Next door lives Dylan. Also known as Dylanthatlittleshit.
Dylan is a classic abuser. He’s nice to Jonah for a week or two. The boys will race around the yard whooping and trading jokes about poop. They’ll dig up holes in my backyard and other anarchical activities. When Dylan is nice to him, Jonah is in hog heaven, because Dylan is older and older kids are always a plus and because there are unlimited video games and TV in Dylan’s basement.
But after a week or two of the happy whooping, Dylan will suddenly turn on Jonah and scowl “you’re not my friend” or “you can never come to my house for a playdate.” Oh, the heartbreak.
Then Dylan will win him back a day later with a bag of candy, and the cycle will begin again.
Yeah, Dylanthatlittleshit, I’m on to you. I would like to drop kick your mother for not telling you to be nice. (Why is that so hard, parents?) Instead I’m teaching Jonah the Rules. Pretty much the Rules are the same for dating as they are for dealing with mean kids.
1. Never let the other guy know that you want to play with him.
2. If he’s mean to you, play it cool for a while. Don’t talk to him or sit next to him. Don’t forgive easily.
3. If you want something from him, never, never ask.
4. Have a lot of fun with some other kid while he’s watching.
5. Never cry in front of him. Save it up for mom who’s waiting for you at home with hugs and cookies.
My parents never told me this kind of stuff. They were all like turn the other cheek. Look for the good in people. Sticks and stones crap.
If some kid is mean to my kid, I’m teaching him how to give it back. If someone hits my kid, I’m going to tell Jonah to go medievel on the kid’s ass regardless of school regulations.
With a heavy heart, I’m teaching my kid that there are some kids who are nice. And there others whose heart is black as sin and whose soul is rotten with jealousy and fear. There are little shits in the world, and they’ll take advantage of the softies. It took years of crappy friends and crappy boyfriends for me to learn those hard lessons. I just wish that Jonah had made it to his sixth year, before his heart was broken.
Apt. 11d 
Man, Laura, you’re pissed at this kid. Of course, if you weren’t, that’d just indicate a lack of passion on behalf of Jonah’s happiness, so good for you. Give me one passionate, involved, protective and demanding parent over a whole room full of distant, milquetoast, kids-will-be-kids types any day of the week.
When Megan was little, we lived in an apartment building; a few flights up lived another family with a little boy, and we ended up getting together all the time. We had some mutual friends who also had a little boy, and we’d coordinate group playdates/Saturday dinners with some frequency. Both boys were older than Megan (who was only 3 at the time; they were 5 and 6), and they were both good older-brother-type friends to her, one on one. But when we all got together, the boys would run off, locking bedroom doors behind them, sometimes tricking Megan into playing hide and seek and then abandoning her, leaving her alone and heartbroken. Little bastards. Our friends were gratifyingly embarrassed at their boys’ antics, and we all stayed friends, but admittedly, we were secretly furious at their kids for quite a while.
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You go girl. But you’ll have to endure, knowing that it’s better to have a breakable heart than a bully’s heart. On the other hand, all is not a total loss…
When I was a 5 year old little boy living in the Queens, I was bullied by an older boy named Lauren (pronounce a la francais). I still vividly remember my father saying to me, after I had complained to him, “if he bothers you again, take careful aim, and kick him as hard as you can in the shins”, and I can hear my mother remonstrating with him in the background. The next time, I screwed up my courage (I must have been good and mad!) and whacked him in the shins. I don’t think I was pushed around again, at least by him. Its one of my most vivid childhood memories.
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I guess I’ll be the only one here to say I can remember sometimes doing the same as Dylan. And I was pretty well known as a child with a soft heart. Not a bully.
Some suggest it’s a matter of the false scructure of schools and peer groups set in concrete according to age. I don’t know if that’s so. I went to public school and it was this way. I’m homeschooling and I still observe it.
I had this done to me as a child and went through the same angst, and my mother would say why do you keep going back and playing with that person after she does this or that to you, and all I knew is I wanted to be friends and I honestly didn’t’ hold a grudge. At least the kind of bullying that can happen amongst children that is not truly threatening, mean, physical. My mother said I forgave too easily and perhaps I did.
But I can remember doing the same as well. And conscious of it. And vaguely conscious of the why. Usually it would be with a child younger by a couple of years. They would be a friend through close proximity usually, and I would enjoy them, but sometimes I would be just a little too old and they would be a little too young. I was a kid and couldn’t anticipate when it might hit. I’d go out to play, fully expecting to have a great time, and then somewhere along the way there’d be that crack, the age difference, and I imagine it had to do with the uncertainty and insecurity that comes with growing older. But there were points where I felt I had to create a willful distance. I didn’t want to act distant, I didn’t want to be mean, I didn’t want to shun, I knew it wasn’t right, that the younger child didn’t understand it, but I still did it. This wasn’t a rule, they were exceptional moments, and the way that I was feeling at the time was a sudden must of marking the difference in age. As if a self-protective reflex. That uncertain grappling with getting older.
If I’d ever discussed this with someone older, or someone older had taken the initiative and discussed it with me, said this happens and suggested a better way for me to deal than I may have behaved differently.
That said, if it was tough as a child, going through the type of shunning you describe, I couldn’t have anticipated that it would be even more painful as a parent when it happens to one’s child. I know it has been for me.
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