Image Credit: Safe Network

Perhaps we think our children are simply fighting back, or learning to stick up for themselves.

Perhaps we think kids will be kids and shrug off something that may seem like no big deal.

Perhaps we can’t imagine our child being the one who hurts someone else, and may or may not do it deliberately.

There may be many reasons we ignore early signs of bullying, but none of them are acceptable.  Without addressing mean behavior early, children learn that bullying is in some way normal and those that are bullied learn fear and loneliness and even at some point, self loathing.

Remembering

I remember being in 5th and 6th grade and being the girl “out” for a day or a week.  There were a few leaders of the pack and I suppose they chose whose turn it would be and for the one chosen to be out, life was miserable.  It was as if you had no friends.  The girls talked about you, made things up, said things to boys….and I, we, said nothing.  In fact, I am ashamed to say that when I was not out, I was confused and scared and did not stick up for other girls when it was their turn to be excluded.  I didn’t know what to do, and at that time a lot of adults said girls will be girls.  Soon this shall pass.

For some girls, it did not pass.  I remember girls transferring out of school for being mocked.  I know girls who tried to take their lives.  Bullying was the cause.

I remember the boys who got pushed around too.  For them, in my school, it was less an in or out thing.   Those who couldn’t cut it physically just seemed out.  For good.  There were some physical fights, but more, it was just a general lack of acceptance that I am sure broke their hearts.

Reflecting

Looking back on the childhood bullying I saw or experienced, I am thankful that for me, it went away.  I also look back further in my mind and know it started far before I felt it.  While we cannot always nip things in the bud, with bullying of any kind we must be vigilant.  Ignoring warning signs of your child being a bully or being bullied is simply not okay.

Yesterday I became one of the millions of people (5.7 million now) who watched 8th grader Jonah Mawry’s Video on YouTube.  This young man shared with the world the pain he experienced since his youth and the physical hard he caused himself as he contemplated suicide at a young age because he was mocked and hated at school and felt like he hated himself.  Then he shared that his life would not end and showed his last index cards reading “I am not going anywhere.  I have a million reasons to be here”.

Those million reasons and the bullying that almost moved him to take his life moved me to write about my own children.  We all have a million reasons to be here and should never be made to feel like we are not good enough, not pretty enough, not straight enough or not anything enough to live.

Reacting

I wrote a post in March of 2010 titles That Mean Girl is Mine in which I shared my then 3 year old was being very mean and excluding one specific girl at school.  It broke my heart to hear about it and to write about it, but I felt it was important.  Sophia has a strong personality and one that leans towards being a leader.  Leadership brings power over other people and in that nugget lies my fear.  Any power should be used for good, but we all know how easily cliques are formed and how very nasty they can be.  I simply will not allow actions of exclusivity to pass as anything other than unacceptable in my home.

Last week I overheard Sophia telling her brother about a club at school when he asked her why some people were mean to him on the playground.  Miles is 3.  Sophia said she could help him with whoever was being mean to him because she was in the “Bad Girl’s Club”.  He asked her why a certain girl was always nice to him and she told him that if they told her to mean, she would, because she always listened to them.  She proceeded to reveal who was in the club and that they planned things to do to people.  I was in shock.

I called her in and asked her to explain the club to me.  She blushed a deep and revealing red. I asked her how she would feel if someone was mean to her and she started to cry.  Thank God, she started to cry.  She said the club was new and that they didn’t actually do anything.  She said she did not make up the name.  She said it was not her idea.  It was no joke, I said, to make other people feel unloved.  Still red, she admitted she knew that, and said she was very sorry.

I asked her to tell me everything and I told her we needed to talk to the other parents and to her teacher.  She asked me not to tell Daddy.  I told her that we could both talk to Daddy and to her teacher.  I called the other mother that I knew and talked to her teacher the next morning.  Sophia’s teacher talked to the girl’s that day.  We talked with my husband later in the evening.

After speaking with her teacher, it became clear that this was not Sophia’s idea and that she did not plan the one attack the girls executed.  They chose people and attacked them with leaves.  You may giggle, but it all starts somewhere.  These girls are 4 and 5.  It doesn’t matter to me whether or not she did that one thing.  The fact that she would be in such a club warranted a serious response.

Now, there is no club.  All clubs in the 4′s class must include all kids or there will be no more clubs.  I guess they have a thing with clubs right now.

I thought for the moment, this was behind us.  The bullying stuff.

Then Miles became upset.  I picked him up from school and he said that he was sad on the playground.  He said there was a boy, the same boy who tried to pull his clothes off him on Halloween, who still tried to pull his pants down and also pushed him and his 2 best friends.  He said he got pushed down a lot.  Most revealing, I asked him if he was friends with this boy, as that can sometimes tell me if this is a playground thing.  Miles likes everyone.  He said they are not friends, that this boy is mean to him.  I did not leave carpool until I had spoken with a teacher.  I will talk to Miles’ teacher tomorrow.  You see, Miles could easily be bullied.  He is open-hearted and kind and not aggressive at all.  He does not thrive on competition and gets upset easily.  He could easily be picked on.  I will not let my son think I don’t care.  I will not assume this is a little kid thing and ignore it.  I have to address it.

I have to not only teach my children but protect them when I can.

Resolution

Whatever age your children are, please consider this an area of immense importance.  Bullying can go unnoticed by adults because it becomes so hidden in schools.  Listen to your kids if they still talk to you.  Let them know how much they are loved.  Speak to your kids about bullying from a young age.  Share the real value of kindness and inclusive behavior and model it at all times.

We need to do all we can to love our kids and show love to others.

Then, we need to work on preventing childhood bullying by teaching our children it is absolutely not okay to be mean physically or emotionally to others.  We need to teach our kids that people are different and that is good.  We need to prevent bullying when we can by being pro-active and responding to situations as soon as they develop.  Talk to your kids in words they understand.  Everyone knows what hurt feelings feel like.  These conversations aren’t always easy, but they need to be had.

Please intervene.  Whether it is my child or your child or a stranger, please get involved when you see or hear of bullying.  It is never okay.  Please understand that in bullying, kids often cannot work it out by themselves because there is an imbalance of power.  A dominant adult must step in – or guess who wins?

Be vigilant – follow up.  Like a hawk, I will keep my eye on this.  We will talk to our kids about their days, we will ask questions, we will care about their friendships and relationships.  I will talk to my kids and I will talk to their teachers.  When I hear something, even if it does not involve my kids, I will mention it to a teacher if it involves bullying.  This is not prying or tattling.  It is protecting.

It may not be a resolution but I resolved to fight childhood bullying with everything I have.  As my kids get older, it will only get harder.  As much as possible, I want them so see those million reasons to be here all the time and have the strength to see them even when things are hard.  I want them to see that others have a million reasons too.

Parenting is not easy and bullying may be one of the hardest issues we face.  I resolve to be on a campaign for nice with my family.  To show it, to talk about it, to reward it.

As I said before, make room at the the table.  Include others.  Be a friend.  This never goes out of style.

Here’s to acceptance, kindness and friendship.

Please share your own thoughts on raising kind children and dealing with the issue of childhood bullying.  It is real and terrifying what happens as our kids get older.  I would welcome any advice or comments.

Also, I do not ever ask, but please share this post.  Put it on Facebook, Stumble It, Tweet it….anything.  There are just too many parents who let this go too long.  It is critical that we help our children grow into respectful, kind, open-hearted people of the world.  Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Manners: Nina Style

Is encouraging our kids to become “little ladies and gentleman” an outdated concept or something not pushed enough by parents today? Given the way I used to mock my mother when I was a teenager, she won’t believe I think parents should teach manners often and as early as possible.

In the dating world my mom remembered, boys came inside the house and spoke to the parents before every single date. They opened doors, paid for an evening out, and generally called girls on the phone and not the other way around. By the time I was interested in boys (I was in high school and college from 1991-1999), it was common for girls/women to insist on splitting the check and even for some women to genuinely feel “offended” by the notion of having a door held open for her.

I’ll never forget how my mom grimaced at the idea of her daughters calling boys. I can only imagine what she thinks of the way young people communicate through texts and Facebook today and the general lack of “ladylike behavior” (as she would call it) that young women use when presenting themselves to the public. Of course she had rules for gentlemen as well. When a guy would pick me up for a date, even if it was a boyfriend I’d dated for over a year, she insisted he come to the door. One time when a date honked the horn and waited for me in the driveway, she guarded the door and wouldn’t let me out until he figured out to pick me up inside. It took him a long time to realize what he had to do, which begs the question: What were his parents teaching him about how to treat a lady? Or what were they not teaching him?

Now that I’m a parent, I appreciate my mom’s “old-fashioned” values. The crux of the issue is that good manners are not passed on to the next generation via osmosis.

One example of manners gone astray: Over the years I’ve had numerous children in and out of my house for play dates. Some kids say please, thank you, and no thank you. Some not only skip those basic manners, but literally stomp into my kitchen and demand a snack or even say, “What do you guys have?” I’ve seen some kids open and close my refrigerator repeatedly like a teenager might (my oldest is not even seven nor are his friends).

Believe me, I’m not judging the parents. Despite the constant discussions my husband and I have with the kids (even the 2-year-old) about good manners, I’ve seen my four-year-old walk into the pantry at a friend’s house and start looking through the shelves. Our almost-seven-year-old has never seen a napkin he intends to use and constantly interrupts adults. Nevertheless, I don’t think the fight for good manners is either hopeless or pointless. As they get older, we hope our kids will hear our message that certain behaviors are rude and unbecoming. We use the terms “lady” and “gentlemen” with our kids all the time. I find myself saying potentially “old-fashioned” statements like “ladies first” or “a gentlemen opens the door for his sisters.”

I’d love to hear other parents’ feelings on kids’ manners today. Do kids seem ruder because parents are not pushing manners enough? Do the expectations or lack of expectations at schools contribute to the problem? Do you think I’m crazy to consider the state of manners a “problem” in the first place? Looking forward to the discussion!

Now it’s your turn! Link up your post on the word MANNERS anytime this week and include the badge above linked back to this site. The code is available on the sidebar. Please visit a few other posts and show some love. If you are tweeting about your own post or a post you found and love, please use the #whatsyourword hashtag so we can all follow along. If you are seeing the series for the first time, check out the What’s Your Word page for a little more information. If you have a word you know you want to be all yours, just shoot me an email to be the featured post for the week.

Show me your Manners, leave a lovely comment and get ready for another round.

Next Week’s Word is Change!

I think this is perfect word for everyone, but for mother’s especially.  My kids changed me forever.  My life changed forever.   Some of those changes were (and are) not easy.  Write about what you feel or post a pic or a vlog!  I love to hear your voices and see those faces!

Now Link Up for What’s Your Word? The Manners Edition!

Then I read the article and realized again that Facebook is anything but simple.  The 26 year old majillionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that after talking to teens who told him they rarely use email and communicate through texting, online chats and Facebook, he started thinking that email was showing its age.  The new Facebook Messages is like a huge communications conglomerate, bringing together email, chat and text messages at your new @facebook.com address.    It sees all.

I looked at the Facebook site page on the new Messages platform and have to say if I was a teenager I would be all over this.  Basically Facebook is going to link up everything you do with all the people in your life on Facebook and pull them together into one all encompassing history with that person.  If you and I email, chat or text I can see it all together in Facebook in my “conversation” with that person or group.  It is crazy unified, yo.

And a little scary.  Facebook already has over 500 million users and grows by hundreds of thousands each day.  It is a behemoth.  While I know some people are private on Facebook, most people are pretty darn public, including me.  I am not half so public as most of the teens who are using it but giving Facebook control of all my messaging, feelings, thoughts…my entire historical ”conversations” with each person…that’s a little freaky.

But freaky or not, I requested an invitation and will try it out as soon as they let me.  I will let them even further into my life.  I already have kids.  I feel a lot older than Mr. Zuckerman, who at 26 feels old compared to the teens he speaks to for market research and that I will one day have. 

I am old enough to have kids and be able to envision them being teenagers.  I prefer to envision them getting married and giving me grandbabies to cuddle and skipping the teen years but I know they will come.    And I will be freaking out.

So, as I see these new technological developments and hear how they will be the only thing our kids know, I think twice before passing them by.  If my kids might use it, I want to know how it works.  I don’t want to be any further behind my kids than I will naturally be in terms of technological advances in socialization.  I feel like as a parent I have to keep as “with-it” as possible with all this stuff.

So I will message with Facebook and jump on other bandwagons that seem likely to appeal to kids but I will still avoid MySpace like the plague and try to keep my kids from touching it too, if it is still around.

Do you try to stay on top of technology?  Are you letting your kids experiment with all the new developments in communication?  I know there has been a lot of talk about Facebook and young children in the blogosphere lately.  So…where do you stand?

Will I be messaging with you?

Sure hope so.  I promise I am not scary and will be careful not to say anything snarky ever that will be saved forever in Facebook.

Sophie's Mean Face

Sophia talks about the new girlall the time. She wants her to be the new BFF and come to her tea party. It is going to be Sophia, one old friend and the new girl. Turns out that means her other friend is out. Literally – Sophia told her that the empty seat their table was not for her – she was out. Only room for 3. Sophie actually laid herself over the chair. She lost her time in the gym and sat with the teacher. I almost lost my lunch.

WTF? I was instantly transported back to Heathers, back to Molly Ringwald, back to Mean Girls. I was immediately feeling the nausea I can still remember from my youth.  I always had a lot of friends, but we moved a lot, and I was always one of the first ones out when the girls got nasty. 

And yes, girls do get nasty.  From a very young age they form cliques.  They learn that skinny is good and long hair is good and nice clothes are good (this is one of the only pictures I have of Sophia in pants).  And when they form cliques and see special groups they see power – they know how it feels to lead the masses – and how it feels to be left behind. 

Sound dramatic? To a little girl, or a junior high schooler, or a teenager – IT IS LIKE THE END OF THE WORLD.  Even if you have good friends and you know who you are – to be the target of the mean girls is a huge fear.  From reading the news you all know to be a target of any bully is now a very dangerous game. 

Our children are precious and whether they are 3 or 10 or 16 the emotional stakes are high.  I firmly believe we need to guide them from an early age to include others and act with kindness to ALL.  I think we should ask about their friendships and pay attention to the dynamics.  Whatever side our kids are on we need to guide them with love, and discipline, when necessary. I have to believe that as a mother I can make a difference.

My biggest parenting fear beyond my children’s health  is to have kids who are mean to others, who are exclusive instead of inclusive.  Kids who are selfish and mean.  This kind of child would break my heart.

So I talked to Sophia about feelings and about kindness.  We did not do any other punishment at home.  She was punished with a time out at school.  She cried.  She told me she knew she was being mean and she wanted to make the rules.  Both Sophia and her friend have strong personalities.  I knew part of this had to do with Sophia being the boss.  I told her about how important friends were and how we don’t always get to pick the rules.  I told her how we love all of our friends even if they are different from us.  I told her we need to always make room for others at our tables.

I hugged her and asked her if she was mean to her friend.  She said yes, and my heart broke a little.  But then, she said she did love her friends, and that she wanted to be a nice girl. 

I kissed her and said she would have to be nice or we would not have a real tea party at the house.  I’m the mom so I can say that kind of thing and be mommy – not bossy – you know.  She is only 3, so she said I was kidding and laughed at me and then she saw I was not kidding.  She stopped laughing.  she REALLY wants to have a fairy tea party at the house.

For the time being, I think she will be nice.  We’ll see what happens as she “blossoms”.

Now, as a grownup, I am going to apply the same rules in my own life.  Be a friend to everyone.  Let others be the boss. Make room at the table.  These simple things never go out of style. 

Here’s to acceptance, kindness and friendship.

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The Back Page - 1991

This is the back page of the Special Friendship Book I kept with 2 of my best friends in junior high.  Yes, I still have this book and many other notes, love notes and strange embarrassing memorabilia.  I moved a lot.  I kept the memories of my friends.   I dug this book out today because this afternoon Sophia and I picked out some fabulous new nail polish.  Because we are SO high fashion, we picked a fabulous deep purple, a wonderful hunter green and a rockin’ navy blue.  As soon as we got home we put Miles down for his nap and started our manicures with the blue polish.  The last time I painted my nails blue was in junior high.  It brought me right back to that time and this book.  Looking at my 3 year old with  her shiny blue nails I could almost see a 13 year old young woman learning about friendship and love.  It was shock to me because I have never really pictured her this much older before.  One of these days she is going to be a crazy girl like me.   Watch out boys.

I can vividly remember junior high, in part because my friends and I kept these Special Friendship Books in which we recorded all of the angst that comes with being a 13 year old girl.  We have laughter and tears and yells and whispers in these books.  We debate who our friends and enemies are and even have friendship break ups and make ups on these pages.  You remember – girls break up sometimes.  We are emotional.  We also have some really fickle hearts and change our loves monthly.  I will completely embarrass myself and share some of these pages with your over time.  You know…just for shits and giggles.

The back page is a pretty good summary of the book and Our Teenage Brains. 

You can read our actual words in the picture above but here are some highlights.  We all – at some point during the few months this books spans, are in love with Dave Fuentes.  He is still all of our friend on facebook.  Ha!  Erin first, then me, then Kai.  We go through a host of boys just on the back page but in the whole book….um – let’s just say you can’t count them on both hands.  And a lot are shared loves.  EW!  (FYI – Dave was my first real hook up! We french kissed!  We may have all kissed him.  Again – EW!)

On one side of the back page we state our loves but clearly this was not a smooth ride on the romance train.  I quote…

All guys are scumb to me right now – Kai

Guys are always scumb to me – Erin

Guys just totally suck, huh guys – Brit (Me)

GUYS REALLY SUCK!!! -Kai

Guys aren’t that bad anymore – Erin

I don’t even want to talk about guys – Kai

All guys are scumb to me also right now – Brittany

All guys are really odd head cases if you ask me! – Brittany

I don’t want to speak of them either – B (Me)

This kind of discussion took up a good percentage of my time in junior high.  Conversations about love took up a good percentage of my time for a LONG time after this.  A lot of my single friends still think this – albeit in slightly more mature colorful terms. 

I thought you might enjoy a giggle for your weekend.

Speaking of love, in 7th grade we all said “Olive Juice” instead of I Love You.  I told that to Sophia and she loved it!  We agreed it can be our special thing.  I will take all of the special things I can get.

Have a great weekend and remember to tell someone Olive Juice!

Like this post? Don’t want to miss a Mommy Words Moment? Then subscribe via RSS or by email to get all the latest from this Mom’s mouth! You can also use the social buttons below to add this post to your favorite sites or send it to your friends. Please spread the MOMMY WORDS!