Master 10 came home from his mate’s house yesterday afternoon in a “mood”.  He walked through the door on the prowl for a fight.  Eventually his sniping hit a nerve with one (or maybe both?) of his brothers and it was on like Donkey Kong (dude, how old am I?).  Inevitably they got louder and started to get physical and it escalated to the point where Daddy had to step in.  An enraged Master 10 who at this point was now completely unable to get a handle on his outburst and was screeching at the top of his lungs was sent to bed for an hour to calm down and get some much needed sleep.

We all have crappy days where our mood dictates how things unravel but in this case he’d been perfectly fine before heading over to his friend’s to play so the catalyst for his foul mood I suspected lay there.

As it turns out his friend had locked Master 10 outside in the communal area of his apartment building after begrudgingly playing with him briefly.  Master 10 endured the embarrassment of being trapped outside pretty well (all things considered) and once allowed back inside he was forced to watch another child invited to play a game with his friend whilst being told, “Oh no YOUR not getting a turn”.  After all this Master 10 was then told by his friend, “I don’t want you here, go home”.  Naturally he went home feeling very unhappy and the scene with his brothers and Dad isn’t in the least bit surprising.

Generally I’m the kind of parent who listens and tries to get my kid to consider how the situation may have arose.  I sympathise and then suggest maybe his friend was having a bad day.  I ask him if anything happened before it all fell apart?  Maybe Master 10 has upset his friend unknowingly and his friend has gone the passive aggressive route and just been mean instead of telling Master 10 what’s wrong.  I tell him his friend has handled things the wrong way but that all people are different so try not to let it worry you.  Maybe your friend needs some space?  Play with someone different for a while?

I go through the motions making suggestions and reassuring my 10-year-old who has always struggled to hold onto friendships, but deep down it breaks my heart.

It bothers me not just because I see my son’s fragile feelings hurt yet again but also because in a lot of ways it just seems so darn unfair that he’s inherited this inability to make and keep friends from me.

Master 10 is a sweet boy and yes he has his faults (he has a penchant for rough play and being bigger than most kids his age he often accidentally hurts others whilst playing) but the reports from my son and even the occasional cheeky “friend” who comes to tell me why they’re annoyed with my son are always along the lines of, “He’s just so annoying”.  These “annoyances” almost always relate to him being just a little too eager.  This kiddo of mine spots a friend and he dives in head first.  He wants to have them over for sleep over’s, he wants to play with them every lunch hour.  He wants to find out what their favourite books, toys, tv shows are so he can see if they have anything in common or if he can suggest a new book they might enjoy or vice versa.

On the one hand his teacher’s and sadly even myself have suggested that he needs to tone it down and try and fade into the background a little more (don’t make yourself such a target for bully’s) but ultimately as I sit here and mull over it…it makes me ANGRY!

So very ANGRY!

In our society why is it such a crime to be a little over the top, a little too eager to get to know a new friend?  Why is it wrong to want to chat to someone who is your friend, see them often and try and share their interests?  Why is cool and flippant and hoping someone equally cool and flippant sticks by you the right way to do things?  Most importantly, why can’t people just be honest instead of pulling away and leaving the blame on us.

I understand it’s a little too intense for most people.  I’m an adult and I completely get it, but why can’t people just be honest with us?  This kid obviously didn’t want to play yesterday so why not just say so instead of giving Master 10 the run around and slowly killing him a little bit inside?

I think I mentioned a similar scenario last summer when our boys asked another child in the park if they could play football with him.  The kid begrudgingly said yes and then proceeded to refuse to kick the ball to our kids AND what’s worse is the kids Dad intentionally moved the ball away from our boys without saying a word.  How hard is it to say, “Oh actually we’d rather just play by ourselves guys”.  I love the U.K, I love London but the passive aggressive shit drives me up the wall.

How do you explain to children that other kids (and sadly adults) will say one thing to your face but then proceed to act out the complete opposite?

I try and advise my son that it might not be wise to knock for his friend every afternoon to see if he wants to play.  I suggest that sometimes he should wait for his friend to come to him in the playground and at home.  At times he heeds my advice, but often he just can’t resist checking if a friend wants to play.  I constantly feel that he’s having to tone himself down to please others and that just doesn’t sit well with me.

There’s no easy solution to this problem.  Ultimately to fit into society you have to follow the unspoken rules but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I long for my son to meet someone a little like himself.  Another child that jumps on board and wants to hang out and share interests with my kid.  I hope that when he starts Secondary School in September with a whole new group of kids, things will change.

I managed okay in Primary School, had a few really good friends but dropped the ball in Secondary School and have felt alienated ever since.  Hopefully in Master 10′s case the worst years of alienation are behind him and he’ll finally just “click” with someone.

Being intense can be lonely.  I think ultimately you can make it through with one or two people close to you.  Mitch and I are both a little too intense, it works for us.  If only one of us was obsessed with the other then it would be unbalanced.  Being co-dependent works if both party’s are all in, I know many would argue this point with me but at our current stage in life it works.  As long as no one feels suffocated or neglected and there’s an open line of communication then what’s the harm?

Mitch had similar struggles in Primary School as Master 10 and his coping mechanism in Secondary School was to grow a hard shell and lash out at others before they could lash out at him.  I wouldn’t call him a bully but nor would you have wanted to mess with him in high school.  Whilst I wouldn’t condone it as a “fix”, who am I to judge him when he managed to form friendships that are still going strong today.  I don’t want my sweet open-minded son to turn into an abrupt and closed-off cynic who avoids reaching out to others but my failure to adapt certainly isn’t the right path either.

I think there must be a balance that he’ll learn with age, how to keep yourself open but protected at the same time.  Perhaps I need to socialise him more, get him into more outside school activities so he has a wider group of friends to choose from and won’t cling to the ones he has quite so tightly.

Maybe growing a thicker skin is the only way to be a true part of society, maybe my son will learn a lesson I never quite got the grasp of.  My coping mechanism came in the form of closing myself off from a social life completely for fear of being shunned.  I don’t want that for my children so here’s hoping they will surpass me in their formative years and live happy, socially fulfilled adult lives.