Manage the Bullies

My oldest started Kindergarten this year. He was so excited! He just knew that he was going to “get smarter” while he was there. “Even smarter than Dad.” 🙂 He was going to make new friends and have a great time. And I told him I thought so too. And I meant it.

But I was also feeling fear. I was afraid that some things in school might be hard. I was afraid that he wouldn’t make friends, or that he might get bullied. I don’t like to see my children get hurt. Especially when it is their soul that is hurting.

While I was experiencing all of these fears, and some of them were justified (kids can be really mean), I kept them to myself. I didn’t want him to start doubting himself or to think that he will  get bullied, and that school will be hard, because Mom said so. I wanted him to keep his optimistic spirit and encourage him to look forward with hope and excitement.

The world is mean. It tends to make you feel that you are not good enough. And then when you are good enough, it discounts all the work you put in, it belittles your accomplishment, and then it starts picking at you for something else.

So, the first day my son came home and said that someone was making fun of him on the bus I was ready to go to war for my kid. I wanted to hold him and tell him that he was perfect and that they were wrong and that those kids didn’t know anything. I wanted to make it all better for him. And then I wanted to teach that kid a lesson.

But the truth is that I’m just his mom. I believe that what I think of him is important, but what is most important is what he thinks of himself. He needs to know what he thinks, and mine is just another opinion that is not his own.

Over dinner we discussed what had happened and how he felt about it. I asked, “So do you think what they said is true?”

“Not really.”

“I don’t think so either. So, what are you going to do if they make fun of you again?”

The purpose of this question was to discover what he was thinking. In this way I could help to guide and direct his reaction for next time. For example, if he told me that he was going to punch them the next time it happened, then I would know that we needed a discussion about the consequences of that choice. It would also give us a chance to discuss other, less violent answers.

But he surprised me. He said, “I’ll just do the same thing. I’ll ignore them and say a prayer in my heart.”

I was speechless. I thought that I had the chance to teach my child about coping with bullies. But instead he taught me a lesson better than the one I had for him.

Knowing what we think of ourselves and having self-confidence is important. But what is even more important is knowing what God thinks of us.

The world is full of bullies. And they don’t go away after you graduate. Just today on Facebook I read story after story of people who are bullied on social media. People were mean. And hurtful. It made my heart hurt for those people who were doing their best and being attacked for it.

God knows who we are. He knows what our true intentions are. He knows that we are imperfect and we make mistakes. He is merciful. And He is so much more forgiving of those mistakes and imperfections than the world is.

Trying to be a good parent is hard. We all make mistakes and wish we could undo them. If the world finds out we have a fault it will attack. And if it can’t find a fault it will make one up! The world has opposing opinions on everything! It tends to qualify everything as either the right way to do it, or the wrong way to do it. And no matter which we choose, it’s wrong anyway.

If you ask the world what it thinks of your parenting, it will have an opinion. A very loud opinion. And it can drown out our own if we let it.

My son taught me a lesson that I hope to pass on to my other kids. There is one opinion of us that is better, more true, and more important than the world’s and even our own. God’s. And, with a prayer in my heart, that’s the one I try to live up to.