Patient And Kind'
She doesn't want to exclude anyone but the kid's behavior has become a real issue.
Q88 / Shutterstock A mother was left feeling torn between her son’s feelings and those of one of the neighborhood kids he often plays with.
According to the mother, the neighborhood kid’s attitude has been a problem with her son and his friend group, and they have found it difficult to play with him. However, she doesn't want to purposefully exclude the little boy as he is just a kid and his mother has always been kind to her.
Now, she is asking other parents how she should handle the situation without hurting anyone’s feelings.
The mother admits that she doesn’t want the ‘incredibly destructive’ neighborhood kid to be playing with her son.
Sharing her dilemma to the subreddit r/Parenting, the mother revealed that one of her neighbors has a son who is a couple of years older than her own and often wants to play with him and his friends.
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However, the mother has noticed some tendencies about the boy that she is not a fan of.
“This boy is incredibly destructive, violent at times, and talks so inappropriately,” she wrote.
The even bigger issue is that the boy always seems to know when her son has friends over and rushes over to the house so that he can tag along. “I swear he spies on my house, and if he sees a friend coming over, he'll follow them up to our front door,” the woman confessed.
“I've told him before that my son can't play, but he knows every bike and the owner in our block, and he'll ask why a certain friend is there.”
While the mother doesn’t want the boy to feel left out, she struggles with allowing her son to play with him, especially since the boy often ends up aggravating all of them to the point where her son’s friends go home.
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“I usually just send him home at that point, but it's not fair that my son can't just have his time with his friends,” the mom wrote.
“I know how it feels when my kids get left out of things, and it's such a sad feeling. I don't want to do that to this boy or his mom; she's such a sweet lady, but I'm feeling trapped and don't know what to do!”
The woman added that she has tried her very best to be patient and kind to the boy, but she has reached her wit’s end since his behavior is beginning to affect her son’s own mental health and social life.
Now, she is unsure how to handle the situation without making the boy feel as if he is being excluded.
While it can be difficult, many people encouraged the mother to tell the boy that as long as he doesn’t play nicely, he will not be allowed to play with her son.
Just like adults, kids need to follow boundaries out of respect for others.
“You tell him no. Tell him he doesn't play nicely at your house. Tell him he needs to wait to be invited,” one Redditor suggested. “Yeah, it sucks to be left out. Yeah, it sucks to be the kid no one wants over. When you're destructive and all that, no one wants to play with you, though.”
“You just have to set rules and kick him out when he misbehaves,” another user commented.
“We had boys living across the street. One son would play with my daughter. Eventually, brother would come over, and within 5 min, it would go from whatever activity to wrestle mania. I would go in there, say no hitting in this house, point to the older boy, and tell him to leave until he was ready to play. Lather, rinse, repeat."
Instead of dealing directly with the boy, other people recommended speaking with his mother instead since she may not even be aware of his behavior.
“I’d go talk to his mom and explain the situation to her. Her son and yours have an age difference and don't play well together, and you'd really appreciate it if she could tell her son to stop coming over,” one user wrote.
“It's her job to say no and explain it to her kid, not your job.”
While growing up, all of us likely felt excluded at one time or another, and it’s a feeling that’s hard to shake.
As parents, we never want to make other children feel like they’re being left out, no matter how their behavior is.
However, we may want to focus on how our children are affected when other children are giving them a hard time and provide them with the necessary tools to deal with it.
“Give them an opportunity to talk and share what it was like for them, what they went through, what they experienced, what they’re feeling,” Dr. Karin Jakubowski, a former school principal and parenting expert, shared in a video.
It doesn’t hurt to also ask the other kid to recap their version of events, as they may be unaware that their behavior is hurting others.
“They don’t usually realize how what they did made the other kid feel that way,” Jakubowski adds.
This helps children put themselves in other’s shoes and understand why they may act out when they do.
Giving your kids the tools to navigate difficult social interactions will undoubtedly help them in the future, and it just might help out the neighborhood kid who's struggling to fit in.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.