What Kind Of Friend?

Friends- Does your child have friends? This is the poignant question I'm asked over and over. In a moment of heartbreaking lucidity it comes to me...yes, my son has a friend.

My son has an amazing, unbelievable friend. His friend is unreal, out of this world.

He is amazing because he is knowable in every way...only by my son.

• He moves only in predictable ways (he never throws a ball until my son is positioned perfectly to catch).
  
• He listens...captured by every detail of my son's one sided "conversations".
  
• He watches only what my son likes and loves when my son describes every part, step by step, right before it happens.
  
• He understands that a rule is a rule and that my son possesses the only set of "instant replay eyes" in the world (rendering him the final judge on all disputed gameplay)!
  
• Best of all, he wants my son as the first guest on his birthday party list and always picks him to be his partner, or on his team.
  

Importantly, my son's friend doesn't tell him he's annoying, irritating, or too slow. He never says, "Can I call my mom to go home now?" He never ditches my son or says, "Stop following me." He doesn't touch my son's stuff without permission or move things without asking. In fact, he is everything my son could ever ask for in a friend. He is ideal, unreal.

Yes, my son has a friend....he just hasn't found him yet in any of those other children who come and go, measured against this ideal.

Surely, you see it's not my son's doing. Surely, you cannot expect him to lower his standards after knowing the true definition of a real friend. Still confused? Here's how it plays out:

My son repeatedly knocks his classmate's ball out of the basketball hoop with his own shots. Finally, frustrated beyond words, the classmate throws his ball away, accidentally catching my son in the back. He apologizes instantly. Indignant, my son storms over to me and pronounces that his classmate be banished immediately! I explained that this was a good friend still remaining and he should think long and hard before sending away yet another, in a long line of playdates. Perhaps he and his friend should work things out.

"He is not my friend," my son explains, "What kind of a friend throws a basketball at a kid's back?" I must agree, he doesn't hold a candle to the one he already has....noone ever will.

MY PRAYER

May this ideal friend remain in his heart for as long as my son needs

For now, he is his own best friend and he makes an excellent best friend

May he grow to allow another to know this