A Jar of Sweets: Fine Line + Our Weekend

The fine line I am referring to is the line with being too involved in helping your children solve their own problems.

The other day we were at the park and Jojo started playing with a group of 4 boys who looked to be anywhere from 4-6 years old.

They were definitely bigger than my little man.

It started out as an innocent game of running around, chasing each other, and playfully screaming.

As time went on I saw the boys start to gang up on Jojo a little bit where they were all chasing Jojo and then they would surround him and try to hit his booty.

Jojo was smiling and laughing throughout all of this mind you.

But the entire time I was watching and thinking...when do I step in? Do I step in? Is this just boys being boys?

Then I heard one boys say about Jojo... "He started hitting us first"

Ok...there was my answer...they were just playing the game of boys being boys, so I didn't step in.

I can't help to admit though, that I wanted to rush right over and say, "Hey! Leave my cute, sweet, little boy alone!"

I felt this wrenching in my heart for Jojo that I hadn't felt before.

It was that mama bear feeling where you don't want anything bad to happen, you don't want their feelings to get hurt, and you don't want anyone to be mean to them.

Although, I did eventually step in when Jojo's shoe came off and the boys wouldn't give it back.

It's definitely a hard thing to judge and I know that there will be times when I do step in too early or too often and that's ok, but I just have to remember what Dory told Marlin in Finding Nemo:

"Well, you can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him."