This week at work I had a conversation with my colleagues about over stepping as a parent. It’s not uncommon at the Tech School to have over enthusiastic parents reaching out to make sure that their child got a position in one of our awesome programs. As parents, all we want is the best for our kids and sometimes we can’t help but step in and hopefully, positivity, advocate for our kids.
This week I stepped in for Alice. Alice is normally an energetic, engaged, creative, hilarious and super smart 8 year old. This week she just wasn’t. Ever since last Friday she’d been complaining that she didn’t want to go to school. Having a pretty low tolerance for bullshit we made her go to school anyway. I of course asked her what was up and if anything had happened at school that made her not want to go but she kept leaning into this idea that she felt ‘unsafe’, she of course couldn’t tell us why.
Feeling ‘unsafe’ felt like something she’d heard other kids say and get some kind of response from. From our perspective, there was no reason for Alice to feel unsafe - something else must’ve happened. I’ve spent all week trying to coax it out of her but she couldn’t articulate what was going on. My spider senses were telling me that it was friend related. I remember being about her age and having a best friend that just dropped me for no reason. It was absolutely heart breaking. I didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t want my parents to help sort it out (which they did in the end). And I certainly didn’t want anyone to know how incredibly miserable I was.
This whole situation climaxed yesterday when Alice was sent home from school for vomiting. The teacher had her suspension that Alice may have made herself sick so she would get sent home. By the time I got home she was happily sitting in her room drawing and watching something on the iPad. Now, I’m going to warn you that I've had a relatively stressful afternoon already. I’m getting swamped at work from all sides at the moment and didn’t think I was the best person to have the emotionally stable conversation that Alice required. By this stage Matt had tapped out so it was up to me.
I started really quite poorly. I knew I would. I was coming in hot and I got cross. I was frustrated that she couldn’t tell us what was causing her to hate school so much that she'd rather get sent home than be there. I pulled out the ‘boy who cried wolf’ which is always a dangerous tale to quote when you’re trying to create a ‘safe space’. Much to my surprise I started crying before she did.
I realised that part of my frustration was the fact that I couldn’t help her. Matt had spoken to her teacher because this funk was causing her to disengage in class and she was worried. It wasn’t just a playground issue, it was an all consuming issue. The kids have always been so shocked when I cry that they don’t really know what to do so Alice in all her beautiful loveliness jumps into my lap and gives me a hug telling me not to cry.
Alice is of course crying now and she finally reveals that one of her friends called her ‘fat’ at school and that’s what has been upsetting her. This tiny little word had caused Alice to almost completely shut down and disengage with her normally joyful and bright coloured life for a whole week.
Oh my heart.
Alice! My poor sweet Alice. Immediately I was transported back to my 8 year old self when I was the victim of a shitty class bully. When it didn’t matter how many times I was told just to ignore them or go play with someone else - all that mattered was that the person I wanted to like me didn’t.
Unfortunately for Alice this isn’t the last time someone is going to upset her. There will be people all throughout her life that will make her feel shitty about herself. I ended up telling her about a friendship break up I went through a few years ago when I realised that a friend was actually making me feel worse about myself than better. It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as an adult, breaking up with a friend but it was for the best.
No one has the right to make you feel shit. Not when you're 8 or 38. We have the right to say - nope, you make me feel bad about myself so I’m not going to be friends with you anymore. I’m not sure if Alice is going to be able to confront this bully so I’ve reached out to her teacher and told her what Alice had told me. She’s 8. I needed help when I was 8. Mum and Dad stepped in. It took all my courage to do it as an adult but as an adult I appreciated how little time we actually have available to us. Spending one minute of it worrying about something unnecessarily is a moment wasted.
When Alice and I finished crying and cuddling, which was just as therapeutic for me as it was for her, she decided to make a poster with all the things she can do when she feels sad at school. She wants to get it laminated and share it with her teacher. My hope is that she doesn't need to use it that much.
Once the tears dried we both agreed that life isn’t going to be easy. That’s the only guarantee I can offer Alice as her parent. I hope that she has the courage to stand up for herself when she needs to - it took me 38 years to realise I’m capable of saying no. Hopefully she comes to this conclusion quicker than me because there will always be dickheads. Always.
