By Edward C. Lee
Last weekend I was out with some friends at one of those restaurant/bar type places that reminds all of us parents what life was like before we got married and had kids. The food was great and the music so loud on the main floor that there was no way our party of nine was going to have a conversation without shouting at each other.
Yet somewhere amid the pounding beat of house music, old school rap (the good stuff), with an occasional alternative rock cut mixed in, we got into a discussion about a parenting conundrum one of the parents at the table was facing.
One of the mothers at the table announced her preschool aged son has been invited to a classmates house for a play-date. Unfortunately, her son has no interest in playing with his classmate outside of school. As my friend rounded out the details of her dilemma, it was clear that the other little boy was that one in the class that no one wants to play with. So much so that his mother was offering to pay for, pickup and drop off our friend’s son, just to see that someone play with her little boy. Now, maybe I am just a softy but I could hear that the mother that extended the invitation was desperate. And it made me a little sensitive to her situation and even more so, to her son.
However, the question that erupted at our table that night over dinner was not about the feelings of the other family. Rather, the conversation was about how we would handle such an invitation if our child was not interested. The first concern raised was of the self-imposed pressure we feel as parents not to insult the other parent. Yet on the other hand, while no one wants to insult the peer parent, your child is standing there, pouting with their lip poked out as they whine, “But I don’t want to go!” So what do you do, do you respect your child’s wishes not to play with the little boy deemed the class outcast, or insist they go so you can save face with the other parent?
The overall sentiment among our group was that a child needs to learn that they don’t have to do things they don’t want to do. That parents should not force their children to be around people they don’t like.
I, however, was of a different opinion, especially when thinking about grooming a little boy to become a man. To me this was a great opportunity to teach a child about humility and how to get along with others. Having just turned early 40 something I can look back through four years of college, and several years in the corporate world and see that life is full of encounters with people that we don’t want to have a “playdate” with. Thoughts of a few former managers come to mind. Yet the ability to get along with them was intricately linked to me keeping my job – LOL.
The child encouraged not to go out of their comfort zone becomes the adult that can only relate to others that think like them. But the child encouraged to encounter a diversity of personalities learns a life skill of being able to get along with others.
I think of my own personal experience. My father was a mobility instructor when I was a child. He taught visually impaired elementary aged children how to read braille and manage a seeing eye dog. On days when I did not have school he would take me with him as he trained blind children, about my age, how to manage their way through the city and local malls. From those experiences I learned how to play and befriend a variety of different type of people. It was a model of humility, caring and accepting others that could not have been gained in selfishness, alone in the comfort of my room. Parenting is about guiding our children to see broader horizons and brace the fullness of life. Not the narrowing down to comfort zones and familiar boundaries.
So thats my opinion, what do you think BMWK, are there benefits to encouraging a child to interact with those they don’t particularly want to interact with? Are there other opportunities available to help your child expand their comfort zones?
Edward is an ordained minister, host of the blog: elevateyourmarriage.com and author of two first of their kind marriage books, Husbands, Wives, God: Introducing the Marriages of the Bible to Your Marriage and his new book, Husbands, Wives, God – Weekly Devotions: 52 Weeks of Relationship Enriching Devotions. Follow Edward on his blog or on Facebook at Husbands, Wives, God.