It’s the first day of kindergarten and little Janey or Johnny kisses Mom at the door and crosses the threshold into the wonderful world of elementary education.  In many cases they are met with a caring and experienced teacher who has a small class where he or she can really get to know each student individually.  Unfortunately, in many other cases, Janey and Johnny are met with a new teacher who is already overwhelmed by the upwards of 25 kindergartners in his or her care.

 

Still, most kids will be fine, unless there is the unhappy combination of insecurity and aggression.  At first blush, you might think I mean the insecurity of the child getting pushed around and the aggression of the bully, but there is more to it than that, (isn’t there always?).  Very often the biggest insecurity resides in the bully and that very insecurity, is what fuels the aggression.  Bullies, queen bees and mean kids are very often the most insecure of all.  They pick on those they perceive as weak to distract attention from their own shortcomings.  Usually, this nastiness is a learned behavior.

 

That said, no one has the right to bully another child and it needs to stop.  Agreed, but here’s why the bully needs help too.  In my opinion, bullying can only be effectively and permanently stopped, by attacking it on three fronts, simultaneously.

 

1. The child on the receiving end of the bullying has to be taught skills to stand up for him or her self before the situation escalates.
2. The adults have to work to address the needs of both the bully, who must be taught about appropriate social skills and the bullied child, whose self-esteem must be reinforced.
3. The community must adopt the mandate that bullying is not tolerated and that it is everyone’s job to stop it.

 

All of these issues are addressed beautifully by teaching Social Emotional Intelligence in our schools.   This type of learning helps a child feel comfortable in their own skin and also teaches the child how to treat others and put them at ease for the good of the whole community.  People skills, manners and other so-called soft skills, are what make the difference between a frustrated and unfulfilled adult and a community that values the combination of success with kindness.  I know which one I prefer.

 

Years ago, I faced a situation in which one of my kids felt pushed around at school.  Another child in her class loved to watch her blush when he taunted her with that old playground standard; “I see London, I see France, I can see your underpants.”  How original and how sad that it was clearly learned from someone else.

 

What started as a one-time insult blossomed into a taunting ritual in which my child stopped wearing her favorite skirts and dreaded recess.  Emboldened by his unrestrained success at making her blush, he moved on to taunting her during gym class.  “If you really want your team to win, you should not even try out.”  Always nice to see team spirit in action, don’t you think?

 

From November through February, I had three meetings with their kind and wonderful teacher who was aware of it, but of course, she was not in the gym class and recess happened with so many classes that she was not able to catch the problem in the act.  Still, she talked to the kids about kindness and using words to help, not hurt.  All good things; but not enough.  Our schools need access to the resources to support them as they teach social emotional intelligence and they need the support of our families to know that we value these skills as highly as we value others.

 

By February, it finally dawned on me that this was more than just a need for the bully to stop, this was also an opportunity for my child to learn some basic things about standing up for herself.  Naturally, as a mother, I wanted to handle the situation for her.  I wanted to walk right up to that kid and tell him to leave my child alone.  I wanted to call the other parent and get that bully in serious trouble, (exactly the wrong thing to do, by the way).  I wanted my child to live in a world where this never happened again, but I knew I needed a better plan than fighting this battle for her.

 

The adults were aware and working on it to the best of their ability and my child was uncomfortable, but the bullying was still in a sufficiently early stage, that she could build a little strength from it.  If for one moment, I believed that the bullying was beyond that, I would not have hesitated to remove her from the environment immediately.  As someone who was masterfully bullied for three years, I whole-heartedly agree that bullying is a serious and dangerous thing and sometimes the best thing to do is move on.

 

The thing is, you have to be sure there is no safe way to stand your ground first, otherwise, you can raise a person whose first choice is always to run at the first sign of adversity.  In this case, I believed, we were not yet at the point where leaving was the best alternative.  I believed my child had the strength and desire to participate in solving this problem and so we decided to try.

 

The two most important words in helping a child deal with a bully?  ROLE PLAY.  For three months, almost every night, we role-played her experience.  We kept going until she role-played the way she wished things had happened.   We developed our family’s personal safe words.  My kids all know they will NEVER get in trouble for shouting the words “BACK OFF!” to anyone, in any place, at any time they feel threatened.

 

I wrote “The Zoo in You” to help my daughter understand she had a right to the anger and frustration she felt and to use that legitimate anger to defend herself.  We talked a lot about her “angry tiger” and letting him roar to defend her, and we role-played and role-played and role-played.  Sometimes she was herself, sometimes the bully, sometimes even the teacher, but we worked on it until she got comfortable visualizing herself shouting “Back off”.  Then the big day finally arrived.

 

As a school volunteer, I was walking through the gym one day when I saw my six year old against the gym wall with a kid twice her size leaning over her.  It took everything I had not to go over there and tower over him.  Instead, I took a deep breath and wryly thought that I should have role-played my own self-control as well.

 

I caught my daughter’s eye and said, “Let your tiger roar.”   The bully might have been confused, but only for a second.  In the next moment a high-pitched voice bellowed, “BACK OFF!”  I gave her a thumbs up sign.  Even better, her teacher smiled and said “Nice job, kiddo.”   Other kids patted her back and even the bully claimed he was just kidding around with her anyway.

 

She not only flexed her self-respect muscle, she earned the respect of her fellow classmates.   She knew I would not always be there to protect her, so knowing I believed in her ability to protect herself was key.  She was still smiling when I picked her up two hours later.

 

Bullying is unfair and can really affect a child’s learning experience.  It is a serious matter that is everyone’s job to stop.  When we work together, we can turn this lousy experience into a growth experience, but only in the early stages.  The key to stopping bullying is to know when the risk to the bullied outweighs the potential growth.

 

Social and emotional intelligence need to be a part of the curriculum along side math and reading.  Bullies need to learn constructive ways to vent their frustration and we need to demand that communities stand up for those who need help.  School is more than just a place to fill young minds with facts and figures; it is a place to fill young hearts with character.

 

Working together I know we can all keep our faces to the sun so the shadows will fall behind.

Marilynn

 

Categories: General

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