“Am I going to go to jail for hitting you?” my 4-year-old son asked me the other night as I helped him get ready for bed.
Earlier in the day he’d had a temper tantrum when I picked him up from school. On the teary walk to our car he yelled that I was a “mean mommy” and “so rude,” and then balled up his fists in frustration and hit my leg twice. These are the hits that he was worried about.
“Of course not,” I said, in answer to his question.
I explained that while it was never O.K. to hit, consequences for adults and children — especially little guys like him — are not the same. He nodded as he listened, but his expression showed that he was still confused. I understood why.
On a freezing afternoon last winter, the two of us were running errands in our Brooklyn neighborhood when we were randomly attacked by a stranger. As we headed toward a store’s entrance, holding hands and talking, I was grabbed from behind with a force that lifted me into the air and ripped the hood straight off my jacket. My head snapped to the side as I was punched in the temple and thrown onto the sidewalk. My son ended up on the ground next to me. We were both screaming. My attacker, on top of me, punched me in the face. I thought I was going to die.
But I didn’t. A young man quickly intervened, and after he pushed my attacker off me, I was able to jump up, throw my son over my shoulder and run inside the store. I screamed for someone to call 911 as I headed down an aisle, then sunk down to the ground and pulled my son on my lap. We were safe.
[For more of this story, written by Anne Machalinski, go to http://parenting.blogs.nytimes...amp;emc=rss&_r=0]
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