There comes a time in every child’s life — no, let's start that again.
There comes a time in every parent’s life when their child moves in for that first, unsolicited, unprompted, independent social interaction. And of course, selfish though it may be, this is more about us than it is about them. Because they don’t know rejection as we do.
We’ve experienced it in our lives first hand and we’ve learned to deal with it accordingly but what we’ve not learned to do is watch on, helplessly, as our darling child attempts to insert themselves into a social situation with absolutely no idea of what is potentially in store for them.
At least he's polite…
I remember watching on as my son did it for the first time. We were at the park we always went to near our house, he was around two, maybe a little younger. I was so worried. Not least of all because he was due a little karmic justice from when we were at the beach and a kid from the crèche at my gym walked up to my son and yelled, “Oscar! Hi!” And my son picked up his bucket and said, “No thank you,” and walked away.
So yeah, I was worried that the universe may have seemed fit to give my poor boy a dose of his own medicine and I wasn’t sure how he’d react. And also, at that moment, I realised that I wasn’t sure how I’d react. Or how I’d explain to him why these kids didn’t want to play with him.
Karmic justice?
There’s the parental voice in me that tries to use every situation, good or bad, as a lesson for my son. If these kids reject him, do I remind him of the time he did that? Seems mildly inappropriate, or at least mean-spirited of me to console him with, “Yeah well you shouldn’t have been mean to Ryan at the beach that time. What goes around, kiddo.”
I was equally as worried that my overprotective side would come out and in an attempt to comfort my heartbroken child, I’d loudly declare that we don’t wanna play with smelly loser idiot kids anyway, and then go get him ice cream. I was also concerned about it going bad because I didn’t want it to rattle him and stop him from asking again in the future.
With good reason!
When he was very young, like still in the stroller for long walks young, I used to take him to the beach and do the coastal walks. He’d sit up and wave at everyone we passed, and then one day, I’ll never forget them, this older couple didn’t wave back — and that’s fine, everyone doesn’t need to care about my kid as I do, I get it. But he stopped waving at everyone there and then.
He wasn’t upset. He didn’t cry. He just simply stopped waving at strangers on the walk. And I didn’t want his first social insertion to be rejected and he never attempt it again.
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Rejected!
Those kids did reject him. With all the warmth of the arctic tundra to be quite frank. And as I saw him turn and head back toward me, I was trying to find the words to comfort him and assure him that it was not him, they were just busy or they were leaving the park soon.
Instead, I asked him, ‘You ok?’ and he told me they didn’t want to play. He wasn’t bothered. He said it in a very matter-of-fact way. Then he asked if I wanted to play, and the answer there is always, ‘Yes please.’
One day he’ll stop asking me and so I always reply with ‘Yes please’.
Thankfully, he's resilient
We played soccer and as we played, I thought about how proud of him I was for taking it on the chin like that and just moving on. Realising he’d no doubt be fine, and this wouldn’t hinder him. It was all in my head. Projecting my own insecurities too, I’m sure.
I was so proud of how resilient he was. And then I kicked the ball and accidentally hit him, causing the mother of all meltdowns. Was it related to the social rejection moments ago or do I have a really good right foot? Hard to tell. That’s parenthood for you.
