(6 year old) Monique (to me) - My cousin loves him.
Me - Oh really? Who is your cousin?
Monique - Isabelle. They sit together. And he loves her, too.
Me (to my 6 year old boy who is looking slightly startled and a little worried) - Do you?
My 6 year old boy - *shrugs*
Me - That's cute, Darling.
And I think it is.
Apparently the whole class is paired up already.
But the way I feel about it is so different to how my mother felt about 'relationships' when I was a kid.
She pooh poohed the idea of boyfriends and girlfriends right from the start.
She would say, "You have friends who are boys and friends who are girls, but you do NOT have boyfriends/girlfriends!"
And she felt this way pretty much until I went to college at age 18.
All I ever wanted was a boyfriend, but I always felt funny about it.
I don't want my kids feeling that way.
But I also don't want to give them the green light to get into grown-up issues too soon.
I know of course it's all just fun at this age, but you have to have boundaries, right?
You have to start as you mean to finish.
So, what do you say?
Did I say the right thing?
I'd love to hear how you deal with the big issues, like Year One relationships.
I just think it's lovely and they should be able to dream big of whatever they think love is at that age. As I said on Twitter, my niece has been a bit in love with our youngest son for quite a while now and plans to move to another country where you "can marry cousins" - she is 6. In a couple of years she'll probably be running from "boys' germs".
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, my eldest is 9, and we haven't really come across this yet. My 7yo had a girl that wrote him a love letter when they were both in Kindy. He was very 'cool' about it. "She loves me," he'd say and roll his eyes. Cute.
ReplyDeleteI think you're doing the right thing not making a big deal out of it. To be honest, one of my pet hates is when people (usually older people actually) do the whole, "Oh, do you have a girlfriend yet?" to my kids. Ugh! Do we have to go there yet? Leave them be!
So, yep - by saying it's cute and leaving it at that, is perfect. IMO anyway!
I think it's kind of cute in a little kid way. My little Miss 6 had boyfriends in kindy and pre-primary, but appears to have outgrown them now in year 1 as she heads closer to the boys-are-yucky stage.
ReplyDelete