My son just finished 5th grade. He’s a friendly guy with reasonably strong leadership qualities who occasionally clashes with other boys, but who has never had to deal with bullying; until this year.
At the beginning of the year, my son was trying to join in with a group of boys who apparently had been friends for a long time. Their actions didn’t make it easy for him. There was one boy in particular he wanted to hang out with. In school, this boy said that he would call us to set something up, but then he wouldn’t. Over and over he did this. My son came home all excited because “John” said he would call that night, then he wouldn’t. Sometimes John would use the proposed get together as a carrot to try to get my son to do something, and then take it away when he wouldn’t do it. (“I was going to call you to hang out, but now I’m not!” ) Relational bullying at its finest. I thought only girls did this kind of thing?
About this time, my son developed an obsession with “Call of Duty: Black Ops” which is a first person shooter video game. I am firmly opposed to them, but my husband kept trying to talk me into it. My son never mentioned it to me directly, which I thought strange if he wanted it that badly. One day, I was talking to my son, and he finally opened up to me exactly why he was so intent on getting this game. It turns out, those boys at school had told him that he couldn’t play with them because he didn’t own this graphically violent game. Are you kidding? I was shocked. But then it fit. More relational bullying. My poor son, he was just trying to fit in so these kids would like him.
I told my son that when his sister was in first grade, some girls had formed “The Justice Club.”
He asked “What’s a justice club?”
I told him it meant “You can’t be in our club unless you wear clothes from [the store] Justice.”
He said “What? That’s stupid!”
I said “Yeah, kinda like boys who say ‘you can’t be our friend unless you have this particular video game.’ ” A little light flipped on in his eyes.
Then we talked about playing with different boys in the classroom, boys who would be kind and encouraging, not friends who didn’t care if they hurt his feelings. But there weren’t any other boys with whom he wanted to play. I agreed that finding friends was hard right now because he only had the 30 kids in his class from which to choose, and that made it extra hard to find friends with whom he really clicked. But, I said, things would change next year in middle school, when his peer group would grow to include about 120 kids.
I explained that elementary school was like a fishbowl – very small; so he had to do his best to get along with everyone until the end of the year. Then next year, instead of a bowl, he would have a fish tank. High school would increase the tank to the size of a pond, giving him even more people to choose from, but still not limitless. College was more like a lake, and the real world was like an ocean. The more people he had to choose from, the easier it would be to find friends who shared his interests and made him feel happy/confident/peaceful as a person, leaving behind those who “friends” who made him feel self-conscious/diminished/frustrated/inadequate.
But right now. What to do right now. We talked about how school was only one fishbowl, and that one way to get through elementary school was to jump into different fish bowls, allowing him to make friends outside his classroom. Chess club, Lego club, and karate were all suggestions I made. We talked about how mountain biking was a good fishbowl, because although it didn’t enlarge his circle of friends, it did give him an area of life where he felt strong, confident and in control, also very important. He ultimately (reluctantly) ended up joining my daughter and I in karate, and now he thanks me every time we go.
Sometimes we get stuck in a small fishbowl and feel trapped. But that feeling is only an illusion. There are a multitude of other fishbowls out there to explore. Your kids may need your help to find them; they may even need you to push them out of one fishbowl into another. But remember, what they lack inside that bowl is a broader world perspective. They can’t get that if they remain mired in the sludge of their present situation. It’s so important to broaden their (and your) perspective, to see that this particular yucky circumstance isn’t representative of the way the world is. Get out. Go find completely new friends, totally unrelated to the ones you have now. Try new things, especially things that engage your creative side, because those will bring you peace whenever you need it in life: learn an instrument, taking singing lessons, learn painting, pottery, or glass blowing. Try new physical activities, because nurturing the body nurtures the spirit: yoga, hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking, karate. Try new spiritual activities, because ultimately, it’s the spirit that needs attention when we feel beaten down by the world. The world is HUGE! And full of unexplored variety! Don’t get trapped into thinking that there are no other options, because there always are! Always! You just need a shift in perspective to see them.
The epilogue is this: we stopped paying attention to whether John said he was going to call or not. My son played with the boys when they felt like including him, and when they didn’t, he didn’t hang around to feel excluded, he just went and played with other boys and girls. Once those boys realized that nothing they were doing was succeeding in making my son unhappy, they stopped trying. Then one day the phone rang; it was John asking if my son could come over and hang out. By not retaliating, by not giving any energy to this boy other than friendliness, my son overcame his bully, and now has a good friend.
I am so proud of him; for finding the courage to talk about what was happening to him, for taking responsibility for his own happiness and not giving it away to be trammelled by others, and by sticking to the high road throughout the whole ordeal. I also feel pretty good about how I handled it as well. I realized this was my son’s test, not mine. And my initial mama bear reaction aside, I knew those boys weren’t evil. Clueless maybe, but not evil. We were fortunate. Everything turned out for the best.
And because it turned out so well, I thought I’d share this, in the hopes that it might help other kids in the same situation. Good luck.
Living the struggles of thoughtful, deliberate parenting 