bullying: use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants.
I mentioned in a pervious post that the twins got to experience bullying early into their educational career. It’s come up again recently (not involving the twins) and I figured for my sake and maybe to help others or whatever, I would talk about our experience.
The twins were so excited to be starting Kindergarten. They were going to be in the “big kid” school and enjoy all the awesome things that come along with it. We were excited too! We were also a little scared worried they were going to be thrown in with behavior and situations we wouldn’t be able to help with or control. You know, life. Which of course would eventually happen as they get older anyway. But what could go wrong in Kindergarten, right? After all it was just a bunch of 5yr olds. Nothing more than the normal, that’s my toy, small arguments, maybe even some hitting for something dumb and then never doing it again. How harmful could any of them really be…right?
A couple months went by and I would ask when I picked them up every day how their day was. It always seemed to be the same, recess was just awesome and sharing snacks with friends. Eventually I started to hear about a girl (we’ll call her H) who would ask for the girls snacks, the twins talked of sometimes sharing and sometimes not. When they wouldn’t share, they said H would get mad at them and yell at them. Sometimes call them names like, dumb or idiots, ugly or something. Obviously not very nice and we would tell them that she just didn’t know how to handle the situation and may not be the nicest girl but maybe they should just try to spend their time away from her during those times. Either way, it wasn’t something to really get upset over right away.
Not too much later, after asking how their day was I was told that one of the twins was hit, pinched, and other things during recess by H. As they explained everything to me that had happened I slowly began to fill with rage. These kids were 5! Why are they being attacked? I tried to calm down, told their dad and we both agreed to go talk to the teacher about it the next morning.
The next day we sent the girls into the Kindergarten playground and watched them from a distance behind the fence. They were playing and talking with some friends when we saw H walk up to the girls and even from a distance you could tell by her posturing and movements she was pulling an attitude with them. O was distraught and visibly trying to stick up for herself. I’m not sure I’ve felt such rage and desire to punt a child until that moment when I saw my kind hearted little gremlin furrowing her brow in confusion and sadness as she was trying to understand why this girl was being so rude. (I still will never forget that look on her face) It broke my heart. I was mumbling under my breath to the dude about how ridiculous this was! I was going to go in there, I was going to scare the living day lights out of this kid.
He held me back, said wait it out. Maybe she’ll go away. Then H, after obviously not getting the reaction she wanted from O, reached down and ripped O’s backpack from her hands holding it out of reach behind her. O tried to grab for it, but H thwarted her advancements and verbally things escalated. This set off the dude and I, we weren’t going to sit back and watch this unfold. It was too much for a parents heart. He quickly jumped the short fence and stormed over there, much faster than I expected. Before reaching them I was shocked to see how quickly he collected himself and calmly asked what was going on. H was a bit startled and quickly gave O back her backpack, then proceeded to ask who he was. He stepped between the two , sternly but with a smile looked at the girl and said “I’m their dad”. H quickly shut up and stepped away as though she was never involved.
The kids started to go inside and we pulled the teacher aside. As we spoke with her we occasionally saw H peeking through the doorway at us. Trying to listen or see or whatever she was doing…honestly at the time I didn’t care and just wanted to stuff her in a backpack. I know! Not very nice or adult like thinking, but I have it on good authority to assume most parents don’t think many pleasant things about someone attacking their child…So…Don’t judge me! I mean, how dare her!? How dare this girl single out my girls and make their daily life at school miserable?
Come to find out this had been going on for a lot longer than we had known about. The physical parts mostly. This girl was pushing them, hitting them when they had their backs turned, taking their things, pinching them, calling them pretty terrible names for a 5yr old. Over time things had been escalating to not only during recess but in class as well. During this time the teacher had tried to stop the problem but hadn’t really made much headway.
What she told us next was hard to take in. It made me feel guilty and like I had failed as a parent. Their teacher began to explain that plan and simple the girls were just “too nice”. H had tried to do similar things to the other kids and the other kids would just yell at her or push her away. Our girls, would just take it, they would defend themselves but more softly, more guarded. The teacher has had several talks with them about being stern and saying “no”, things of that nature but that we also needed to do the same thing.
Let me interject by saying that I know all too well about needing and being able to defend yourself is a priceless thing. It’s necessary. It’s something that obviously, they should know how to do correctly… but I guess we were naive and assumed that Kindergarten would be a little bit of a safer place than what they had in the years to come. Our bad. We were completely wrong. Call us weak minded, sheltering if you will. We were too trusting in the human race. Also, I understand kids argue and fight, I’ve already said that. But every day…every day singling them out and the staff recognizes the issue…it wasn’t just “Kids will be kids”…So don’t even try that with me or I will cut you with a piece of pizza.
Their teacher said she had split them up in class and told the girls to play away from her during recess. But we all know that doesn’t stop someone who seeks this out. So, it continued. I still heard daily of H hitting them or taking their things sometimes with tears in their eyes. Eventually her parents were called and told of her actions at school by their teacher. What made things worse for me was that I saw her mother every morning as I took the girls to school. I hated her, I wanted to scream and fight with her about how terrible of a mother she was. The things rolling around in my head every time I saw her were not pleasant things.
After they were notified, I noticed she would be dropped off after all kids had gone inside, I didn’t see them anymore. It cooled me…things seemed to simmer down a little. It was refreshing. Then during the annual school fair we met H’s dad. We didn’t have just small talk but, real talk. He spent most the evening with us explaining H’s situation. He had been fighting for custody of her from her mom. Her mom lived in our neighborhood with her new husband who had several older kids. H would tell her dad about how she had to hide her things in her moms house because the older kids would take them and ruin them. How her older step brothers would hit her and hurt her. How she was never given snacks or food regularly. How her dad had been fighting to get her away from the situation but with absolutely no budge. How his son would run away to him because of how terrible the situation at home was for them.
All the while H and the twins were playing and actually getting along. They were all happy and even during little arguments there wasn’t any violence or harsh words. Now, my heart was feeling pretty broken before. After hearing what she has been going through at home, it really really started to bleed for her. I felt terrible. I felt so terrible that I had thought such horrible things about her. She was going through things I couldn’t even imagine going through at the age of 5. My brother was a pain in my butt and did brotherly things. But the things that were happening to her weren’t even close to a normal life level. Did I feel bad for still wanting to push her mom off a cliff? No…sorry.
How do you tell your kids to be mean to someone who is already getting enough abuse at home? You don’t. We didn’t at least. We told them to be nice to her still. To try and understand that she may just be having a hard day. If she does get too aggressive. Stick up for yourself. But make an effort to involve her, make her feel welcome. We all made an effort to say hi to H and the girls made an effort to involve her more with the things they did. From that point on we didn’t hear of H picking on them. Unfortunately, H still acted out and had behavior issues with other kids and was removed from the class.
It sucks, it sucks to see the cause for someone being a bully. It sucks that there really isn’t a whole ton you can do for them. It sucks that it’s not something people will grow out of and that as the girls get older they are just going to experience more of it. It also seems impossible to teach them how to handle it. Because every situation will be different and all you can do is to teach them to be confident within themselves and be strong. Maybe we are lucky and they will have each other to hold onto. But, I still remember the BS I went through in school and the amount of tears and pain. The amount of times things got so bad I didn’t want to wake up in the morning. It got hard. Sometimes there are too many things working against you.
From my personal experience I don’t tolerate bullying one bit. I can’t ignore it and let it work itself out. I don’t care the situation. To see that even though H had stopped with the girls and had moved onto others to the point she was removed from the class. It sucks and hits you hard. I can understand how no one has an answer for it all, but I also wonder how so many people can just sit back and let it happen, especially parents. Even peers I feel should be taught and talked with about how they should be mindful of the people around them and maybe use a little of that humanity and stick up for one another.
As a parent the most important thing I feel is that your child can talk to you. That they feel comfortable telling you what is happening to them. Because YOU are their rock. Your words and your heart are what matter most. Making sure they understand that, even during the worst times in their life, that’s what is important. I know for a fact that if it weren’t for my parents showing me their unwavering love and support I may not be around today. They kept me moving and I can never say sorry or thank them enough for all they did or went through while I was growing up. Nit pick all you want, but family whether blood or otherwise (friends, aunts, neighbors, etc) is what keeps us grounded.
Life in general isn’t peachy all the time and sometimes we all need a little help. Don’t act like you have to be hard but also don’t act like you should be sheltered. I have one pretty simple rule I try to live by in life:
Don’t be an asshole.
We all may fail at it sometimes, but it’s a pretty broad and easy motto. Think before you act and sometimes you may need to act before you think. Don’t sit idle and expect things to fix themselves all the time. Take a stand for yourself or someone around you. Try to see the other side to the best of your ability.
But most of all…just don’t be an asshole.
