The other day a friend and I visited the local aquarium with our kids.  Sadly, the thing that held their interest the longest was the splash park located outside.

There was a cement shark with various buttons to press that caused water to shoot from different points on the shark’s body.  The prize spot was on top, where the largest jet of water was located.  This jet sprayed more vigorously than the others, and was easily diverted by placing your hand in front of it.  This was great fun because you could cause people standing on the sides of the shark to get wet, or really any direction you wanted the water to go.  Sort of like when you put your thumb in front of a hose.

A little boy got to the top of the shark, but decided he just wanted to sit there.  Wasn’t pressing any buttons, wasn’t directing the water anywhere.  Well, playground rules dictate that if you don’t use it, you lose it, and soon other boys were climbing on and while not pushing him off, utilizing the full features of the shark.

This upset the little boy, who was whining and hitting people’s hands away from the water and the buttons.  He was easily six, if not older, so should have known a bit better than to do that.

Lately I have tried to keep out of any of the Munchkin’s interactions with other kids.  Unless someone is about to get hurt, I have vowed to have a more hands-off approach.  This is very difficult for me, but I am trying.  So, I watched this little boy having a fit and trying to push the Munchkin away as he tried to play with the water.

After the third time, the Munchkin looked at him and said, “Well, you just aren’t very nice, are you?”

The boy had nothing to say to this.  He whined some more about people playing with the water.

In his most reasonable tone of voice, the Munchkin said, “But you don’t own this. This isn’t yours to tell people what to do.  The aquarium owns this.  It isn’t the only one here either, so if you don’t like other people playing with it, you should go to a different one.”

Not being able to refute this logic, the boy got off.  Although still whining, he went somewhere else.

Do I sense a possible Ambassadorship in the Munchkin’s future?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 6:47 am by Glinda and is filed under Boys Will Be Boys, Parental Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.