Roughhousing

I'm worried about H. It seems like he's getting to be more agressive. I notice him playing roughly with his sisters and even other people. When confronted, his response seemed to be on the defense and back on the attack.

I resolved to use a gentler approach. We went to the masjid for halaqa yesterday. While we listened to the lesson, the kids romped about in the adjoining area in mute mode. I had told them to keep it down and alhamdulillah they remembered.

However, every now and again, S came to me,

"H punched my tummy,"

"H slapped Kak N and N,"

"H hit me and N,"

Every time, I gestured for him to come to me, but he simply glanced at me and remained in the room. I was unable to get up and go to him myself because I couldn't access the room they were in due to womanly circumstances.

After the halaqa was over, he came and I took him aside,

"H, do you know that you're strong?" I asked him. Apparently, he was unprepared for the question. He answered in the negative. I continued,

"Yes, H. You're strong. For a boy, you're pretty strong. Even Auntie A. said so. When you play with girls, you have to be gentle. Because you're strong, you might hurt them. Do you understand?"

He nodded, evidently still reeling from the new found knowledge that he's strong. ANd I wasn't kidding him. He is strong. Hubby often engaged him in a wrestling tousle and as a result, he has grown pretty strong. This I noticed in his attempts to free himself from people's grasp, and adult's grasp at that.

When we got back home, I told hubby to use the gentle approach with H, because the confrontational one would only get him on his cheeky side, which would be a disaster. We already told him to curb his cheekiness because it seems to be getting overboard. Everytime, I told him,

"You want to be like the prophet SAW?"

He nodded. And that usually so far alhamdulillah, did it.

However, his cheekiness is not all bad. One time, we had some guests over and I was chatting with a friend. I happened to exclaim out loud,

"Laa ilaa ha illallah!"

Out of the blue, a five year old boy walked past us and chimed,

"Muhammadurasulullah....Sallallahu alaihi wasallam."

Another time, Hubby was saying something which then included our beloved prophet's name and he didn't say sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Before we knew it, H had interjected,

"Abi, Abi, you...you...you're supposed to say Sallallahu alaihi wasallam."

In his excitement, he stutters, and when he does, it just adds more to the humor of it all, not because of his stuttering, but because of his uncontained excitement to voice his cheekiness and opinions.

I can't believe I used to worry he would grow up a sissy because he was surrounded by two sisters who play with dolls. I guess as he grew, his boyishness took over and here we are in a predicament. I now have one active boy to handle, and he's not even six yet.