Museum Bully

This past weekend, I took my 5 year old daughter and 4 year old son to the kids museum. When we go to the museum, it’s usually a great time and we have fun exploring and doing new things laid out by the staff. The staff do a great job of keeping things fresh and there are certain areas that are always matching the holidays or season that we are in. The Christmas decorations were already out and even though parts of the museum stay the same, the fact that there were Christmas decorations out made it very special for them.

After playing around in the museum, my son wanted to go to the train section. That is a staple at the museum and because it was leading up to the holidays, there were candy trains out for the kids to play with. My son wanted to stay there and my daughter went off exploring (which is one of the first times I let her go off by herself because she is familiar with the museum and she knows to stay within earshot of us). When my daughter finally came back, she ended up working together with her brother to connect trains and drive them around.

There was another boy that started to drive his train down the track in the opposite direction as my kids. It started off innocently and even though my kids wanted to drive further down the track, they talked it out with the boy and decided to let the boy go on ahead while they backed up their trains.

Then they boy kept wanting the right of way and having my kids move their trains even though there was a big track that didn’t have anyone playing there in the other sections. I didn’t want to step in and wanted to observe what my kids would do. They tried to talk to him and share the space, but he kept wanting to move his trains where my kids were and the boy started to be rude to my kids. My daughter and son stuck up for each other and tried to asked the boy to stop, but he wouldn’t. My kids decided to move their trains away and I thought that would be it. I was proud of them for trying to solve their own problem and when it got to much, they did the right thing and moved away.

Here comes the boy again after my kids moved away. He asked my kids if he could have a train car. There were many other train cars around that were unused, but the boy decided to come back to the new section my kids were playing at to ask for their train car. My kids didn’t have a special train car and there were many identical ones laying around the track and floor unused, so I wanted to see what would happen. My kids politely said they were playing with their train cars and declined to give the boy a train car. The boy got frustrated and grabbed a train car himself. Then he ran off.

Now my kids were upset and before anything else happened, I stepped in to tell the boy to give back the train car. It wasn’t a nice thing to just snatch it. The boy gave the train car back and walked away for the time being. My kids now wanted to move even further away and went to the complete opposite end of the area to start a new track for their trains. They were playing and sure enough, the boy comes back to our area a few minutes later.

I was building the track with my son and he wanted to have a house that was shaped like a tunnel on the track. My hand was building the track with the house and the boy asked for the house. I don’t know what was the deal with asking for things that are being actively played with from the boy. I see that trait between my kids because they are siblings, but I haven’t observed it as much in a randomized setting like the museum (especially with trains and tracks and space abundantly available). I declined to share (and maybe I would have considered it if it was a sweet kid), but he was rude to my kids and I reminded him of that. He went away again for the time being.

The boy came back and started to build a track that went over the track my son and I were building. It was in the exact section we were already standing in (even though the rest of the area was basically cleared out). He kept getting pieces and moving our track so he could build his. It was fascinating to me that this boy just kept coming back to mess with someone (targeting my son) and the parents were nowhere in sight. Most of the parents were just on their phones mindlessly scrolling social media or whatever gave them the dopamine hit they needed (which I am guilty of at times, but I try to remain present, especially with my kids). Finally the mother of the boy saw that behavior and grabbed her kid away from us.

I’m proud of the way my kids handled the situation. They were polite, they used their words, they didn’t hit when they were frustrated, they wanted away when needed, and they stuck up for each other. I was really disappointed in the lack of parenting from the boy’s mother. The whole ordeal could have been nipped in the bud if they were paying attention and it was allowed to continue for quite some time. Again, I’m a believer that good parenting is the build up of many small moments in time of helpful advice, guidance, and such. The culmination of the work my wife and I put in with our kids was apparent with the museum bully and I am glad that was a small win in our book.