I woke up this morning feeling pretty pleased with myself. It's the weekend and one son was invited to a sleep over at a friends, while my oldest son asked if his friend could spend the night here. I said it was okay.
All was going well, there was a marathon of "Super Nanny" shows on TV that I was watching and commenting on. "If that was my kid, I'd kill them." I remarked while watching a child hit, spit at and scream at his mother.
Of course my kids know that when I say "kill" I wouldn't actually commit MURDER... but their friends don't know me that well. I kind of like it that way.
My son's friend was sort of feeling me out to see how far I'd actually go and posed a few questions like that at me. I guess I must've scared him with the answers because he became sort of somber after that.
After a while the kids were in and out, my son offered to watch a movie. His friend has his nose stuck in his DS (handheld game) and wasn't interested. My son offered up all the favorite movies..his friend wasn't interested..still playing his DS and ignorning my son. That's when I started to get a little ticked off and had to open my mouth.
I teased his friend, told him it was time to quit screen sucking and do something with his friend, after all isn't that why he wanted to spend the night here? Then I got some answers I wasn't quite prepared to hear.
"I wanted to spend the night because I can stay up late here." He says.
"Oh well in that case, it's bedtime." I reply.
He started teasing back and says "Well what if I want to go home?"
To which my mouth kicked in and I couldn't stop it... I said ... "Don't let the door hit you in the ass."
About then more kids come in and he asked the other kid if he could spend the night at his house tonight, to which the other kids says, let's go ask my mom... and that's when I could resist no longer, I spewed exactly what I was thinking. I can't remember the exact words I used but I said something like that was the rudest thing I'd ever seen. You are supposed to be spending the night here, and when you get another offer you just dump your friend? Then all the kids started to leave and as they were leaving I said "The door will be locking in a few minutes" to which the boy replied, "well can you wait a bit so I can get my stuff?" and went next door except for my son who was trying to watch the movie that he wanted his friend to watch with him. He sat silently through it all and I was afraid I had embarrassed him to death. "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you Drew, but I just had to say something." I apologized.
"That's okay Mom, I don't mind. He's being a jerk." He replied.
Later Lane comes back home from next door crying, saying he can't sleep over there when Drew's friend can't make up his mind what he wants to do and is outside upset. I told him to tell him to come in and talk to me.
The boy comes in, but won't come in to face me, I made him come all the way in and sit on the couch so we could have a talk.
I told him a friend is someone who wants to spend time with you, have fun with you and play with you and doesn't leave you when they get a better offer because that is just rude and hurts feelings. A friend is someone that has your back and worries about you and your feelings. I told him Lane is upset because he is afraid he will be outside all night and doesn't want something bad to happen to him. I asked him why he would leave one friend for the other and he said something about because Drew doesn't have such and such game and the other boy does.
That didn't go over well. I asked him if he liked his friends or his friends toys? He told me he liked both. Then I said, so we are too boring for you? He said he didn't mean it like that. I told him well that is how it sounded.
Then he said he has planned to spend the night at the other boys first but the other's boys mom said no.
That really didn't go over well with me. "So we are second best?" I replied? I told him that I don't like being second best and it's rude and hurts feelings when your friends just want to hang with you because of what you have, and only because their first plans fell through. Then I told him that he isn't the first one to do this because it happens all the time with all the other kids and I cannot believe that they treat their friends this way! They are all too happy to ditch someone to have fun with someone else, and care nothing about their friends feelings. I told him if the situation were reversed and Drew was at your house and someone came over and said you can come to my house and he up and left you, how would you feel?
Then the tears started to flow, I had gotten this kid to cry and realize he was WRONG! "I didn't mean it that way." He replied through his sobs.
"Don't tell me, tell your friend Drew." Who was still sitting in the chair watching the movie and not saying a word.
"I didn't mean it Drew." He cried, then Drew replied "It's okay."
I think the most amazing part of the entire conversation is that Drew said absolutely nothing during it. This is not like my kid who normally can't shut up.
Things settled down, the kid spent the night here, my other son managed to stay the entire night next door and all is well for now.
I hope the lesson for my kids is to let it be known when you have your feelings hurt and when other people are being rude and disrespectful to you to let them know about it. It's better to do that than to keep it in and be one crying your eyes out because your feelings are hurt.
No comments:
Post a Comment