Ninja-Mam and Sons
love you to the moon and back
Keeping The Bad Away
First week of Easter school holidays have been a bit of a blur. Somedays I had flashbacks, got confused, thought we were back on home-schooling and panicked that I’d forgotten to book Bubba onto any zoom lessons! At the moment I don’t know what day it is and neither does he!
But then he’s more concerned with the fact that he’s currently ‘GROUNDED’!
To get to this point he knows it’s serious. He knows we mean business and he’s in big trouble.
School broke up last Thursday and by lunchtime Good Friday the decree had been announced. It was bad.
When I was his age, the grand age of ten years of age, I remember playing out. Me and a small group of friends would hang out on the street where we lived or we’d venture further afield, exploring the local beck, making dens in the woods or speeding down hills on our bikes making ramps to do jumps on. When I look back now it’s a wonder we didn’t kill ourselves several times over.
My Mam knew that I wasn’t daft though and generally I stuck to where I was allowed to go which was usually within hearing distance of her standing on the doorstep and shouting me in for me tea! If I did want to go further, I always told her where I was going because well because that’s just what I did. I didn’t want her worrying.
Sadly, I know it’s different these days. Whether it’s because we’re more aware of the dangers now I don’t know. There must have always been ‘bad people’ about, I just don‘t think it was as talked about as it is now?
Now I’m a parent I don’t know how she did it. I worry constantly and now Bubba’s wanting to play out, ride his bike or scooter, call for a friend I want to keep him close and safe but I know that I can’t.
We want him to have independence, to make friends and to have fun, to be like a ‘normal kid’.
But he’s not is he?
He seems so much younger than his age and he’s really not streetwise. To him, everyone is a friend and everything will play out like he thinks it will in his head. I don’t know how to protect him from this.
The last time he played out around our new street it started ok but then some boys told him to ‘go away’ and he came home really upset convinced everyone hated him. That hurt.
He doesn’t understand the dynamics of friendships and he’s not robust enough for the name calling and harshness of those who don’t see his differences. I can’t keep him locked inside and, as much as I want to keep him safe, I wouldn’t want to.
So Good Friday, it was nice weather, we’d just bought him a new scooter and he wanted to play out. So we let him.
I gave him a walkie-talkie, told him where he couldn’t go, as we still live on a building site, and he trotted off to call for a friend, with the express instructions that if Alfie wasn’t in, to let us know.
Ten minutes later – no word from him and he wasn’t answering the walkie talkie.
Fifteen minutes later – still no word.
Where we live it’s not that big and Alfie lives less than two minutes away.
You don’t want to ‘cramp their style’ if they’re with their mates do you but I know my son and he see’s danger in nothing, wanders off regardless and makes poor choices.
‘The Wife’ set out for a wander to see if she could see him.
Eventually she found him.
Exactly in the spot we’d told him not to go… from Alfie’s he would have had to walk past our house to get there. But he knew he was doing something he shouldn’t. He’d been approached by a much older boy who’d said he was ‘going to see some friends’ and did Bubba want to go with him. So he did!
We don’t know this boy. Bubba didn’t know this boy.
Once we had him back home I asked him ‘would you go with a strange man if he asked if you wanted to see some kittens?’ (ok it’s not subtle but we can’t be with him!)
His reply really scared me …… ‘well yes because I really like kittens’.
You know that point when you just want to wrap them up and keep them with you forever? That was my point, right there, right then.
I tried to talk to him about the dangers of a) going off with a stranger b) not telling us where he is and c) NOT GOING OFF WITH A STRANGER. He said I was’ being stupid as no one kill’s kids’.
So he was grounded. It was for a week but maybe it’ll last until he’s twenty-five? Thirty? Or at least until he’s married to a nice sensible girl/boy!
It’s hard isn’t it? You want to keep them safe but you can only do that if they help and keep themselves safe.
Have we sheltered him too much?
I know I’m always singing over ‘not nice’ things on the radio news and then switching it off.
I’m guilty of saying ‘but it’ll be ok’ when he worries about Covid.
Maybe because of his traumatic start in life I’ve sheltered him, I’ve tried to keep the ‘bad things’ away.
Maybe it’s time to take off the kid gloves and gently start to show him what life can be like?
I’d much rather let him have a childhood for a bit longer…..
Ninja-Mam and Sons 