The boy has become an even bigger target for bullies, and it has moved into physical altercation territory. Fang explains.
Feel free to return here to The Clutter Museum to offer suggestions based on your own experiences as a child or parent. Your stories and solutions are appreciated!
Image by Barnaby Wasson, and used under a Creative Commons license
Such a heartbreaking thing for a parent to watch. Has administration been involved at all? It’s such a hard line to toe, to know when to cross. My 10 year old has been dealing with some bullying due to the fact that he’d rather be writing scripts/drawing/singing/dancing than playing football in the field with the other boys. He’s also on the smaller side, which doesn’t help. “Dude, are you gay?” is what he’s been getting. So far he’s just been laughing it off. But it breaks my heart and I actually decided this weekend to contact the admin of the school. No child should have to deal with that.
Thanks for your comment, Mistie. We had a conference with the kindergarten teacher yesterday and she was very helpful. She’s being very proactive about talking to all her students about this kind of behavior, and she made a really useful list for Lucas about how to react to such incidents. She also made a list of kids who have a similar personality and interests and said she’d introduce him to them and encourage them to play together. I’m cautiously optimistic. . .
I’m sorry your son is dealing with something similar. Good luck with your conversations with administrators!
We dealt with bullies from an early age too. I did not approach it very well, I taught her to fight back verbally and laugh at their taunts in private. The things I taught her to say were just plain mean, but then we weren’t dealing with physical violence, the psychological was just as bad though. It is heartbreaking that your sweet boy is a target, you are moving in the right direction.
This just breaks my heart. I read this post 2 days ago and have been thinking about all of you as we’ve been away from computers and whizzing down the interstate on a quick grandparent visit. Sounds like the teacher is very smart, trying both to address the bad behavior of other kids and trying to smooth L’s entry into a good social network. That seems like a good balance, and I hope it has a quick payoff. It is so hard to watch and wait while our kids navigate these difficult social settings, isn’t it?
Sounds like you guys are being fabulously proactive and thoughtful about it, as usual. I love that you’re assuring him that it’s not his fault while helping him build confidence. From what I remember of my own childhood as a highly sensitive kid and a bully magnet, those seem like good choices, offered repeatedly and in tandem. I’m sorry you and Lucas are going through this.
By the way, Lucas sounds like an awesome little guy. I’m not surprised, of course, but he just sounds like a real treasure.
I hope things are better. I’m stopping by to say that I have no idea what happened to my blogroll (I should leave blogger, that’s for sure), but I wasn’t getting your posts there!
I’ve been reading (and commenting) on Fang’s, so I guess I’m not so out of the loop. I’m thinking that I’ll have to read several months of your archives in order to catch up, though… oh well… I’m glad I found that out (from looking at someone else’s blog roll).