EdItoR's NoTe
For An
Affair To Remember
Everyone Plays
I
recently had an unfortunate
experience with the telephone.
My daughter, Adina, 6, called
to invite a friend over. This friend
I'll call her Sarah — promptly
informed Adina, "But I'm already
playing with Julie," then hung up.
Adina quietly put her head on her
hands and began to cry. No, she
was sobbing.
I tried everything:
all those magic
tricks parents hope
: will offer a cure
whenever a child's
feelings have been
hurt. Ice cream. A
video. Popcorn. A
game. Coloring
together. No, no,
no, Adina said.
Meanwhile, like
: any good mother, I
I was planning ways in which I
i could make this child, this insuffer-
I able Sarah, pay for what she did.
Perhaps the guillotine was a little
arsh. Perhaps not.
Now I have to tell you that Adina
I and Sarah have since made up.
Sarah has been to our house many
times since The Incident, and Adina
has been to hers. And really, I can't
forever look askance at Sarah who
is, after all, only 6.
But I can fault her parents, and I
do.
This was not the only time when
i one of my children has not been
i included, and I expect just about
every mom and dad on the face o f
the planet has experienced it. It's
painful; it really is, when another
child looks at yours and says, "I ,
don't want to be with you," or "You
can't play with us." But more than
That, it's shameful — shameful that
parents don't spend more time
teaching their children that being
i excluded hurts.
There's a rule in our home which
my children can repeat backward
and foreword and in every Ian-
guage: "Everyone plays, or no one
plays." If Adina has a friend visiting
and another invites her over, that
second friend is told, "Susan is
already here so I can't come to
your house, but can you come to
mine?" Adina's brother, 4-year-old
Yitz, is always
included when his
big sister's friends
come over, and
often baby Talya,
1, plays along, as
well. There are
times when it can
be challenging for
Adina because Yitz
is younger, but
more often than not
I hear her step to
his defense if one of her friends
makes a disparaging remark.
"He's bothering me! Get out of
the way, Yitzhak!" someone told
Yitz who was, to be honest, being
rather disruptive.
"Don't you tell my brother to get
I out of the way," Adina said.
I told everyone: her grandparents,
1 aunts and uncles, the mailman. I
I was so proud of my kid.
When she gets older, Adina will
I need time alone with girl friends; I
understand that. Yitz, too, will want
to be with boys his own age. But
first they must learn that in friendship
the policy should be inclusion, not
I exclusion, and that it takes little time
to extend a kindness, while a
I wound to the heart — the wound of
not being wanted — can ache for-
: ever. ❑
kA
Elizabeth Applebaum
AppleTree Editor
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