Little Yeller

I've never seen Alex try to yank anything away from another child. But today, on the playground, I intervened twice in his verbal aggression towards other children. On two separate occasions he yelled at other children for playing with something he wanted to play with. But he hadn't been playing with it at the time they had their hands on it and he hadn't even been going for it. He almost succeeded in intimidating another little boy off a ride. I corrected him right away then because I felt the other kid gave up too easily when Alex had been in the wrong. I didn't want he and Alex to work it out that way. In the other instance, the other child was 4 and could understand me when I intervened on her behalf. I did that so that Alex could see she and I work it out when he doesn't have the verbal skills yet. (She was going to give up too and it was her ball he wanted.)

August 20, 2008