I can hardly believe that I have to deal with a bully as early as kindergarten. My daughter comes home and tells me her “best friend” is mean to her just about every single day.
Actually, no, not true. I just think the girl is being mean every day, she thinks she is mean only some days. Why do I think she is mean every day? Because the girl shows obvious signs of an abuser.
One day, this bully will tell my daughter that her work is not good. For example, she will say, “What is wrong with your coloring? Ugh, it’s horrible.” She will continue with her abuse throughout the day by trying to talk to her while the teacher is talking to try to get her into trouble. She will tell her that she doesn’t want her to play with her. She will even go as far to pick out things about my daughter’s appearance to poke fun at.
My daughter gets to the point where she doesn’t want to be around her and starts to distance herself.
Wouldn’t you know that this girl actually brings in a present for my daughter? She brought in a necklace one day, a My Little Pony the next until she gets my daughter’s attention and good graces again.
What’s my daughter’s reward for forgiving and forgetting? To be treated badly the next day.
It’s such a good example of what happens in domestic violence relationships – the abuser abuses a person, then tries to make up for it by being super nice and giving gifts. There’s a period of time everything is normal and then BANG, the abuse happens again.
You know, many parents would take this opportunity to step in and tell the teacher or contact the parents to get it to stop. I use this opportunity to teach my daughter early how bad of a situation this is and why she should not stand for it.
She is open about what is going on with her “best friend.” We talk about why the things she does is bad. We talk about how this makes my daughter feel and we also talk about what she wants to do about it. Sometimes she doesn’t want to do anything and sometimes she wants to make it stop. The point is that the decision in on her and to make it stop she knows she has to do something about it.
One day, she came home and told me that this girl was being especially bad to her. She told the teacher. The teacher spoke to the girl and they hugged. Then, the girl continued so my daughter told the teacher again.
The next day, the girl was moved from the table my daughter was seated at. Now, the girl has learned it’s not appropriate to bully people and my daughter knows that taking action on a situation can make it better.
I know this is a low-key example of bullying but it does lay the ground work for my daughter to understand when someone is being mean and what to do about it.
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