We’ve reached the point with AE where parenting is far less of a physical challenge, but more of a mental one. And unfortunately, I think this is also the part where you can scar your kid for life. Twenty years from now, Miss T isn’t likely to recall that I let her cry in her crib at bedtime for five extra minutes one night, but AE is seven years old.
He’ll remember.
He is old enough to have his feelings hurt when I yell for no good reason. He is old enough to be disappointed if I can’t make it to his school program. He is old enough to be embarrassed, but conversely, he’s certainly old enough to understand when he’s embarrassing his parents.
Kids embarrass their parents. It’s just the way things are. As an adult, I cringe when I recall a few specific incidents where my poor mother must have wanted the ground to swallow her whole. As a kid, they were no big deal but to a parent they would be utterly mortifying.
AE has always been sensitive, for lack of a better all-encompassing term. He’s cautious and careful and easily bothered by stuff that wouldn’t phase other kids. It’s not really a problem. Over the years we’ve learned to take it into account, usually by giving him extra time to acclimate. And it’s lessening with age anyway – the older he gets, the more willing he is to try new things. He’ll never be his sister, plunging headlong into every situation without a second thought – but let’s face it. Using a little caution, taking that one extra minute to consider your next move, can be a really smart thing.
That being said, his tendency towards weepiness IS becoming an issue. At almost 7.5 years of age, one of the oldest kids in his first grade class, AE’s knee-jerk reaction is to burst into tears whenever he’s upset. And I’m not talking major upset either, like breaking a bone or losing a pet or failing an important test. I’m talking about bursting into tears when I dare to suggest that maybe he might take a bit more time drying off after the bath because he’s still dripping wet. I’m talking about crying when he can’t figure out how to advance to the next level in Indiana Jones Lego or because his sister took the last juice box.
In my opinion, he’s way too old to react like that. Quite frankly, it can be really embarrassing. There. I said it. It’s embarrassing to be the parent of the kid who bursts into uncontrollable, hysterical tears when he gets tapped by a rogue basketball during practice. Struck so lightly as to not even leave a red mark. (And as someone with an extremely high pain tolerance of their own, it’s doubly mortifying.)
But I’ve never parented a seven-year-old boy before. Maybe this is normal. Either way, I don’t know how to deal with it.
I still remember the name of the kid from my school who cried about everything. GOD. That kid cried about EVERYTHING. And this was junior high! Seventh, eighth grade! He’d burst into tears if you looked at him funny. Jesus H. It was ridiculous. We’re not at that point yet, but I don’t ever want to be, you know? I don’t want MY kid to be the kid that his classmates think of twenty years down the line, when they’re dealing with similar issues with THEIR kids. I don’t want them going, there was a kid in my elementary school, AE, who used to cry about everything and we used to make SO MUCH FUN of him. Do you want to be like that kid?
Children are mean. Everyone knows that. I remember how cruel I was and it breaks my heart to think of other kids treating MY precious baby that way. I’ll love him either way (OBV) but for his sake, I don’t want him to be That Kid. And really, I don’t think he will be. He seems well liked, his classmates go out of their way to tell him goodbye when we pick him up, he gets invited to parties. He seems socially adjusted. It could be that this is his crazy mother projecting ridiculous, unwarranted childhood fears onto her own offspring.
But still. The crying. How do we make it stop? How do we explain that it isn’t acceptable to cry over a video game, but there are plenty of circumstances (i.e. death, serious injury, zombie attack) where it IS okay to cry? Where’s that line?
GAH, parenting. Sometimes it sucks balls.
