when your kid's the bully

Well, I found a worthy topic to write about for this week’s entry. Unfortunately, it’s one that, as a mother, causes me great pain. My kid, the bully. Never thought I’d have to say or write that. My kid, my sweet angelic boy, who looks me in the eye and melts my heart when he says, “I love you mommy.” Yea, that kid. What heartbreak I’m experiencing tonight. My kid was bullying, picking on someone because he could, and because he thought it was funny.

Earlier in the day, he, my daughter, and another friend were playing outside. I had asked them to stay in our yard. However, when I went to check on them a few minutes later, I saw them running down the sidewalk. Not thinking too much about it, I called them back and reminded them that they were to play in our yard only. A few moments later, I caught them running down the sidewalk again. But this time I noticed something else, a little boy further down the sidewalk was running away from my three. When I called this little guy over I asked if anything was wrong. Of course, my children told me that this boy was bugging them. Naturally, as a mom I like to believe that my children are telling the truth so I asked the little guy if he was doing anything to bother them. He replied no and walked away.

A few hours later, after we’d had supper, my son asked me to go on a bike ride with him. As we were riding around the neighborhood, the incident from that afternoon popped into my head. For some reason, I began asking questions about it. I had a sneaking suspicion that all wasn’t as it had seemed to be; that I hadn’t been told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I won’t go into detail about what happened, but after my son shared the real story, it became all too apparent that he had bullied this other child. Not only that, but my daughter was laughing right along with them.

Bullying. We talk about it a lot these days. To the point that, in our household, we have zero tolerance for it. Our kids know that it is unacceptable to bully. As a child, my husband was picked on for his size, so he knows firsthand what it feels like. I, on the other hand, was the “cool kid” -  never in danger of being bullied. Well, cool not so much, but it didn’t hurt that I went to a Christian school. We were all pretty close and saw no need to pick on, oh, wait a minute. Yea, I forgot about that one - the kid in our school who dressed like Michael Jackson, silver glove and all. Yea, we made fun of him and even if I wasn’t the one taunting, I was just as bad, I was laughing. Other than that we were pretty good though, we really, oh wait, there was that other time. The time the token “fat kid” in the class fell off the stage at our spring production. Yea, we got a lot of laughs out of that one too.

I guess I don’t have to look too far when it comes to this issue of bullying. I can take a good long look in the mirror and realize that I’m as guilty as the rest. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I’ve laughed at someone’s pain - at someone’s shame. I’m thinking about those times in my life when I’ve had the opportunity to stick up for someone who was being bullied and I didn’t. And as I write this, I’m tearing up because when I had to face this boy’s mother and tell her what had happened, I saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. She felt pain for her little one, and I felt heartache, because my son had caused this pain.

Tonight, both our kids have gone to bed early. They are being punished, and we’re hoping that from this point on they’ll remember that it’s not only wrong to bully someone else, it’s wrong to laugh at it, and do nothing to help the person who’s getting picked on.

I guess I’ll end with a bible verse because it seems to be the appropriate thing to do. When I looked through the bible however, the word bully was nowhere to be found. But I think one of the verses I did find applies pretty well to this or any other kind of bullying situation.  

Psalm 41:1 Blessed is the one who has regard for the weak; the Lord delivers him in times of trouble.

Enough said.