Is there any territory more dangerous to a parent than playground politics? The school drop-off, and pick-up, can be a frightening experience. I know of some mums who will not go near the playground because they fear the power cliques forged by groups of mums. Possibly they most dislike not belonging to one. I try to keep a low profile, but I find that standing on the edge of a playground, on my own, is a bit like having a meal in a restaurant on my own. I try to look relaxed, a self-sufficient island of calm, but really I’m desperate for someone to come and talk to me so I look less of a weird voyeur or sad Norman No Mates.
Anyway, I mention all this because there are times, no matter how peripheral you make yourself as a parent, when playground politics catch up with you, and explode into your life.
This week my darling five-year-old Lydie – at times a head-strong stroppy monster – got into an altercation with another boy in her class. It was the end of school and she and the said boy (no names, too sensitive) were messing around out of sight throwing water on each other. There were other children involved. I was standing chatting in the playground, enjoying the sun, when my little girl came round the corner in floods of tears, screaming, surrounded by a posse of little girls dispensing first aid and advice. My daughter had a big lump on her forehead and a cut, and she and the other little girls told me that “X hit her with his school bag”. I rushed Lydie up to matron, got an ice-pack on her and calmed her down. She had a good shiner in the following morning.
I was obviously a bit protective about Lydie and felt a tinge of anger towards the child who had hit her but I did not see the incident and I know my daughter – she would have been the first to retaliate if a boy had thrown water over her. She paid the price, it seems, and learned an important lesson: don’t mess with kids who can hit you harder!
Unfortunately things get a bit more complicated from here in. The boy’s mother is a friend and so the next day I made light of the situation with a flippant comment in the playground. I actually repeated something Lydie had said to me about the boy having an “anger problem” which I found an amusing insight for a five-year-old. I meant to bring a smile to the other mum’s face, to say “I’m OK with this, it was nothing. I forgive your son’s aggression”!
The mother was not amused. And I have heard through the grapevine that she prefers to believe that my daughter was, I quote, “banging her son’s head against the ground” before he retaliated, an unlikely scenario given the boy’s stature. (Lydie’s not that much of a monster!) She is obviously protective, the bond between mother and son being forged in steel.
So what we have here is “a situation” born of a spontaneous childish incident and a lack of perspective on the part of parents that has caused an atmosphere which could affect a friendship.
I have entered, unwillingly, the realm of playground politics.
I can’t tell you how this resolves itself as it’s early days, but that’s not really important. It’s the fact that adults don’t always behave like adults when some event upsets the smooth-running of their lives. They go right back to childish reactions as if they were still running round the playground themselves.
My French mother-in-law, with whom I have not always seen eye to eye, has a very wise expression for such incidents: “Petits enfants, petits soucis”. Little children, little worries. If only parents could remember such maxims before they wade in on the side of a child whose version of events may not entirely reflect the truth. I know Lydie’s version probably doesn’t. I can see it in her adorable eyes!
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