Teaching Friendship

I thought, wrongly, that friendship was something that  kids would learn by experience, by being thrown in with a bunch of kids and letting them find their way. It isn't that kids don't learn a bit about friendship from this, but they just do not learn everything. I am reminded often that even the "good kids" (meaning the kids we think are the easy ones, the kids we think can barely do wrong) can make very bad decisions.

It was a great playdate, going oh-so-smoothly. My 2 littlest boys had 2 of their very best friends over along with their mother and their little newborn sister. We had 3 hours of the normal kid craziness, and then a neighbor popped by to join in the action. And in my head I thought, "perhaps I should talk to my generally easygoing young son about introducing his 2 friends to each other." But instead I decided that he would probably be fine and when they all ran off together I did not intervene. Hindsight is 20/20 and suffice it to say, I should have intervened. Soon, the playdate was crashing down a bit. Ben pushed his friend who he had been playing swimmingly with all afternoon. His friend was physically ok, but worse than a physical injury, he hurt his sweet friend's feelings.

Mothers hate this situation. We feel guilty that our kid was insensitive and we feel guilty that we have not taught our kid how be a good friend. The mothers of the kids who have been offended don't know what to say. They feel sad that their child is hurt, but they also feel bad for the other mother, knowing that the other mother feels bad. It is just an awkward situation. Almost every mother knows both feelings.

So, today after the friends left, I called my son into the room and asked him what he thought he should do about hurting his friend's feelings. He said through tears, "write him a letter?" Now this sort of cracked me up, because my 5 yr old cannot write anything much but his name. So I suggested he call his friend. His phone call with his friend was sweet. Both friends were honest about their feelings. When my son's voice cracked while apologizing for hurting his friend's feelings, I got all choked up and started to tear  up myself! I think the honesty and "heart-on-their-sleeve" attitude of young children is quite refreshing, and moved me.

I know that childhood friendships have their squabbles. I realize that this is not the last of pushing, name-calling and apologies in my children's lives. I just hope that early intervention now and then can create more loving, understanding and ultimately sympathetic and empathetic people for our world.