A big leap
Check out Miss Jordan taking the big diving board leap!
I’m proud of her.
It’s fascinating what a pool does for a child. There are wonderful experiences… and some awkward ones. Just yesterday Jordan had a chance to go down the big slide at our pool a few times. I usually stand there and watch since there’s a lifeguard to catch her. While looking up as Jordan was waiting to go down, the girl behind her in line obviously started asking Jordan about her little arm. But what made me really angry was when the girl GRABBED Jordan’s arm. Jordan didn’t look angry about it, but I was enraged. Maybe I needed to go home after too many hours at the pool. I noticed Jordan gave her a “I was born like this” type of comment, but the girl kept prodding her with questions as Jordan headed down the slide. I watched the girl continue to yell questions at Jordan (I couldn’t hear, it’s a tall slide.) But then I saw the life guard put her finger on her lips to shush the girl… like Jordan’s little arm is a secret or something.
I was just stressed that I wasn’t able to be involved.
The moment the girl got to the bottom of the slide, she immediately started asking me questions. I immediately asked her not to grab Jordan. She totally ignored me and walked away.
I asked Jordan if the girl had asked permission to touch her little arm. Jordan said she did… but I just don’t believe her. I was flustered and Jordan just didn’t seem to care. I don’t want to get her all worked up. But I also want her to respect her personal space. We talked about that many times before, but watching her not put it into action was a bit disheartening. We clearly need some more talking.
i’m proud of Jordan, too!!! allows me, Jen, to be proud of your daugther?
Love the video! She’s awesome! 🙂
As for the touching thing, that drives me crazy. Gavin knows to tell kids not to touch his arm if he doesn’t want them to but he usually doesn’t. I don’t know, maybe kids just have different personal space than we do. And maybe sometimes they just don’t care.
I think we as moms take things a little bit harder than our kiddo’s. Jordan probably did what she felt comfortable with, and we all know kids have barrier issues. 🙂 After meeting Jordan and watching her interact with my overly-pushy kid, I’m fairly certain she isn’t going to let anyone take advantage of her or get in her space without voicing her own opinion about it. You are right to worry, but we also have to let them find their own way too. Not sure this is so much in respect to this, or to keep reminding myself of that very same thing. 🙂
Hugs to you both!!!
Breathe in… breathe out… I know it’s hard! I’m imagining how enraged I’d be. But… what’s important here? That Jordan is FINE. She’s fine with all of it. She’s fine with the questions. It didn’t bother her that the twerp grabbed her arm. One day will she know that it’s not appropriate for a stranger to invade her space? Yes, absolutely. Until then, though, Jordan is fine!!! Try to take deep breaths and remind yourself of that. Jordan is great, in fact, and in time, she will help teach these twerps a thing or two about manners and what’s appropriate!
Thanks. You’re right. I need to chill.
There’s one kid in our neighborhood who would grab Charlie’s arm every time he saw him, and would as the same dang questions every time. For the touching, I just say the classic “look with your eyes, not with your hands!” thing –I’m dealing with younger kids at this point though, Charlie is three and grabby-kid is six. But I don’t talk about personal space yet because they’ll be like “huh?” whereas not grabbing everything that interest them is something they’re trying to learn at this age. Charlie doesn’t seem to mind having his arm touched although he does get cranky about other stuff like having his hair ruffled.
For the constant questions (which were directed to me, not Charlie) I finally said “I answered your questions. What don’t you understand?” which got me a startled look and an end to the questions! Next time/next kid I’ll probably be a little nicer but I think I’ll handle it the same way – “we’ve talked about this already; what part is still confusing to you?” Charlie’s not talky enough to answer for himself yet so we’ll see how it goes once he is.
I think Jordan handled it fine, and you handled it fine…I think kids are less protective of themselves than we are of them, but that doesn’t make our protectiveness wrong.