The friend maker

Thanks to Montessori school, the Y, and our many friends and neighbors back in Texas, Griffin has become an excellent friend-maker. Here's his strategy: when he sees another child that he wants to play with he says, “Hi I'm Griffin. What's your name? Do you want to be my friend?” Children of all ages respond really well to this. In Griffin's past life in Texas, it led to him making friends and keeping them. Every time he saw that child at school, the Y, or in our neighborhood, he had a friend to play with.

Griffin has found that children all over the world respond well to this. Those who speak English, that is. He soon learned that if a child doesn't respond when he offers his friendship, it's because he doesn't speak English. After getting rejected by non-English speaking children a few times, Griffin started asking me “Mommy, does that boy speak English?” first.

One morning we were in the hotel restaurant, and there was a boy he wanted to play with. He approached the boy and asked his name; when the boy said nothing, Griffin ran up to me whining, “Mommy, he doesn't speak English.” A few moments later, however, the boy came up to Griffin with a spy car that shoots torpedoes. They instantly became best buddies, playing side-by-side with the car like they'd been friends since birth. They managed to work out sharing the car and invented countless games while not once communicating in the same language. They bonded through their shared love for cars.

Unfortunately, language barriers have not been the only challenge for Griffin in making friends. Like I mentioned earlier, in the past he made his introduction, and then every time he saw that child, he had a friend. The problem here so far has been that all the friends he's made have been in airports, malls, and hotels: places where people are transient and don't return. Poor Griffin has introduced himself to countless children whom he will never see again. We looked for the spy car boy the next two mornings in the hotel restaurant, but his family had already checked out.

The most touching instance was when we were in a big mall near our hotel. We were walking in the mall, headed back to the room, and a girl around nine or ten years old ran by us. Griffin ran after her yelling, “Hey! What's your name?!” She came to a sudden halt and spun around, looking surprised, and said, “Aisha.” Then Griffin said, “Do you want to be my friend?” She smiled and said, “yes.” Griffin was so delighted that he jumped up and down. But then it hit us all that we all had to continue toward our destinations. We were heading back to the hotel, and Aisha appeared to be joining her parents in a shop. To my surprise, Griffin was so happy that she had agreed to be his friend, he didn't seem to care that we had to part ways. He did ask me later, however, if she could come over for a playdate. I had to explain to him that I didn't know her parents.

This type of thing has happened several times a day for the last three weeks. It came to a head late last week when he broke down on the floor genuinely sobbing that he didn't have any friends here. In desperation, I searched the room for the business card of the dad of a boy that Woody and Griffin had met at the hotel pool. I emailed the dad (a stranger to me), and asked if his wife could get in touch with me to arrange a playdate. The dad responded promptly and politely, but several days have passed, and the mom hasn't called.

Fortunately, Griffin started school this week, so he'll see his friends every day. I don't think he realizes this yet because this morning in the taxi ride to school he told me he needed some friends. When I said, “you'll see your friends at school,” he seemed a little confused.

It won't take long before we establish a routine here, and soon he will have friends and neighbors that he can count on seeing regularly. Woody and I know that it just takes time to get reestablished after moving, and we're trying to teach this to Griffin. If he's anything like his parents, his wanderlust will motivate him to move many times throughout his life. I'm proud of him for his social perseverance, and I admit that I might have a thing or two to learn from him.