Remember how I was wondering whether joining that other school board was a good decision? Well, after having six hours of meetings in the last seven days, I think I have my answer.
So classic parenting scenario to write about today. #1 comes home from school and tells me some kid in her class is bothering her. I brace myself, ready to hear a horror story of schoolyard taunting, when she tells me this kid who sits in her "pod"* is being rude to her and her friend. OK, I think. So she's not being singled out and being made the class pariah, so my blood pressure drops a few points, and I can halt my plan to corner this kid during the book fair and scare the ever-loving shit out of him. Apparently, this kid is telling #1 and her pal their writing is sloppy, or, after a harmless itch, accusing them of picking their noses, basically, general assholery. I breath a sigh of relief when she tells me he pretty much bothers all the girls in the class. I feel better, now what do I tell her to do?
My oldest has never really been teased all that much, but after five years of school, obviously, this isn't the first she has had to deal with a mean kid. When she was very little, I would recommend PC responses to rude behavior such as, "That's mean and I'm not going to play with you", which were met with varying degrees of success. As she got older, I began to suggest more aggressive comebacks, in proportion to the aggression of the offender. I even gave her permission to use the "S word" and tell mean kids to "shut up".
The problem is mean kids really don't give a shit. No matter how witty your comeback these little jerks have a pretty thick skin. It's like they have blessed with such a positive self-concept, nothing gets through. Meanwhile, my kid, like her mother at that age, is wounded by the smallest slight and can't process the fact that someone would act that way. I can practically see her stammering, trying to come up with a remark after she has been stung.
So, in this most recent scenario, I, again, went through all my tried and true bits of advice like "ignore him", and "tell him to shut up", when I had an epiphany. I remembered my own failed childhood attempts at bravado, that ended in mockery. Dickheads can sense your discomfort at being confrontational and your efforts only result in more harassment, which is exactly what #1 told me is happening with this little jerk when she does try to stand up to him. So I decided to level with her. I told her she could try all the things I told her to do, and if it ever got really bad she could talk to her teacher or I would (which she is loathe to have happen, not wanting to be a tattletale), but, I confessed to her, in the end, some people are just jerks. Until they see the error in their ways, and are ready to stop being jerks, you just have to put up with them the best you can. I wanted to go on to tell her, some people never change and TJ** will most likely go on to be the asshole holding the tap at a frat party, and will return to their class reunion a fat, bloated, divorced sales trader, still convinced the sun shines out of his ass, but life will teach her that lesson. I just didn't want to send her away with some pat answer thinking I had solved her problem. I wanted her to know I knew how frustrating this situation was and I was hear to listen.
Sometimes in parenting, the best thing to do is commiserate. I told her stories about my 5th grade nemesis Vito, who mocked a sweatshirt that was my particular favorite, that I refused to stop wearing. I told her the same useless advice her grandmother had given me. I think it made her feel better knowing she wasn't the only one and that she had been heard. Because, really, in the end, that is what any of us want when we complain about an unsolvable problem, whether it's a difficult co-worker or a husband who can't put his dirty underwear in the hamper. So why should kids be treated any differently? You wouldn't want your friend, when you bitch to her about your skid-mark boxer problem, to say, "Just tell him to stop, OK?" You want her to tell you, "Ugh, that sucks", and for her to share a domestic misery of her own. I know it's different with kids, that they are looking for answers, but when there are none, relating to the suckage of having to sit with a jerk-off until school ends can ease some of the pain.
Besides, he'll get his comeuppance. Being such a joiner at the school, I am the pizza day and ice cream day mom. You know who's getting all the small slices and the melted Chipwhich now, don't you?
*When did sitting in groups become the norm? I did it myself as a teacher, but damn, some personal space is nice. Would you want to sit facing someone all day long? Sometimes you just want to stare at the back of some kid's head and space out.
**All names have been changed to protect myself. I could give a shit about this kid.
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