It was bound to happen, because it happens to all children these days. L came home crying that her friends — her best friends in her class — were bullying her. I don’t think she used that word: it was a label added afterward. The first moment K and I had alone when I came home that day, she said, “Well, some kids are bullying L at school.” And while at first blush, it sounded like it might not necessarily be bullying (we’re so quick to call everything “bullying” these days): some of the Girl’s friends were chasing here around the playground, grabbing her, not letting her go. But with each new detail, it became more likely “bullying” was not a misapplied label in this case. The girls, it seems, had recently decided that, because L had wanted to play alone during recess for a couple of days, that they didn’t want anything to do with her. They were ganging up on her, chasing her, and then holding her by force, squeezing her arm so that it caused pain, and doing it all despite L’s requests not to, despite L saying that it hurt. What was worst was that she took her entire free time one day in class to write cards of apology to her three friends, the instigators, basically saying, “For whatever I’ve done to make you angry at me, I’m sorry.” One girl ripped the card up in front of L while another took some makers and scribbled all over it. L was literally in tears as she told me, and she had been in tears earlier in the day when she told K.
So many questions running through K’s and my conversations about this. Do we know that the Girl, normally a sweet girl but capable of mean streaks like everyone, didn’t in fact antagonize a bit? Does she know, for that matter? At what point do we get the teacher involved? What do we tell the teacher? She didn’t want to tattle on them, for she still hoped to salvage the friendship, but she realized she needed help.
The most pressing question, though, was, “What do we tell the Girl?” In the end, we suggested that she hang near the teachers when they go out to recess, and when the gang begins to approach, move as close to the teacher as possible, then when they try to chase her, don’t move. “They can’t chase you if you aren’t moving, right?” And then when they begin the squeezing, the plan was to say loudly, “Stop — that’s hurting me.” The plan was that the teacher would hopefully hear and intervene, and technically, the Girl still wouldn’t have to tattle.
The next day, the debriefing: “We’re friends again.”
K and I smiled. It’s still coming, but it just hasn’t quite made it.
The greatest pain of parenting: when your girl’s best friends quit being her best friends, for no reason that you can discern. I’ll never forget it: the “dropping” of my daughter because she did not bring with her an entry into the popular set. It happened in fifth grade and then again in eighth. And it was awful. And there was nothing that we could do that would reverse it. In retrospect, I think we should have used the teaching lesson of pain: it’s ubiquitous and we have to learn to manage it. But it hurt so much! I wont call it bullying. It was more like shunning. Ignoring. Damnation by silence. Awful stuff.
I had never seen that in my school, in Poland. I am curious — does K recall such episodes? I always thought that, for whatever reason, it’s more of an American thing. Am I wrong?
K has never experienced anything like this, nor had she ever seen it. She thought that it might have been more because of growing up in a village, but I guess your comment shows it was nonexistent in cities as well. It has certainly gotten worse here since I was in school. I think technology and the eternally connected nature of these kids today due to social media only worsens the problem.