I know you all are aware of the birthday party invitation fiasco we had 2 weeks back with the teacher telling Robbie he couldn’t pass out invites to classmates unless he invited ALL his classmates. Realistically, it’s not possible to throw a party with over 60 students since the invites extended to students in other classes, so that wasn’t going to happen. This is a classroom rule. Not a district rule. Which means it’s to the teachers’ discretion and since we didn’t have issues in the last 3 years that he has been a student there we didn’t think it would be an issue. Apparently this teacher doesn’t think it is okay. Fine.
I told Robbie to collect the phone numbers of the students he wanted to invite and I would call the parents individually and get addresses. Robbie came home that Friday and said he had gotten 6 out of 10 numbers but he had left them at school on his desk. Monday rolled around and as soon as he walked in the door from school I knew something was wrong. Someone had taken the numbers. He had to start all over again. At that point I said no. I told him he was going to pass out the invites as originally intended at recess and if the teachers had anything to say about it, he needed to tell them to call me ASAP and I would handle it. He got all his invites out last Tuesday.
When the kids came home that Tuesday, Jade walked in the door and said ' I don’t know what’s wrong with Robbie. He won’t talk to me.' Robbie walked in after her and he was on the verge of tears. I asked 'what’s wrong, Robert?' His reply was that he didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t push it so I switched gears and asked him if he had gotten his invites out to those who he wanted to get them too without any issues. He said he did but he didn’t want to talk about it. I pushed a little harder and told him he needed to tell me what was wrong because I knew from the look on his face he was about to cry.
He gives in and says ‘Child #1 came up to me after I gave child #2 his invite and he said I was cool because I broke a rule. Then he asked me if I wanted to be in the 'Cool Club'. I didn’t know how to answer so I didn’t say anything. Then he told me that A LOT of kids talk about me behind my back. He said A LOT of kids, Momma! They call me weird and say I am lame...'
At this point my 10 year old son broke down into sobbing tears. The kind of sobbing you don’t EVER want to hear from your own child. He tried to talk about what else child #1 said. I couldn’t make out a lot of it but I asked Robbie how the conversation ended. He said ' He told me not to be a snitch and that was it.' I asked him what he had said to child #1 during or as the conversation ended. He told me that he just stood there listening to all this and he couldn’t talk.
His dad and I told him he needed to tell child #1 that he doesn’t not want to be involved with the 'cool club'. Which he did. We told my son knows he is neither ‘weird’ nor ‘lame’. He knows he is special and unique and that the people who matter most will never make him feel any less than who he is meant to be.
Why am I writing about this? A few reasons.
1. Schools need a redo on their bullying programs. The message that these schools are sending out is NOT reaching their students. They have a Bully Prevention Week every year for the last 2 years. The curriculum is NOT working. 4 months school has been in. 4 months of hearing about this kid or that kid getting picked on and called names. 4 months of hearing about the teachers yelling at the kids about being bullies. Enough is enough. Something needs to change. Either the school needs to be committed or I need to pull my kids out of public school because my children should not come to me in tears and tell me they ‘hate school’ and ‘never want to go back’ because of some other jerks kids and slacking school staff. A letter is being drafted. I will be approaching the school about my concerns.
2. The ‘kids will be kids’ crap has got to stop. For example: my daughter has had an issue with the same boy for over 2 years now. We finally put an end to it after his taunting and teasing got physical with her. My daughter would come home crying about this boy 1-3 times a week. When I asked the teacher about it earlier in the school year, she brushed it off as a ‘sibling rivalry type relationship’. I let it go. When Jade came home one day crying and told us that this boy had kicked her arm in a game of scooter tag and showed us her bruised arm, that was enough for her dad to get pissed. He requested meetings with school staff and would not let it go until the boy was held liable and punished for his actions per the district Student Handbook. For the last two years, this boy had been harassing Jade. For the last two years, everyone brushed it under the rug. What kind of message does that send children?
Here I am teaching my children that if they have a problem they need to see help from a trusted adult. But when they do, they are told that it is nothing and then given a little paper booklet on how to handle conflict? This is teaching my children 2 things. 1. When they tell someone that something is bothering them, its no big deal to the adults who they trust enough to tell. 2. There are no consequences. If a boy was to hit a girl, the girl was to tell and the boy got a slap on the wrist, and the girl was told it wasn’t that bad; do you think she will be eager to go to someone for help again? Or do you think that a trust factor has been lost for good now? Yeah. Think about it.
3. To bring awareness to you parents. You need to stay on top of your children. You need to ask them about clubs they may be in at school and what they talk about and if they are talking mean about other people. Ask them about all the kids they hang out with and interact with. Bullies just don’t happen. Usually peer pressure plays a HUGE role in this. Your kids may know it is not good to say mean things about people but will join in so that they themselves are not picked on. Let them know it is okay to not be a lemming. Let them know it is okay to speak up for the kid being picked on. They may lose a few ‘mean’ friends but I guarantee that they will gain a new friend for life in the kid they stick up for. Children need this kind of guidance from us so that bullying can stop. Teach your children not everyone is the same. Some children are okay with being alone and not having a lot of friends. This doesn’t make them weird. Some kids are rule followers and they don’t want to see others get in trouble for breaking rules so they will speak up. This doesn’t make them lame.
Teach your children it is not okay to speak about other people in a manner they wouldn’t want to be spoken about or to.
4. I’m a mother. I carried my children for 9 months. I have a connection with each one of them. My Robbie is a good kid. Before anyone says anything negative about him and tells me I shouldn’t trust my kids every word, let me make things very clear. He does not lie. He does not steal. He does not cheat. He is whole heartedly the kind of kid you see and think ‘Wow. He is going to make a difference someday.’ He is so soft spoken. He is polite. He is well spoken. A lot of it I believe comes from the possibility of him being on the ASD spectrum. My son is smart. I trust him. You really have to meet him to fully get what I’m saying. Those who have met him know exactly what I'm talking about. His character is so pure, I swear I gave birth to an angel LOL
All that said, just remember to be involved in your children’s lives. Ask them questions about what’s going on at school. Make sure they aren’t being lemmings.
Let’s end the bullying cycle, TODAY!
