Bully For You — and Me!

Friday, September 16, 2005

Page 11

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Bully For You — and Me!

By J’AMY PACHECO

I haven’t come across too many bullies in my life. As a child, I think I blended in enough that nobody really bothered me. Either that, or I was strange enough that they kept their distance. Whatever the reason, I don’t recall having been bullied by anybody.

Historically, my daughter has been equally fortunate. Because she is a sheltered only child, I worried initially that aggressive children would take advantage of her in school.

On her first day in a “Mommy-n-Me” preschool class, she followed the rules for snack time, washing her hands and lining up nicely for food. When a boy cut in front of her in the line, my then-three-year-old simply stared at him, her mouth wide open in shock that someone would be so bold — and rude.

But “real” preschool and kindergarten soon followed, and she learned to stand up for herself. She developed an almost obsessive sense of right and wrong, and wouldn’t hesitate to tell on someone who broke the rules. I thought she was a tattletale; her teacher praised her as a “good citizen.” I’m sure the reality lies somewhere between the two.

Last week, she started her fourth grade year at a new school. It’s not new only to her — the school just opened, so all 80 students have been tossed together for the first time.

At the end of the first day, she greeted me excitedly. “I LOVE THIS SCHOOL!” she exclaimed, bubbling with details of her day. But on the way home the next day, she was unusually quiet. I thought she was just overtired — until she burst into tears in the back seat.

Between sobs and in a voice that bordered on hysteria, she told me she’d been called “stupid” and an “idiot” repeatedly. I was startled enough to pull off the road and calm both of us down before questioning her.

Her class combines fourth and fifth grade students, and she ended up with tablemates that included a fifth grade boy. After nixing each child’s suggestion for a team name, the boy called the children “idiots,” she reported. According to my weeping daughter, he focused his name-calling on her, adding “stupid” to his repertoire.

At our house, “stupid” and “idiot” are “ugly” words that aren’t used. Being called either was, in her view, as bad as being called something much worse, and she was devastated.

Another mother called me at home that night to relate a story that her son told — a story that corroborated my daughter’s. She told me that the boy had picked on her son the day before, and said she intended to talk to the teacher about the older boy’s behavior.

The next day, I spoke to the teacher — for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect — and she advised me she was aware of what happened and would move the children around. Unfortunately, my daughter ended up at the only mixed-grade table, two seats away from the bully. While I didn’t understand the teacher’s rationale, I urged my daughter to give it a chance.

Over the weekend, I tried to give my daughter advice in dealing with this bully. She can be bossy, and acknowledged her responses to his aggressiveness may have made her a target.

She immediately rejected my suggestion she give him a new pencil as a gift and the “Kill-em’-with-kindness” theory behind it. We practiced appropriate, calm responses to name-calling, and I extracted a promise that she would try to talk things out with him before resorting to tattling.

It was difficult leaving her at school Monday morning to deal with the situation. I dreaded how she might react if he started bullying again, and I wondered what would have to be done to stop him. While I wanted to demonstrate my intimidating, “Hey, kid!” voice on the boy, I knew it was time for her to learn to handle the situation on her own, if she could.

After school, she bounded into the car with excitement. She related what had to have been every detail of her day, but said nothing about the bully. Finally, with some hesitation, I brought up his name.

“Oh, he was really nice,” she said, adding that the teacher advised the class she had taken care of “the bully situation.”

“I think I’m going to like him,” she said.

I don’t know what happened to change the boy’s behavior so quickly, but it seems to have worked. My fledgling peacemaker never even had a chance to try out her new bully-be-gone skills.

With any luck, she won’t need to.