{"id":40,"date":"2012-05-03T13:02:39","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T13:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lifeasaconsciousmom\/?p=40"},"modified":"2012-05-03T13:37:46","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T13:37:46","slug":"bully-on-the-playground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeasaconsciousmom\/2012\/05\/03\/bully-on-the-playground\/","title":{"rendered":"Defining Moments: Bully on the Playground"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When Caidin was four he met a boy at summer day camp. I can\u2019t remember the boy\u2019s name now, but I do remember the boy. He was the same age as Caidin, but that was the only thing they had in common. Caidin was and is a gentle kid. He shared easily, he was concerned about the feelings and experiences of other kids, even if he didn\u2019t know them. Caidin\u2019s new friend was none of those things. He was aggressive, grabby and in my estimation mean. Needless to say, this wasn\u2019t a friendship I was going to try to maintain.<\/p>\n

One day we stopped at a playground we typically didn\u2019t go to very often. I think it was \u2018Frog Park\u2019. (We identified all the playgrounds in Brooklyn by some attribute rather than by their actual names, so there was Frog Park and Train Park and the Yellow Park and the Big Kids Park. ) And who did we run into, but Caidin\u2019s new friend. Off they went to play.<\/p>\n

At Frog Park that day there was a little girl who was happily playing with her girl-friends. As I watched the kids play, something happened that surprised me. Caidin\u2019s new friend began teasing this little girl and taking things from her and where normally Caidin would have been appalled at this behavior he joined in.<\/p>\n

I watched for a few minutes to see what would happen, but when the situation moved from teasing to taunting, I stepped in. I called Caidin over and our conversation went something like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think that little girl is having fun?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know that little girl?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe knows you now. She knows you as the mean boy. Is that who you want to be?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. What can I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can apologize, but you need to know that she may not accept your apology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t she accept my apology?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause she doesn\u2019t know you and all she does know is that you were being mean to her. And when we do something that\u2019s hurtful to others, we can\u2019t erase it. So saying you\u2019re sorry lets someone know that you are aware that you did something you shouldn\u2019t have and that you regret it, but it doesn\u2019t erase what you did. \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOK.\u201d<\/p>\n

I watched him, at age four, go over to that little girl, knowing that she might not accept his apology and sincerely tell her that he was sorry.<\/p>\n

He came running back to me and I asked \u201cwhat happened?\u201d and he said \u201cshe didn\u2019t accept my apology.\u201d I gave him a hug and told him that everyone makes mistakes, it\u2019s what we do after we make the mistakes that really matters. I also told him she might not accept his apology now, but when she sees him again she\u2019ll remember him as the boy who apologized, not as the boy who was mean.<\/p>\n

We had a long talk on the walk home about matching other people\u2019s energy and losing our sense of self and about following what others do without checking in with what we know to be right.<\/p>\n

It was one of those defining moments for Caidin. He truly understood that his actions had consequences and that people will identify you by those actions.<\/p>\n

He also decided on his own that his new \u2018friend\u2019 wasn\u2019t really a friend after all.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2012 Christine Agro<\/p>\n

Christine Agro is a clairvoyant, naturopath, Master Herbalist, conscious mom and author of 50 Ways to Live Life Consciously as well as of The Conscious Living Wisdom Cards (Special Moms\u2019 Edition). Christine is founder of\u00a0The Conscious Mom\u2019s Guide<\/a>, a membership site where she helps support you on your own journey of living life consciously and on your journey of being a Conscious parent. You can also join Christine on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Caidin was four he met a boy at summer day camp. I can\u2019t remember the boy\u2019s name now, but I do remember the boy. He was the same age as Caidin, but that was the only thing they had in common. Caidin was and is a gentle kid. He shared easily, he was concerned…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,16,17,3],"tags":[525,9,5,524],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conscious-parenting-2","category-conversations-with-caidin","category-defining-moments","category-life-as-a-conscious-mom","tag-bullying","tag-christine-agro","tag-conscious-parenting","tag-defining-moments"],"yoast_head":"\nDefining Moments: Bully on the Playground - Life As A Conscious Mom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeasaconsciousmom\/2012\/05\/03\/bully-on-the-playground\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Defining Moments: Bully on the Playground - Life As A Conscious Mom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Caidin was four he met a boy at summer day camp. 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