I babysat a boy for 2.5yrs--I quit after the birth of my second baby b/c I could just not imagine caring for two toddlers and a baby. Our families have remained close friends & we see each other often.
Now the boy and my oldest dd are 5; my youngest dd is 3. We homeschool, the boy goes to a Montessori public school.
I'm babysitting the boy again, but only on days when there is no school.
Since he's started kindergarten, he's picked up a whole host of unappealing behaviours--things he didn't do last year when he went to a private preschool.
The manipulative behaviour we can deal with. He tells my girls he won't be their friend if they don't xyz. My girls can cope with that. They tell him that friends don't treat each other like that, and it's over.
The newest and most perplexing thing to me is the bragging. For example, my dd gets a small weekly allowance. She's bright, she's understands the math part and she's starting to "get" money management. The kids were talking about teeth, and dd mentioned that she was saving her allowance for a special toothbrush holder from the Chinaberry catalogue. The boy asked her how much her allowance was. She told him ($2/week,) and he said he got $50/week. She just said "wow, you must be rich!" He said (with immeasurable pride) "Yep!"
Other times, it's not quite so nice. On the way to the library we drove past Chuck E Cheese. The boy said he goes there after school every day. Our girls see the Chuck E commercials on pbs & beg to go there, so the idea that he went every day, and I've never taken them was really upsetting. He saw the Jan Brett days of the week on our wall, and told her that Jan Brett was going to come to his school and bring Hedgie (she's totally not.) Our girls love the Jan Brett books, so they freaked out and begged me to let them start going to the boy's school so they could meet Jan Brett.
I can see that the boy's bragging/lying is directly related to envy.
On Friday, after 7 or 8 upsetting incidences of the boy bragging or outright lying to incite envy/combat his own envy, I took him aside and told him that we think he's very special and neat and fun to be with. I told him that he does not need to say things that aren't true for us to like him, because we like him anyway.
My questions--is this normal 5yo behaviour? My kids don't do it. The other kids I know who are their age are all homeschooled & therefore never part of a large, homogenous social group where status is so important, and they don't do it either.
Did I do the right thing in telling him to knock it off? I wonder if calling his bluff was damaging to his self-esteem. I wish I had thought it through more carefully--but the dischord had been going on for two straight days and it was frying my last nerve (that's a total excuse for being impulsive.) On the other hand, I have a strong, on-going relationship with this boy. If someone (other than his parent) is going to talk to him about lying for status, I'm probably a good choice.
Tell it to me straight, mamas. Did I goof with someone else's kid?
Now the boy and my oldest dd are 5; my youngest dd is 3. We homeschool, the boy goes to a Montessori public school.
I'm babysitting the boy again, but only on days when there is no school.
Since he's started kindergarten, he's picked up a whole host of unappealing behaviours--things he didn't do last year when he went to a private preschool.
The manipulative behaviour we can deal with. He tells my girls he won't be their friend if they don't xyz. My girls can cope with that. They tell him that friends don't treat each other like that, and it's over.
The newest and most perplexing thing to me is the bragging. For example, my dd gets a small weekly allowance. She's bright, she's understands the math part and she's starting to "get" money management. The kids were talking about teeth, and dd mentioned that she was saving her allowance for a special toothbrush holder from the Chinaberry catalogue. The boy asked her how much her allowance was. She told him ($2/week,) and he said he got $50/week. She just said "wow, you must be rich!" He said (with immeasurable pride) "Yep!"
Other times, it's not quite so nice. On the way to the library we drove past Chuck E Cheese. The boy said he goes there after school every day. Our girls see the Chuck E commercials on pbs & beg to go there, so the idea that he went every day, and I've never taken them was really upsetting. He saw the Jan Brett days of the week on our wall, and told her that Jan Brett was going to come to his school and bring Hedgie (she's totally not.) Our girls love the Jan Brett books, so they freaked out and begged me to let them start going to the boy's school so they could meet Jan Brett.
I can see that the boy's bragging/lying is directly related to envy.
On Friday, after 7 or 8 upsetting incidences of the boy bragging or outright lying to incite envy/combat his own envy, I took him aside and told him that we think he's very special and neat and fun to be with. I told him that he does not need to say things that aren't true for us to like him, because we like him anyway.
My questions--is this normal 5yo behaviour? My kids don't do it. The other kids I know who are their age are all homeschooled & therefore never part of a large, homogenous social group where status is so important, and they don't do it either.
Did I do the right thing in telling him to knock it off? I wonder if calling his bluff was damaging to his self-esteem. I wish I had thought it through more carefully--but the dischord had been going on for two straight days and it was frying my last nerve (that's a total excuse for being impulsive.) On the other hand, I have a strong, on-going relationship with this boy. If someone (other than his parent) is going to talk to him about lying for status, I'm probably a good choice.
Tell it to me straight, mamas. Did I goof with someone else's kid?
