Peer Pressure at Five

Nobody ever said this parenting thing was going to be easy.

Picked up Esmé and Jasmine from their daycare yesterday evening. As Jasmine and I were walking across the gym to her classroom, one of Esmé's teachers approached me. She handed me a piece of paper -- an "incident report" -- and told me that Es had hit another student in the eye. The teacher also said that Esmé had done it because another student told her to do it.

Wow, I said. Peer pressure at five.

Esmé was sitting in the far corner of the gym, drawing pictures for the boy she'd punched. I wasn't quite sure how to react initially. It's a tough call: this is the first time she's done anything like this, and, quite possible, it's the first time she's been pressured to do something she knew was wrong.

As we left the day care, I asked the standard questions: do you think what you did was right or wrong? Why? How do you think the boy you hit feels right now? What else do you think you might have done?

We tried working through a couple of different options. They way she explained it, her classmate told her to hit the other boy or else he'd hit her instead. This changed later in the evening to "he'd kick me instead." Other times she said that she didn't want to hurt his feelings. In any event, it's likely that she didn't see any other options, anything else she could do but follow his directions.

So I told her there would be a few simple punishments. Nothing major, just revoking priveleges for the evening: no TV or dessert. I'd also planned on ordering pizza for everybody, since Melissa was having dinner with a girlfriend, so I said that we wouldn't be doing that either. Nothing major, but she started crying on the way home, and didn't stop through all of my dinner preparations.

Every once in awhile, I'd ask her why she was so sad. "Because I can't watch TV," she'd say, or "you guys get to eat dessert and I don't."

Without belaboring the point, I'd ask her she thought the boy she'd hit was feeling. She either wouldn't answer, or she'd say that he probably gets to watch TV. I'd either agree with or, or stay quiet.

I really wanted her to associate the punishment with her actions. I was hoping that she'd recognize that it wasn't some arbitrary decision that I'd made. Hoping that she'd be able to gain some insight into cause and effect.

So I was pleasantly surprised when, after maybe an hour of crying, that Esmé asked if she could talk to me for a minute.

"Dad," she said, "I'm really sorry about the choice I made."

Now that felt good. I gave her a big hug. I think that was probably the first time I'd tried to comfort her since we'd been home. The follow up question, while we were still hugging, was what she thought she'd do if it happened again.

"Think about it. And then go find a teacher."

We talked about it off and on for the rest of the evening. Bits and pieces, mostly trying to help her figure out alternatives. Made it clear that I was still disappointed in the action itself (and the choice), but that I was proud of the way she'd handled herself since (apologizing to the boy, drawing him pictures, realizing that punishment was an extension of the choice she'd made).

Amazing how early this stuff starts. I'm bummed that it happened in the first place, but hopeful that Melissa and I handled it in a way that Esmé understands. We can't be with her every second of every day. And with kindergarten starting in the fall, her experiences with peer pressure are only just beginning. But the next time she's faced with a choice of disappointing a peer or doing something she knows isn't right, here's hoping she does the thing.

Can't wait (heh) until these discussions have more shades of gray. What if she hits someone in self-defense? What if she punches a kid who'd been bullying Jasmine? Ahh. I suppose it just gets more and more complicated, at the same time it gets more and more rewarding.