Imagine your 3 year-old being told, “You’re bad! You’re bad!” by a burly grown-up stranger.
I allow my toddler to explore, to be himself, and even at his age, I’ve already been setting healthy boundaries. Unfortunately, I can’t control how his threenager brain works and neither can I control his behavior 100% of the time.
When my little one kicked a stranger, he quickly ran to me and we quickly apologized.
The stranger turned his back on us and, with his booming voice, quipped “I will call the police.”
I whispered to my son, “You are not bad. What you did was bad. We only kick balls and bad people.”
By “bad people,” we mean criminals or the ones who take advantage of the weak.
“We only kick balls,” may sound funny for a grown-up like me. But for my toddler, I think he got the lesson. Besides, it wasn’t the first time I had to tell him that.
Maybe that particular grown-up was in the middle of something and so totally couldn’t be disturbed.
Maybe the grown-up realized his reaction was too much over a little person’s behavior.
Maybe he felt bullied.
Maybe he didn’t care.
Or maybe he DID care.
Still, while I agree that what my son did was a bad thing (with my sincerest apologies) I am honestly not happy nor thankful for a stranger to label my son bad.
Becoming Bubba 