Influence

I took the boys to a park today since the weather was so nice.  While they were playing, an older boy – maybe  10 or 12 - climbed up a high slide with a big backpack on his back and a skateboard attached to that.  I smiled because Owen and Jack were at the top of the slide and I knew that they would be completely enamored with this boy.  Sure enough, they were soon talking to this kid – giving him their rapt attention that I can only dream of (seriously - where is that focus in the morning when it is time to brush teeth and get dressed and ready for school!?)

Last year Owen was taken in his fifth-grade “reading buddy” who read to him.  The same was true for the lifeguards at the pool this summer and with Kyle, Owen’s speech therapist.  It was sweet to see Owen look up to these guys and to see Owen pick attributes from these boys that he would like to claim for himself.  Owen can’t wait to read  longer and harder books and to be able to go to France (as the students do in fifth grade).  He has added “lifeguard” to his list of possible jobs for when his is older.  And being kind and fair are attributes he learned from Kyle.

So when the skateboard boy smiled and walked away as I approached Owen and Jack to tell them it was time to leave, I wondered what Owen would tell me about him.

Compared to the other older boys that Owen has had access to, I was in for quite a surprise.  “Mom, that boy was telling us to do really crazy things!”  (gulp)  “He said that we should go up to this certain person and just start screaming in their face.”  Owen started laughing – it was a kind of “I think that’s funny” , and “I feel nervous” kind of  laugh.  “Then the boy told us if we screamed in their face and kicked and punched them – then he would give us his skateboard!”  Owen’s response to this boy was, “No way!”, but you could tell that Owen really wanted that skateboard and he definitely seemed confused about why the boy was talking like that.

My first reaction was to run after the skate-boarder boy and give him a piece of my mind.  But I doubt that would have really made an impact on him.  Instead I asked Owen what he thought would happen had he followed the skateboard boy’s plan.  I was surprised at Owen’s answer to that question.  Owen didn’t say, “ I would get into trouble.” or “The boy I hit would be hurt.”  Instead, Owen replied, “that boy would not really give me the skateboard anyway.”   I was really glad to hear that Owen evaluated the boy’s request, and was able to come to the conclusion that the kid was probably not someone that Owen wanted to listen to, much less trust. 

At first, I did not like the thought of Owen being influenced by kids like this.  I have the desire to protect him.  But then I began to think more about Owen’s response and I felt much better.  It gave Owen an opportunity to see an example of a negative attribute – and to reject it.

So I suppose that a negative interaction can give way to learning too.  Though I am not sure I want my boys to learn this way too often…