Childhood Many Boundary Violations In A Short Period Of Time

[rightkindofme]

I don't know about other people, but I find that I tend to have the same kind of problem over and over for a while. It's like the universe decides, "How about if you deal with the same issue on repeat seventeen times in a week? Will that be fun?"

Lately the issue is physical boundaries with children.

I got kicked in the throat by a kid in the home school group. His mom said it was all my fault and she was going to create distance between us because I am scary and dangerous. I'm going to choose to take that as a blessing.

There is a kid in our life. She's 2. She turned 2 in July. Since her birthday party in July she has slapped, punched, or kicked my 4 year old every single time I've seen them in the same place. The kid has FIVE parents. (They are a polyamorous group.) No one intervenes. I have to deal with this. It isn't forking ok.

We were invited to a trampoline birthday party for a friend. My 4 year old was the smallest kid there. The other girls who are 1-2 years older than her were chasing her around and bouncing her to make her cry. I was the only adult present and eventually I had to physically body block kids to let my kids bounce safely. We left angry, hurting, and feeling like we kind of hated everyone.

And all of this is coming up in a like 9 day period. It feels like AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH stress. Most of these kids are folks we have known for years but we haven't seen them much over the winter because I was sick. We are re-warming up to everyone. It feels like everyone turned into @$$holes while we weren't looking.

I'm feeling targeted and I know that feeling that way increases the likelihood that you will be treated that way. I have written up an email for the parent of the 2 year old and I sent it out for test reading to multiple folks in my life who know all concerned for advice. I'm going to just be grateful for the loss of the the throat kicking boy. I've watched him bully kids for years and his mom denies it is happening. I'm glad my daughter won't be getting it any more.

And we aren't going on group trampoline outings again. No. Just, no. You are all unsafe little brats and I'm not interested in getting hurt and I'm not interested in watching you hurt my children. (I can call them brats *here* and only *here* because no one involved will know or be hurt. I don't call them that in real life.)

Boundaries are hard.

And yet... I feel like having these situations come up is kind of positive. It gives me a chance to figure out what I *should* do. I am improving over time. I get better at responding in the moment. There are a lot of situations for the under 5 set that I can handle completely without thinking about it at this point. I'm grateful that I get to home school so that I can learn how to handle these things as my job for the next decade or so. I'm learning so much.

I'm grateful for the chance to reparent myself. My children will not be hit the way I was hit. The situations will be handled. They will not fall through the cracks. I told my daughter that the next time this kid hits her, push the kid over. Don't slap, punch, kick, bite, or pinch her... push her over. It will get her away from you, surprise her, and give you a chance to walk to an adult.

It can be different now. It is safe. If this family decides to defend their daughter's right to hit my kid, I will be happy to cut ties.

Things will be different for this generation. For the first generation in my understanding of my or my husband's family history... no one will be brought up to think that they deserve being beaten.

We are done with that.

 

[darrenS]

im so sorry your going through this , its such a gut wrenching situation at times. We have moved a bit and as such my kids have had to readjust and make new friends a few times, thankfully there are no more moves. I remember we had an incident when we were in NM, my kids were 5 and 8 at the time and they were having trouble adjusting to the new school , and for some reason there were some really nasty kids. A group of them folowed my kids home and proceeded to harass them in front of our house, the kids had acted as false friends and asked my kids to go for a walk.

My kids refused and later confided in me, that the kids said they were going to leave them in the middle of nowhere. It was nothing short of nasty and when i confronted the parents, i got all sorts of lame excuses. Fast forward to the next move and a new school and again , all sorts of bullying and nastiness. It took a lot of work to settle our kids , and thankfully they now enjoy decent friendships.

I can certainly relate to how you feel being a victim of violence and bullying myself , and yes , im always keeping an eye on things, i can understand your distress, and it seems to multiply exponentially when the parents not only deny but also do nothing about it. I have found the only real solution is to to teach my kids about people and how to deal with bullies and a*.* , and at the same time be very aware of their own value as people.

My son is a gentle kid , but he has learnt to fire up and immediately protect himself , its sad but at the same time necessary, he is very well balanced and confident in his own value, and he has learnt to act quick and decisive. The most amazing thing about him is when he was having problems he sought the school counsellor out himself and set up an appt (he was in 3rd grade) and also ask to go into therapy.

I truly hope you find a solution and my heart goes out to you .

 

[Friday]

It's amazing how becoming a parent means you stop hanging out with people you like, and start hanging out with people who parent the same way you do, regardless of how much you like or dislike them... Because anything less is intolerable.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I'm guessing that with the poly parents, they all wanted to be parents in the universal sense, but when it comes down to actual parenting, group dynamics kick in and nobody wants to take actual responsibility for raising a decent, well behaved child. That is, nobody wants to be the "bad guy". I get that people can live the lifestyles that they so desire, but I honestly feel bad for that kid as she likely has FIVE bad parents (and most of us have only one, two, or even three if a step parent is involved)....but to have five parents who can't parent? WHOA! Total mind f*ck....she's gonna need a lot of therapy as an adult!

Defending a child who kicks an adult in the neck!?! Crazy. I don't care how "menacing" the adult SEEMS, no child has a right to physically hurt anyone (unless its in self defense, but that is not the case here). This kid is gonna grow up and be wretched as well.

Maybe its not so much a sense of feeling targeted, rather your eyes are WIDE OPEN because of your past. Others let BS behavior slide because they are ignorant. (Not an excuse, but ya, they're kind of stupid when it comes down to it, right? They don't see what you see.)

Don't hesitate to move on. Your kids deserve better.

 

[ihateusernames]

Maybe its not so much a sense of feeling targeted, rather your eyes are WIDE OPEN because of your past. Others let BS behavior slide because they are ignorant. (Not an excuse, but ya, they're kind of stupid when it comes down to it, right? They don't see what you see.)

This is an interesting point. My son is the same age as the 2 year old in the OP (2 in August) and he could easily behave the same way as this little girl, only I have no tolerance for bullying or anything that looks like a possible precurser and won't even allow him to slap his baby doll. So I am kind of amazed by the things other parents just sit there watching slack-jawed and non-reactive. It probably is that I'm extra sensitive to it. My husband seems to be even more so.

It's so hard to know how to handle situations like this. I was tormented by other children throughout school, but nobody took my complaints seriously and certainly never intervened so I don't know what the appropriate response is. Hopefully I'll figure it out like you're doing, rightkindofme

 

[rightkindofme]

I'm actually fine with slapping toys around. That's appropriate in our house. You have aggressive, big feelings--take it out on someone/something that can't be hurt. Hitting toys is fine. Hitting the punching bag is fine.

Oh man. One time our then 3 year old walked up to her doll and picked it up and shouted into the doll's face, "F*ck you for touching my stuff!" then she slammed the doll's head on the floor over and over again for a while. My husband and I turned and looked at each other with bug eyes. SHE NEVER HEARD THAT FROM ME!

Kids have stuff to work out. They have a whole internal little world of big feelings to learn how to navigate.

(For the record that kid has *never* done something like that with a person.)

Solara--I think you are right that it is partially that I'm more sensitive to patterns emerging. Other people want to deny a pattern even when it's happened dozens of times. I notice after three times.

Sometimes... I don't like people very much.

 

[ihateusernames]

Oh, I know what you're getting at. We decided to stop him when he first started doing it quite a while back, but it actually is something I've gone back and forth in my head about. Getting his aggressions out v. hitting an anthropomorphized object. I'm not comfortable with him hitting this doll because he sees her as his best friend. He gets to punch pillows, he has a blow up punching bag that he gets to knock around, balls to kick, etc.

 

[rightkindofme]

Heard back from the mom of the 2 year old. Her response can be summarized by "Oh crud. I knew she was struggling with hitting issues I didn't realize it was THAT big of a problem with your kid. We will fix this." Then she had a bullet point list of things she will do to fix it.

Oh that feels so good. Thank you, universe.