You Don’t Want To Fuck With Mommy, ‘Cause Mommy, She’ll Fucking Kill You.
6 is an incredibly annoying age. Never before (okay, I’m lying: 3 was just as hard. Okay, it was harder. Ew.) have my feelings towards Ben vaccilate so wildly between absolute irritation and utter pride. He’s a wonderful child, (finally) developing right on schedule, but sometimes his insistance upon interjecting into every single thing we are talking about drives me up a wall. Ditto with the know-it-all-ness, cute about half the time, makes me want to drive my fingernails into my eyesockets, squish them around, the other half of the time.
That said, he’s MY kid, and don’t NOBODY fuck with him. Not unless they want his thoroughly unwashed and reeking mother (who desperately needs a haircut) to pound their ass.
It appears that along with the transition to the first grade comes the requisite bully.
My son is being bullied and I am about ready to go and kick some second grade ass.
(both my husband and my brother were the brunt of many bullies throughout their childhood, so I am a bit sensitive to it. I myself never had to deal with it, as the people who didn’t like me generally left me alone so as to avoid my wrath. Truth be told, I find it a bit hilarious when someone doesn’t like me.)
Ben’s an odd duck, that’s for sure, but he’s one of the sweetest and most gentle people I have ever met (that’s got to be Dave’s influence. It’s not from me, that’s for sure). A bigger heart is hard to find, I mean, this is the kid, who as I am putting him to bed each night, tells me that I can “get him up to help with the baby if I need him.” He’s a truly delightful person and it’s killing me that some punk ass kid is making him feel badly.
I’m aware that being picked on is a normal part of childhood, because kids are assholes, but I’m not ready to have someone be terrible to my child just yet (yeah, will I ever be?). I want nothing more than to shield him from this part of the world as long as possible, and it’s becoming apparent that this is not an option. As much as I’d like to go to school, sit behind him, and punch this kid in the balls, I’m pretty sure the teachers would probably 1) notice and 2) call the police complaining about assault.
What do I do here, The Internet? What would YOU do? Has this happened to you as a child? What did you want your parents to do that they did or didn’t do on your behalf?
I was never picked on. I’m not sure why not. I was nerdy. I do remember having a few things said to me which I brushed off. Maybe it was that they didn’t get a rise out of me, so they thought I wasn’t worth the trouble. But my thought is that if he has the tools to deal with it himself, he’ll be better off for it. This will not be the last time he has to deal with a nasty person in his life and it will not be to his advantage to have had his mommy intervene – it probably would be fine to do so this time, but you know, later on it won’t help him and it’s hard to know when to stop.
What those tools are? I suppose depends on the type of bullying going on. Are they making fun of him? Can he fight back with humor? Is he reacting in such a way that makes them keep doing it? Can he control his reaction? Water off a duck’s back. Is it physical? Are the teachers not aware of it? Is a loud “DON’T TOUCH/PUSH/POKE ME!” enough to get the attention of an adult who can then step in? My husband says he was taught not to start any fights, but if he found himself in one, that he needed to be the one to finish it. I’m not sure that’s the right approach either.
I’m so with you on this, Becks.
Hire a 4th grader to handle Ben’s lightweight and knock the snot out of the 2nd grader who thinks it’s cool to pick on someone just because he is special. And I mean special, my pretty, as in Awesome beyond mere mortals, kind, gentle, handsome, and comes from a danm good gene pool, at least on his Mom’s side. I figure if You give a 4th grader $10 all will be good, maybe another $5 hush money to keep him quiet, better yet, HIRE a 4th grade GIRL….how kick ass would that be?????
yeah, I’m a real grown up and I don’t care one bit for people fucking with my kid either, even if they are 7 years old, we gotta draw the line.
xo
I was SEVEARLY bullied through most of my years in school. Having been through it, I think I can honestly say there is nothing you can do that wont probably make it worse. Any parental/authority figures intervention will be interpreted as weekness by the bullies. I know its hard, but eventually it will probably pass.
The key, I think, would be helping Ben manage the emotions that come with being bullied. In hindsight, thats about the only thing I would have asked my parents for. They really had no idea what to do and chose to do nothing, and fell back on the cliche of ‘just ignore it and they will stop’. All ignoring it does is force them to kick it up a notch until you cant… In my case, thats lead to some attempted ass kickings.
Being bullied taught me the lesson that not everyone (and in fact, very few people) are going to actually like you, and that around every corner there is some schmuck who is going to make you drop your books in the hallway. Learning to get around these schmucks and shrugg off their abuse (and even learn to laugh about it) is really the key. I am 34 years old, and still run into bullies every day. I dont think there is really any difference in the complexity of social interactions among children than there are adults…children are just more honest about it.
If things escallate into physical abuse, then I would absolutely (obviously) get teachers and the offenders parents involved. Aside from that, help Ben manage it.
I was not bullied. I was not especially popular, but I was always calm enough to say things like, “You want what? Seriously, what kind of asshole are you? Go away. I’m reading my book.”
Bones, on the other hand, was bullied pretty badly and takes the issue very, very seriously, though he’s pretty defeatest about it overall. He’s an odd one: he will walk away time and time again, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not afraid to hit back, and when he does, that’s when you need to look out.
Has this kid focused in on Bean specifically, or is he just a general asshole? If it’s focused on The Bean, I would then focus back on him and teach him how to fight back, words or fists. If he’s just a general asshole, then tell Bean to ignore him. He’ll find some other kid to pick on.
All that aside, I would DEFINITELY have a conversation with his teacher, and politely but firmly express your concern. Also, express your concern that direct attention will exacerbate the problem, but you bringing it up to her will cause her to keep an extra eye out and bust the little fucker at recess. Let HER deal with the parents.
I, also, never really had a problem with being bullied. I’m sure that kids called me names every now and again, but don’t recall it going much further than the Welch-Belch or Welch’s Grape Juice plays on my last name.
I do, however, recall a time when I had written the tyical “Will you go out with me – check yes or no” note to a crush in the 4th grade. Not only did he turn me down, but he read the note out loud on the bus ride home for the whole bus to hear.
I was humiliated, and my Mom let me stay home from school the next day to give things a chance to blow over. I don’t think I will ever forget that for as long as I live. I think sometimes that just giving your kid a little understanding can make the bad times hurt a little less.
I had an issue with being picked on in elementary school, specifically about my weight, which I never really understood. I wasn’t any bigger than the bitches that were calling me fat. I was actually a bit smaller than some of them. I would try to fight back and got my ass handed to me a couple of times. In 4th grade, all the 5th grade girls hated me cuzz I was a cousin to one of them and the girl didn’t want me to be related to her, so they all set out to make my life hell. That all changed in junior high, though. Some guy tried to say that he’d had sex with me in 7th grade and I freaked the fuck out. I was 13 for shit sake! I wanted to punch him, but since I didn’t want to get kicked out of school, I punched my locker and left a HUGE dent in it and then I screamed at him about what an asshole he was and said something about if we had actually had sex, I wanted to be present next time so I could tell him to his face how small his cock was. After that, kids were pretty afraid to piss me off for some reason.
Alex hasn’t dealt with it too much. I think it’s cuzz his class size is so small. He’ll come home some days and tell me that the kids are being mean to him, but for the most part they all get along.
I have no idea what you could do that wouldn’t make it worse for Ben. Tony’s completely right when he says that it’ll get worse if there’s any inkling that you’ve done or said something, which sucks ass cuzz someone needs to be made aware.
There was one year when I had a similar issue. I solved the problem by moving to a new city and a new school. Probably not too practical, huh?
I think it only makes things worse when parents or authority figures get involved. I have never really been bullied, but it seems to work better when the kid somehow sticks up for himself.
I clearly know that was no help. But I really just wanted to say how cute I thought it was that Ben offered to get with you and the baby in the middle of the night.
sheesh! Bullies suck & I am sorry that some turd is taking out his horrible home life on your kid.
Since I plan on totally being a meddlesome parent I would put in a call to the school to see if they have a bully policy. You know, “leave no child behind” and “Immediate flogging to bullies.”
xo
Calliope reminded me of something–your kid’s school closely monitors his lunch, but does nothing about bullies? There’s something seriously wrong there.
As an update, to anyone bored enough to read down this far:
I called Ben’s school, spoke with his teacher and was informed that they have had not one but TWO meetings with this child’s parents about this matter.
Thankfully, it appears as though they’re taking this seriously.