May 6, 2005
a long post, but not necessarily a good one
Every day, on the drive home from school, Henry and I have the same conversation.
Me: How was your morning?
Henry: Great.
Me: What did you do?
Henry: I’ll tell you at home.
When we get home, he says, ‘I’ll tell you after lunch.’ After lunch, he says, ‘I’ll tell you after we read stories.’ After we read stories, he says, ‘I’ll tell you after I rest.’ And so on, all through the afternoon.
And then at bedtime, when it’s well past 8:00 and the dinner dishes are still on the table and there is laundry to be folded and bills to be paid and I’m ready to drop, he says, ‘Snuggle with me and I’ll tell you about my day.’ So I lay down with him in his bed, and he tells me about what he did at school. Some nights we put everyone to bed at 7:15 just so I can hear about Henry’s day. For the most part, it’s just an accounting of who he played with and what work he did, but every once in a while there’s something interesting (by which I mean nerve-wracking). But he always says he likes his school and I believe him.
Today when he got in the car, we went through the usual routine, and then–while I was driving and Charlie was crashing Buzz Lightyear around in the back seat–Henry blurted out, ‘My friends say I’m not nice, but I am nice and I don’t know why they would say that.’
I nearly ran a stop sign.
A while back, Henry came home one day and said, ‘Does God know everything?’ We’re not really God people in our house, so I wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘Well,’ I said carefully, ‘people who believe in God believe that God knows everything . . .’
‘Because I told W. that I knew everything and he said I didn’t, that only God knew everything.’
Okay, I thought, I can handle this. ‘Well, W. is right–you don’t know everything. You know a lot of things, but there is a lot you don’t know.’ Henry continued to insist that he did know everything, which is one of his frustrating little quirks–when he’s right, he’s right, no matter how unreasonable his claim. I could see how the other kid might be annoyed by this. Finally, exasperated, I said, ‘Here is the deal–you don’t know everything–NO ONE knows everything–and you need to stop saying that. It’s not true and it’s not polite.’
Over the next few days, Henry came around to the idea that no one knew EVERYTHING (I finally pointed out that even DADDY didn’t know everything, which seemed to bring it homee for him), but that each of us knew things that other people didn’t know. And then he got interested in Superheros, and instead of announcing that he knew everything, he began announcing that he was a superhero. I was never crazy about this–it was just annoying, frankly, the insistance that he really WAS Spiderman and he really COULD climb the wall and did I want to SEE him do it?–but Wade was more willing to play along, and I just assumed that I was worn out from too much time with the kids.
And then Henry came home from school and said that his friend W. had called him a liar. I did some yoga deep breathing and said, ‘Now, why do you suppose he would say that?’
‘I told him I was a real superhero and he said I was a liar,’ Henry told me.
Ooooh. Sure. More yoga breathing. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘here’s the thing. Do you know what it means to tell a lie?’
‘Not really,’ Henry said.
‘It means you say something that isn’t true.’
‘But I AM a real superhero!’ he insisted.
‘Henry,’ I said, exasperated. ‘You’re not. You are a very smart little boy who can run fast and climb everything, but you are NOT a superhero.’
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘But you’re also not a liar. Telling a lie means that you meant to say something that wasn’t true, and I don’t think that’s what you were doing. It’s not okay to say that you’re a superhero, but it’s also not okay for W. to say that you are a liar. Understand?’
‘Yeah. But I don’t like it when he calls me a liar.’
‘Well, you might want to find someone else to play with for a while. I think anyone who makes you sad isn’t really someone you want to spend time with. I don’t like to spend time with people who make me sad.’ While I could still see the other kid’s point, I was less sympathetic this time. Where did this kid get off calling my son a liar? Where had he even learned that?
We talked about Henry’s other friends at school, kids who he had fun with, and for a while after that he didn’t play with W. Then last week he came home and said, ‘W. and I are friends again. I told him I didn’t like it when he called me a liar, and that I didn’t want him to get me on the playground, and he said okay. So now we’re friends again.’ I was really proud of him–he had worked it out his own way, and he seemed to feel good about it. End of story.
Until today.
When we got home, Henry sat down at the kitchen table and emptied out his school bag. He had made a Mother’s Day card for me. ‘I decorated it!’ he announced. ‘It’s a space ship!’ Inside there was writing. When I started to read it, he fell apart. ‘NO NO NO, don’t read it! I don’t want you to read it!’ His teacher had written, ‘Reasons I Love My Mom: She lets me go to Chucky Cheeses. Every night she lets me jump into space.’
‘I’m trying not to cry!’ he wailed, ‘But I can’t breathe!’
I finally elicited that it was the Chuckie Cheese part that was upsetting him, but I still don’t know why. I think Henry has been to Chuckie Cheese once in his whole life, for a playgroup birthday party. I happen to hate the place, but I don’t think I’ve ever told him that, nor have I ever told him he couldn’t go there. All he would say was, ‘It was an accident! It was an accident!’
I tried to calm him down and get him to tell me what was wrong. ‘Did something happen at school to make you sad?’ I asked. ‘Yes, but I don’t want to tell you what it was.’
‘You know what?’ I said. ‘I can tell when you are sad, and it makes me worry when I don’t know why.’
‘How can you tell?’ he asked, clearly surprised.
‘Because I love you and I know when you are sad. Can you tell me what happened?’
So he told me that his friends–W. and two other boys he plays with–had been saying that he wasn’t nice. ‘But I don’t know why!’ he wailed. ‘I AM nice!’ I just hugged him and held him until he was calm, and then we ate lunch and read stories and he fell asleep in his bed snuggled up against me, like he used to do when he was a baby.
And I got up and ate about 50 Hershey Kisses and started writing–I don’t know what to do; should I call his teacher? Should I just wait it out? I never told Wade about the first two incidents, I don’t really know why, I guess because they upset me so much. But this is really too much.
I just want to protect him. And I can’t.
Posted by Susan @ 11:53 am • Uncategorized
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May 6th, 2005 at 3:57 pm, Anonymous Says:
I’d call his teacher. He’s too young to wait and see what happens and he’s clearly upset by all this. I don’t think you’d be over-reacting - I would do the same thing.