Not My Kid....

I think we all at some point in our lives go through that "Oh my kid will never do THAT" scenario in our head. Whether it be the screaming child in the restaurant, the tantrum in the department store, the kids munching on Chocolate and candy at 8:00 am. We all do it, and as mothers, we all learn that we all lied, our kids WILL do that. Our kids, try as we might, will not ALWAYS be super angels in the restaurant, they will need a snack (healthy or otherwise) to get through the mundane grocery shopping trip. But there are limits right? There is a point where you can say.. never, my kid will never do that! Or is there?

We have done our best in his short two years to raise Matthew as a good kid, someone who understands the proper way to act; but c'mon he's 2. I've dealt with the tantrums in stores, with the shoving whatever food in his face you can reach to gain 5 more minutes in the store. I've done it. But today there was something new- something I was not sure how to react to. Matthew actually hit a friend, a real hit, for no good reason; just walked up to her and HIT her. He HIT her! And I thought- OH MY GOD WHERE DID HE LEARN THAT???!!!! We certainly don't hit in our house, most of his friends don't hit (I say most, because, c'mon they are kids still right?) I had no idea how to react. This was a new scenario in the "not my kid" files. And worse yet, there was absolutely NO REASON, the poor girl was standing next to her mother, Matthew was standing next to me, there was a group of kids in the middle of the room playing with toy horses. Out of the blue, Matthew walks up to poor Emily and just hits her- boom, and then keeps on walking. Poor Emily bursts into these tears of "What the heck was that?" and Matthew was completely unfazed. So what's a mom to do? Of course Matthew doesn't know the word sorry- he just doesn't know that word, sure he's heard it before, but he's never really been in the situation to be the one to use it. (Clearly a word we need to practice) So I apologized to the girl for him, and promptly stuck him in time out. The time-out chair seemed to work because he sat there for the full two minutes (one minute per age is what the experts say) and screamed and cried. Then we talked about how hitting hurts and so we shouldn't hit. But did he get it? Did he really connect that the reason he was sitting in that chair was because he hit poor Emily? Is that connection made in a two-year old? Can I be assured that he learned something from this?

I know every mom goes through that situation where their kid hits, pushes, bites.. whatever it is. But really- when that fantasy of "not my kid" is broken- it is a terrifying moment. Terrifying.