Owen in Music Class

Owen and Family have just joined a 15-week music class for 1-4 year old children. We learned about the Miss Mary's class from our friend Heidi. Her daughter, Genny is also in this same Friday morning class...so we have an added social bonus of seeing them every week, along with the music experience.

Owen is probably the 2nd to youngest child in the class. It is quite a broad range of ages...1-4, and I would say the majority in our class are 2-3 years old. Owen wandered around the room today during our first official class. He even went and tried the door, and discovered it was locked. (There were toys out in the hallway that he was interested in playing with.) Owen walked along the walls of the room, surveying his environment, "like Steve McQueen trying to plan an escape" as Chris described it. He did laugh and participate a bit too; it wasn't all just a McGyver episode.

As soon as Owen sees a gathering of children, be it at the park, at music class etc., he has no time or interest in his parents. His first impulse, probably from playing at the Childcare room at the YMCA, is to jump into playing with other kids around him. He observes what they are doing, and then wants to join them. It is a good impulse, a social impulse...but generally speaking, older kids perceive his joining-in as Owen taking away their toys. They always go into possessive mode; MINE, NO! This exact scenario happened just before music class, with those public toys I mentioned out in the hallway. Owen sat down to join with a little boy playing with a puzzle. The boy's mom was sitting right next to her son, just fyi. As soon as Owen picked up a piece of this puzzle (he didn't take it out of this other child's hands or anything) the little boy got nervous that his toy was being taken away, and his mother responded by taking the puzzle piece from Owen and offering him a completely different toy. I was kind of perplexed how to deal with the situation, because I didn't really think that Owen needed to be corrected for wanting to play with another child...how could that be bad? The other child was not encouraged to share, even though he was certainly old enough to understand the concept.

Sigh. I told Chris afterward that I have had enough social anxiety trying to fit in with groups of people for years, and now suddenly as a parent, I am faced with the most confusing and stressful social situation of all; managing my child in public, and with other children and parents. Hello, difficult! I suppose I worry too much about what seems right according to the people I am around...but to some degree, isn't it important for a parent to be aware of how my child's behavior is bothering/not bothering them? Haven't we all heard the complaints about parents who passively let their children run amuck and get into everything, without any concern about maintaining the appropriate decorum for the environment they are in? I don't want to be that parent. But, I also don't really want to discipline my child just because someone else has a problem with Owen that I don't see or consider an issue. It is tricky, that is for certain.

Any thoughts or insights are welcomed.