Filed under: MyFamily
Among my son’s bedtime reading selections is a book called Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. In it, the energetic Tigger enthusiastically “bounces” the characters one by one, until grumpy Rabbit decides he needs to rid Tigger of his annoying bounce. He convinces Piglet (and Pooh is dragged along, somewhat unawares) to help him take Tigger on a lengthy Explore in the woods, lose him, and therefore — through fear and sadness — make him much less bouncy.
I’m telling this story because it parallels what’s happened with our day care situation. My son is just too bouncy for his current day care, apparently. He’s too energetic and physical. Add to that the fact that he’s tall and big and strong for his age — but still actually too young to understand the negative consequences of his passion. I will admit he has hit and scratched, but he also gets bitten and bruised himself. This small day care, without adjacent outdoor space, is out of its league. It’s directors are also afraid the boy will injure others badly enough to bring a lawsuit on the day care center. (This is the heart of the matter, I suspect.) They would like to unbounce my boy, and, barring that, we’ve been told to make alternative arrangements.
It saddens me that my son’s physicality, which is one of his greatest strengths — we suspect we have a budding athlete on our hands — is his downfall in this case. And apparently even his energy wouldn’t be so difficult to deal with, were it not for his size and strength. (Size discrimination? You activists tell me!) His behavior, according to the day care folks, is completely consistent with his age, but when this powerful giant boy acts like a 2.5-year-old, the consequences are more dangerous than usual.
I’ve spent a lot of time questioning my own parenting skills. Do we play rough-and-tumble at home? Sure, we do. We bounce on the couch; we do improvised gymnastics; he climbs up on the bed or onto his parents’ shoulders. I think of this as helping him get that energy out, but am I not setting the limits he needs? (It’s tough because most of his troubles are in interactions with other kids, and we parents don’t see these interactions very often.)
He’s not a bad kid. He resists the usual things: getting dressed, getting his diaper changed, going to bed. We’ve just always noticed his physical precocity. He was always the smallest kid climbing on the big kids’ play structure. He quickly conquered his fear of the biggest twistiest slide. He’s just a physical kid. And somewhere in there, he had a big growth spurt that has everyone with experience around kids saying “How old is he?” “My, he’s big for his age,” and “Wow, he’s tall for two-and-a-half.”
In the Winnie the Pooh story, Rabbit’s plans for unbouncing Tigger go awry. Instead of losing Tigger in the woods, Rabbit himself becomes lost. Guess who comes to his rescue? Later, Tigger, bouncing with Roo, gets stuck in a tree and swears never to bounce again if he makes it out of the situation safely. Once down, he’s so happy he’s on the verge of bouncing, when Rabbit reminds him of his promise. The deflated Tigger slinks off, demoralizing everyone, until they all agree they like the bouncy Tigger best, and want him back.
We love our bouncy boy more than anything in the world. So we’re trying to find a nanny (which we totally can’t afford, but would need anyway, when the baby comes). She can take him to the park every day, until he gets his fill of running, and climbing, and bouncing.
UPDATE: The day care center seems to have reconsidered, and they think that they can work with him, so we have a bit of a reprieve on nanny-hiring until #2 is on the verge of appearing. It’s a relief, I must say. As much as I like my boy just the way he is (bouncy), I know it’ll be much easier on us all if he can stay at the day care for now.
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Lassie, I’m a bit angry, too. Since I wrote this they have reconsidered a bit and think they can work with him. And they said they won’t kick him out at a moment’s notice, either, if it seems not to be working. So, that’s good. I’m torn, too, in that I think I need to work with him better myself, too, but I’m not sure exactly what to do. Ah, parenting… you’ll find out soon enough 
Well, that’s something then. I just hope they know what they’re doing. I’ve seen children behave like that so many times (I used to work in a kindergarten type facility in America and have worked in the field for the past three years besides uni; here in Berlin, that is) - it’s obviously really natural and important for children to test their own and everyone else’s limits. Just how the carers respond to these things…that’s what really counts. I hope you’re feeling a bit better about all this already! As far as your parenting skills go, it really does not seem (from what I’ve read) like you are doing anything strange here - he seems to be a strong, happy and healthy boy. As long as he is aware of the fact that there are certain basic rules to social interaction, I am sure he’ll be fine. You sound like you’re handling things just great! 
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Hmmm…I am a little bit torn on this one, to be honest. I don’t think it is ok for them to just kick him out. They should have taken the time to sort this out with your boy - and the rest of the children, for that matter. What will this experience tell him/teach him? Obviously I think it’s great he’ll have the chance to just develop freely (being cared for by a nanny), but on the other hand it’s really important for him to learn the “rules”, the Dos and Don’ts of social interaction, action and reaction patterns with his peers…grrr…I am mad at these people, can you tell!
Comment by The Lassie 02.01.08 @ 3:02 pm