Lessons that our children can learn, from interacting with a mixed age group of children together, translated…
The very first time my son went to a mixed-grade summer camp, the first day as I went to pick him up, he’d told me angrily, that the older girls in the class bossed the younger children around. As I’d heard him told me the stories of that day, I’d, recalled something that happened many, many years ago, and I’d, shared it with him, “I was a camp instructor way back when, that science camp was also a mixed age group, and so, as I assigned the groups, I’d, split up the children of the various grades to each groups. And of one of the groups, there was a first-grade young boy who’d enjoyed drawing on his textbooks, and the older girl from his group started scolding him hard.”
To this point, my son started stating angrily, “Mommy, you should’ve punished the older girl!”, I’d asked him in a lighter voice, “So, from here on out, whenever you get loud with your younger brother, then I shall, punish you too then?”
He’d fallen silent, I’d continued, “I’d not scolded the older girl, just called her over for a chat on respect.” Holy! I was, really, an adult then!
“Oh?”, my son’s eyes twinkled, he was interested in what happened next.
“I only asked her, who the textbook belongs to? She’d told me it was the younger boy’s. So, I’d told her: he drew on his textbook, it’d not affected anyone, maybe, you can, suggest to him to stop doing it, but, he should NOT be punished because of this.”
Several days later as I picked my son up from his camp, he’d told me, “the camp was not fun, because the older girl left early.” Seems, that the older girl slowly, gotten, assimilated into this, group of, younger children. I’d smiled and patted my son’s head, “I wasn’t done yet with the story of the science camp from last time. At first the older girl was very bossy toward the younger children, while the older boys could care less about the children, and, the younger children also fought against these older boys and girls too. But after a few days of learning to get along, the older girl would look after the younger children in her group, while the older boy would help the children with the harder to tackle experiments, and then, these young children, they’d, slowly, taken to liking these, older boys and girls.”
My son nodded in agreement, “Yep, I’d started liking the older girl too, she’d always set up the rules when we began, and the games are so fun to play, and, as she’d left the class to go home, none of us knew how to carry on in the games then.”
At that very moment, I felt, really, grateful toward these children who gave such an enriching experience to my own young. Without these experiences, my son would feel that he was, bullied as he’d talked about how he was bossed around by the older girl who led the classes, I would’ve, gone to the teacher, thinking he was, bullied, and had I done that, then, my son may have lost a good chance, to get along with other children.
It’s those children who’d, pulled me aback, made me hold my tongue, to help accompany my son, in this process, of getting better in relating with each other.
And so, sometimes, as parents, we tend to jump right in, to handle these sorts of things for our own young, especially if and when we misinterpret these sorts of interactions as our children being bullied, and, some parents overreact, because they thought their children were being hurt, and, that just, takes away the experience of their own young’s learning to interact with, getting along with, children in other age groups, and that’s no good.