This evening after dinner Matt, Mikayla, and I were blowing bubbles outside our front door. Mikayla had been playing with her "corn popper" that helps her walk, but dropped it parallel to (and on) the sidewalk. Suddenly, a boy (elementary age) rides past her and hits the handle of her popper. In order to do that, he had to turn his wheel to go over only the handle. He makes a circle and comes back, this time hitting the popper part straight on, clearly on purpose.
Now understand this - the last time I saw this boy he almost hit Mikayla purposely with his bike. Then, when I asked him if we could get by him he turned his bike perpendicular to the sidewalk and blocked the entire path. His mom ignored his near hit of Mikayla and laughed at him blocking the path.
Ok, so I remembered my last encounter with him. After he hits her toy two out of two times, I yelled "Excuse me! Please do not run over my daughter's toys. It's very rude!" in my teacher voice as he rode away. His mom was on her cell phone during this whole ordeal; however, she heard me getting after him and brought him over to me. I'm assuming an apology is coming. Wrong!
She was so angry that I used my teacher tone with him. She went on and on about my "bias" against children and how I need to treat him "righteously." What?! I said the same thing I would say to my own daughter or my students or any other child that is destroying someone else's property.
Then, she tells me she can't ask him to apologize because it was an accident. Now this is really getting absurd for two reasons.
1. She was on the phone, not paying attention. I saw it. Twice. Not an accident. Not even close.
2. Even if it were an accident, an apology is still in order. For example, you don't notice someone is in line and you cut in. Upon noticing, you say, "Oh, I'm so sorry" as you take your place behind the person. You accidentally bump into someone, you say sorry. You run late due to things outside your control, you still say sorry. So even if she believed it was an accident, an apology was still appropriate.
By the way, I did apologize to him for my tone and to her for offending her since they are neighbors. She stayed outside our home for another 10 minutes still talking about how children need love and lots of chances, etc. Good luck, lady, when your kid's a teenager. I'd like to know how enabling him works out for you.
All I have to say about that is: wow.
ReplyDeleteWe had a neighbor that I was more than happy, elated even to move away from. She thought her 3 year old should get whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, even if it was someone elses. This little girl hit and kicked and pulled hair and pinched. All the other kids in our small complex got along great, except for this little girl. One day I see her pulling Serena's very long hair and Serena is in tears (did I mention this 3 year old was tall and overweight ...probably close to the same weight as 5 year old Serena?). SO I go up to her and the mom is sitting there doing nothing as Serena is in tears! So I say loudly as I am comforting my crying child "I know, Ashley should not have pulled your hair, that was wrong." and the mom looks at me and says (cause guess what she was paying attention) "Serena didn't let Ashley play with them." (More like Serena didn't give up her toys for AShley, but whatever) So I look at her like "are you serious?" COmpletely dumbfounded that she was that completely out of touch with reality and said "Well, it's never okay to hit or pull some ones hair." "Well Serena wasn't being nice." "Then next time tell me, it is my job to discipline my child, it is not the job of your 3 year old to discipline her."
ReplyDeleteAbout a week later another very sweet 3 year old had had ENOUGH of this little girl's bullying, and literally drop kicked her. All of us adults sort of kind of celebrated inside a little bit. Then the mom of the little girl went around to all the kids, all sneaky like, and told them not to play with Ahmed anymore, because he was mean. SERIOUSLY? I can't believe none of the kids beat her down sooner. This had gone on for so long!
Serena came to me all upset after this, and I told her that she needed to be respectful of Ashley's mom but she didn't have to obey her. And if Ashley's mom ever talked to her again to come tell me and I would handle it. Did I mention they were the same neighbors who would park in front of our garage...even though they had thier own garage, and make me late for work????
GGGRRRR. So Sorry you have a crudy neighbor too.
That poor lady will have many troubles ahead of her, I still have to laugh a little about her saying we need to treat her child righteously.
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