Rant

Last week I attended a large playgroup with C and A in a nearby town. I was surprised to see how rude and obnoxious some of the kids were. Now although I think it is important for my kids to be social with other children and to attend various activities and playgroups, I don't want them to pick up bad behavior at the same time.

C doesn't understand the whole "mine" aspect. When we arrived, C picked up a little plate and some plastic grapes out of the toy box and a little girl came up to her and snatched the grapes out of her hands. C in turn smiled, handed her the plate and went to look at the other toys. This happened a few times with different children and different toys. It wasn't only with C, they were behaving this way with each other. There was another little girl there (around three years old), playing with a toy car at one end of the room and at the other end, a little boy was riding around on a little tricycle. As soon as the three year old caught sight of the boy on the bike, she started to cry and scream at the top of her lungs. Her mother comforted her and asked the boy if she could play with the bike!

Another example: C wanted to climb up the ladder to go down one of the plastic slides they had set up. As we walked up towards the ladder, one of the children pushed C out of the way and went down the slide. C smiled and waved at her as she slid down. This happened 2 more times with the same child and another little boy. After the third time, C didn't want to try anymore and walked away. There were many more instances like this throughout the hour we were there. Now am I wrong for wanting to shield my daughter from these influences? I do understand that she will have to go through this at some point or another but isn't 2 1/2 years old a little young to be experiencing this behavior?

The mothers were too busy gossiping to tend to their children; bad mouthing teachers, parents and their husbands. One of my biggest pet peeves are couples who bad mouth each other in public. I can't stand it!

Now, I've been to a couple of playgroups before which were lovely. I don't expect children to be perfectly behaved at all times, how could anyone? Children will be children, but that kind of behavior is not something I wish my daughter to be subject to. My husband and I work hard enough at trying to teach her values and good behavior; I don't want our efforts to be undone within an hour!