| Sometimes the moms who see their kids as the biggest victims have the biggest bullies. Careful that you’re not the grown adult causing trauma to a child, not to mention teachers, administrators and others in the community. |
The moms have bullies? What? How do the moms traumatize teachers and administrators? What on earth? |
I've seen this too. The moms who are the most ferocious about protecting their kids and the first to announce that others are being mean to their kid, are so often the ones raising the actual bullies. Guess what, the other kids are all yelling at your kid to go away at recess not because they're bullying him, but because your kid has spent the past 5 minutes spitting on kids shoes and cursing under his breath at anyone who beats him in a recess game. It's not every time.... but it's enough times to make me question when a mom storms the school accusing multiple kids of bullying her child, and I usually ask my kid about that child to make sure that child isn't actually the one being nasty. |
But you're being just as bad! Worse, because you're playing detective and relying on reports of bystanders who might not know the context. In fact in the situation you describe, the kid likely to get labeled as "mean" by other kids is most likely to be the one yelling at the spitting/cursing kid to go away. Because the yelling is loud and direct, and the spitting/cursing may have been done quietly or under the radar. So your kid goes home and tells you the yelling kid was "bullying" someone innocent (they don't know about the spitting or cursing which happened when they weren't looking and was intentionally quiet) and you take it at face value and decide yelling kid is "nasty" without understanding the situation at all. Oh and here's one I've personally seen -- then yelling kid starts getting harassed by other kids who stick up for the kid who spit and cursed at him, and they gang up (thinking they are confronting a "bully") by calling him names (meanie, bully, etc.). They think they are sticking up for a peer but they are actually ostracizing a kid for sticking up for himself. Be very, very careful with the tales your kid comes home with of playground conflicts. You are right the victims and perpetrators are sometimes the reverse of who they first appear to be. |
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My kids have never been bullied where it’s a consistent daily thing but kids have been mean.
When they tell me about it I usually agree the kid is being a huge jerk, check in to see if my kid feels ok, and move on from it. My oldest is 10 and I have all boys so I expect I haven’t really gotten to the hard part yet. |
wow what a mess |
Badda bing badda boom |
Yeah, that's a lot. |
Go to bed crazy |
No that was a good post. The moms who gossip with their kids about who is good and who is "nasty" are part of the problem. A lot of parents don't understand playground politics, especially just hearing about it second hand. You should take the stuff your kids tell you about other kids with a grain of salt. |
The worst is when bullied child’s mom creates a long-term problem with a victim narrative. For example, two kids don’t like each other. A fight breaks out almost weekly as a result. One mom ignores it but the other says he’s being bullied. She starts trying to “help.” Talks to the teachers. Teachers keep an eye out but they don’t see a victim. Mom gets even more upset. Maybe she tries a different approach by talking to the kid about something like likability. In the kid world, it’s still weird. Eventually kids who weren’t even in the original fight start getting put off. Then mom starts saying the whole class is a problem. If the entire class or grade is a problem, the child was probably not a victim. The problem was the child was an equal aggressor whose mom took her kid’s feelings personally without thinking of any other kid’s feelings. |
Agree that mom is a problem but also if there are two kids who don't get along to the point that other kids are getting put off by all the fighting, why the heck aren't teachers intervening to separate those kids? Like forget victims/bullies, people over-fixate on those labels because they are afraid of admitting their kids are not perfect, but if two kids are just oil and water it's really not that hard to just reinforce at school "hey stay away from Larlo you two don't get along" until they leave each other alone. Then you also don't distract/annoy all the other kids who are getting along fine. |
Many playground challenges could be managed better. This issue is about parents who feel their own kid’s pain deeply. Parents who are willing to get involved on behalf of all children are different than parents who only champion their own child’s pain over every other child’s. |
Nailed it. |
I don't want parents getting involved "on behalf of all children" though. That's not the role of the parent. It's the teacher/school's job to be managing whole class or whole school dynamics, including an ongoing playground dispute between two or more kids that is pulling in other kids and which the kids can't resolve on their own. And I'm okay with a parent who is mostly just focused on their own kid, as long as they aren't interfering at school. That's your job as a parent. You don't need to parent all the kids, just your kid. The problem is when the parent who is focused on their own kid comes into the school and thinks the entire community needs to bend to her will in order to address her kid's issues. Especially when she has a warped view of the problem that she's trying to impose on everyone. But a parent who is just focused on and supporting their kid at home? That's fine. That's what parents are for. |