Today I’m doing something I have never done before. I am sitting in our local library with my computer and 12 of the kids just sitting and observing. I bring the kids here, but I have never recorded what I see and hear while I am supervising them. This should be fun.
I was sitting at a table of four kid computers watching my three, five, and six-year-old play games when another mother with two young boys came over. I offered her the computer I was sitting at and by the time the little boy sat down next to my three-year-old and started banging on the keyboard, my son wanted to get up and leave. So, we left to go and play with the train tracks. I hear the mouse slamming on the desk over and over again. The child is corrected, “Stop slamming that or you will get in trouble.” That was all she said. She took him away from the computer after about 25 slams of the mouse.
Yikes!! I could not be a librarian.
Then this same woman moved to another computer for herself and put the smaller boy on her lap…while the older boy and I mean around five years pulled on the mouse connected to the back of the computer until the tower started sliding. My nine-year-old said, “Mom, he’s going to pull that off of there.” I said, “I know but not my kid.” Probably a bad attitude but I have had my fill of nasty mothers running their mouths at me when I point out something their kids are doing.
He didn’t pull it down, but it was very close. I wonder how many people would mention to her what the child was doing…would you? It is interesting. If a 9-year-old knows better why can’t a mother know enough to keep him from doing it?
#bethechangeyouwanttoseeintheworld #raisechildrenthatwillmakeachange #breakthechain