Trying to find a neutral way to write about this... On Friday, my Son #1 socked his best friend in the face. He has to face the consequences, but they're pretty minor. There are a lot of complications to this situation. Son #1 is highly supported by the school in his friendship with this kid, because this kid is dealing with unspeakable and extremely unfortunate events in his own life, and of course none of those things are his fault. The only piece of this I'm interested in commemorating, however, is that Son #1 first exhibited patience for, in his words, THREE YEARS. He has done his level best to meet this kid's needs in the friendship, but on this day, he had had enough and he lashed out.
Now we are raising the children to be peacemakers as best we can. We attend the annual peace parade in our town on Martin Luther King Day. When they play video games we always are asking them to think about the "bad" guy in any scenario... WHY is he the bad guy? What made him that way? Did no one love him when he was young? Did he get kicked around and so now he wants to kick others around? Are the so-called "good" guys actually just stealing resources from characters who only want to preserve what they believe belongs to them? Always, we suggest another way to see the story being told.
But at the same time, in THIS situation, we step back and re-live our own childhoods for a moment. Would his father or his mother have ever responded this way? Or would we have gone the doormat route? And which is the right thing? So, we hug our kid, we tell him we love him, and we encourage him to try and have just that little tiny bit more patience the next time so he can not violate the school rules. And quietly, in our hearts, we are delighted that he had the strength to stand up for himself when he felt enough-was-enough.
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