What's a healthy response?

EvenI

Thu, Jul 28 2011, 3:36 am

Some of the simple things with kids' interactions have me stumped.

Imagine you have a group of kids in a summer camp or playgroup or gan, or in the park. And a small group of them is playing and another one or two other kids come up and either show interest in joining in or play with the same communal toys. They're not taking anything away from the original group, just using the same slide (that's supposed to be for everyone) or taking sticks from the same area of park or who knows what. Let's say the self appointed spokesman of the first group says to the second group or child "go away!". Two questions: How should the adult in charge handle that? What healthy response can we teach the recipient of the "go away!" command?

I suppose there are different nuances of this situation that warrant slightly different responses. For example, if it's in the park, and the kids are strangers, then one of the main things on the victim's mind is the right to use the slide or whatever, although it's also dealing with the hurt of the aggressive behavior. If it's kids in the same gan, who are supposed to be friends, then the central issue is the hurt and the general future social status of the victim being at stake, depending on the response.