When I was about 8/9 years old I was told by a friend of mine I couldn’t play with them any more. Their mother didn’t approve of it for some reason.
One year later I asked my mom if she ever knew why this was the case. She said that other mother thought I wasn’t good enough for her child. But that after a while that mother said she may be okay with it now.
But my mother said she didn’t like that idea. That this friendship would be all reliant on that mother’s “generosity”. And I didn’t feel the need to object to that. My mom’s reasoning made perfect sense to me, even on age 10. This was not the way you treat friendships fairly from a parents perspective, I realised. (There is a little more to this story though, but this is all I care to share.)
I still feel like that was a mature thing I did. Because I was not a child that took ‘no’ very well at that age. So what are your childhood experiences where, now upon looking back, you feel you handled it maturely?
When I was 10, while riding my bike in the woods, I almost crashed into another cyclists who then swerved into a bush.
When I saw how he was laying there, I noticed he’s in a thicket of burning nettles and his leg was bent the wrong way.
I told him I’m gonna get help, ran to the nearest SOS telephone and called an ambulance.
They had taught us in school what to say and to wait for further questions, which is what I did.
Then I ran back to the man and talked to him until the medics arrived.
Paramedic and former ambulance calltaker: Children, especially that age, were by far my preferred callers. They usually are easy to calm down, they follow commands, they answer questions directly. (e.g. “Does the patient currently have trouble breathing?” - an adult answers "Well,he always had this slight wheezing since he caught the Vietnamese Bubblebuttvirus back in 1972, but it got better in 1992, and then he had…’ - a kid simply replies: “he is coughing a lot and breathing like he ran a lot”.).
But back to topic: Same age as you were, probably 10. I was a huge fan of the local fire department back then. One day the adult son of my next door neighbour jumped off their roof,easily 8 to 10m. (Mix of suicide and drugs)
I called the ambulance service, specifically asked them if they would send a helicopter (they frequently do around here), rode my bike to their usual landing spot and led the crew to the patient.
…While three adults forgot to call the ambulance or called the police (different number here) or the local hospital (not helpful,they do not operate the ambulances here.
Maybe,just maybe my career as a paramedic was predestined on this faithful day. (Guy made it,btw. But had more success a few years later)
First aid courses at school do have an effect, I cannot recommend them enough,I have countless sucess stories I came in contact with over the years, including a group of three 12 year olds that resuscitated their teacher.