Care and Feeding: First-Grade Crushes

[cereta]

Dear Care and Feeding,

How do you talk to your young children about crushes at school? My oldest daughter is in first grade, and for the last few months, she has been talking about a classmate and how much she loves him. She even asked how to know if she should marry him.

I don’t want her to feel dismissed or belittled by me, but she is only 7! I know her feelings are real to her, but I just don’t know what to say. Please help!

—Not Ready to Be an In-Law

Dear Not Ready,

Ask her some questions about the object of her affection and just what it is that he has or does that makes her feel like she does about him. If this kid isn’t terribly nice to her, ask her to explain just why she finds him to be so dreamy and help her to understand why it’s important to surround ourselves with people who treat us with kindness. If she lists positive attributes—say, he’s good at sharing, patient, polite, and smart—explain that those are excellent qualities to have in a friend, and that friendship is the only suitable relationship between kids their age.

Let her know that it’s OK to feel butterflies in her stomach or even that she loves this classmate, but that she has to express those feelings in ways that are appropriate. Make sure she knows not to overwhelm him or, you know, propose marriage, which is something for when you’re much older. Crushes can be sweet and safe, and yes, her feelings are real to her … so be gentle with them!

Comments

[cereta]

Dear LW: Slow your roll. As you said, she's seven! My kid "married" a classmate in first grade (a fellow girl, which caused her teacher to look a bit just-ate-a-lemon, but the teacher didn't say anything). Kids do this. It's certainly never too early to introduce ideas of healthy relationships, but I think making a big deal out of this is a mistake. I would practice the following sentence: "That's nice, sweetie." And talk about relationships in other contexts.

[minoanmiss]

*giggles helplessly*

Invite us to the wedding!

*giggles some more*

[eva_rosen]

You laugh, but D (my husband) said he was going to marry me when we were five years old and here we are XD

[minoanmiss]

Awww!

[cereta]

Aww.

[rmc28]

I remember my older child telling me he wanted to marry a classmate when they were around 6 or 7. My response was to explain that he couldn't legally until he was 16 with parental permission, or 18 without, and that this was some way off. But that if they still wanted to be married when they were 16 I would certainly support them and talk to the other parents. And this led on to discussion of other things where the law has age limits, like voting and driving.

[seperis]

I generally try not to judge parents for asking questions that--to me--make it seem they have never been nor met a child before their own appeared in their lives; variation and experience vary so much and mothers are held to such a ridiculously high standard that paranoia becomes second nature, etc....

...but if you have to write to an advice columnist to find out how to talk to a seven year old about them having a crush, which is such a universal part of childhood it's sitcom fodder, the next eleven years of your life are going to be a hellscape and you also may be a pod person.

I just checked my DW, and Child's greatest hits from about sevenish to ten years old included:
1.) why the Palestinian and Israeli people always fighting and why they can't just all live together? - his school had a Palestinian speaker that day and boy, would I have appreciate a heads-up from the school to brush up on the last five thousand years of history of the Middle East and the reasons for the creation of Israel after World War II so at that moment he wouldn't know more about it than I did.
2.) His human cloning phase, during which the subjects included feasibility, ethical considerations, morality, the most viable parts of the human body from which to get DNA, and creating human-lizard army. Ages seven and a half to like, now.
3.) why he couldn't make homebrew napalm in the backyard from styrofoam and gasoline
4.) in retrospect, the completely predictable series of events following his acquisition of his first chemistry set.

What do you say? You say 'what are [they] like?', 'what's their favorite color/reptile/dinousaur' and make affirmative noises and smile and be incredibly grateful, like I was, because it's not midnight and your eight and a half year old didn't just wake you up, worried, wanting you to negotiate peace in the middle east a full day before amazon delivers the books amireal (among other blessed individuals) recommended in response to your honestly hysterical email, and also, napalm isn't involved.

[minoanmiss]

I think I like your kid. I want to hear more about the napalm!

[seperis]

I was frantically going through my Child tag to refresh my memory but I can't find it, so here's the gist: somehow ,through many backups and computers I kept my e-text of The Anarchist's Cookbook on my computer, so between second and fifth grade, his reading improved enough to read it and thought it sounded cool.

This would also be the time I barely beat him to learning what happens when you mix ammonia and bleach (I had no idea) which I assume is the only reason we narrowly escaped bathroom gas chamber during his extended experimental period.

[minoanmiss]

I am very glad you did not have Homemade Mustard Gas, she said, helplessly giggling.

[cereta]

Okay, that is awesome. Mine was observing that it would be really creepy if someone killed a person and used their dead body as a puppet.

Well, it would.

[seperis]

Reading advice columns is making me think the children of fanpeople just aren't like other children. Or maybe it's us (and their interaction with our friends)?

You (or I, or pretty much every parent on our dw circles or I know from conventions) hear about potential puppet-corpses, we're like yeah, that's creepy, and also, was that a Batman/Stargate/Smallville/Hannibal/movie/tv/comic/book plotline, and then, wait, didn't someone write a fic with that but who, and sometimes, I want to write that. On occasion, our kids help us break down the concept of puppet-corpsing and how it would work.

I'm getting the impression from Dear Prudence, Care and Feeding, Abby, and Amy these conversations either don't happen (???) or aren't nearly as productive and fun, and that's pretty much my only working theory as to why.

[cereta]

Those parents don't know what they're missing.

[amireal]

Ah good times. Child had a way putting you right on the hilarious/hysterical side of the force.

[rosefox]

I feel like the parent's sign-off of "Not Ready" is really what's going on here. Parent, that is a you problem! Reach out to Team You about getting over your feelings of not being ready for your kid to grow up.

Once you stop panicking about the future in which your child is a teenager and you have to actually think about dating and safer sex and all of that, you will be able to live much more calmly in the present in which your child is seven and exploring ways of saying "I like this person and want them around".