I’m More Scared Of Girls Being A Bully To My Sons
This is why being a boy mom, girls downright scare me.
“Olivia kicked my chair today, mom.”
It was one comment spoken from the mouth of my fresh-faced Kindergartner, one week into school.
In the days that followed, my son reported more of these occurrences to me from the same little girl. Usually, it was her kicking his chair. One time, it was slapping his bottom.
“You need to tell her that is not okay. And then you need to tell your teacher if she doesn’t stop.”
“I don’t want to be friends with someone like that.” My son replied back to me. I agreed, inside feeling proud of my smart, kind souled son, and yet a little sad that bullying was already on our radar.
My Kindergartener is a very sweet boy with a heart of gold. He is kind to a fault, and being his mom and a bit jaded, I realize that his kindness could get him swallowed up in such a cruel world. Even in Kindergarten.
Luckily a few days later, my son reported that he and Olivia found common ground. She stopped kicking his chair and my son found courage in letting it go and they played together that day. It was a great life lesson in what I know won’t be the last in tackling mean kids in the classroom.
Whether this little girl kicked my son's chair or slapped his bottom is the result of her liking him, I’m not sure. What I do know is that I’m More Scared Of Girls Being a bully to my sons, and these are a few reasons why.
Bullying because we like someone.
The cringy saying of “he is picking on you because he likes you” doesn’t stop at boys — girls very well do it, too. This gross statement needs to be thrown out with the weekly garbage. When we tell our children that the reason they are being picked on is that that person likes them, we are teaching unhealthy relationship advice.
I know the dynamics of girls. Girls are mean.
Being bullied as a young girl and also unfortunately the bully, I know that girls can be downright mean. This isn’t saying that boys cannot be mean and bully, but girls fall into a different category here. If you don’t believe me, just watch the movie Mean Girls and come back to me.
I’m not sure how to tell my sons how to react.
While I helped my six-year-old navigate well through his first bully crisis, I’m not sure how to react to bigger issues in the future. Being only a boy mom, I am privy to the day-to-day challenges that my sons face with each other, meaning I feel more confident in redirecting them to some kind of neutral ground.
My sons' self-esteem is fragile.
The way that girls treat my sons now could have a lasting impact on how they perceive girls in the future. I know that it starts at home, but one sour experience with the opposite sex could be damaging. I don’t want them to be afraid of girls, dislike girls, or even believe that they simply can’t even be friends with girls. But if I teach my sons that how they feel about themselves is all that matters, I hope to instill self-love with confidence that has room to bloom.
Bullies can come in all shapes and sizes and more importantly, gender. As parents, if we let ourselves fall into the one-category-only standard, we are doing our children a great disservice.
So please, let’s keep talking about bullying. Let’s inform our children how to treat others. And let’s remember that we are currently raising the next generation — which will hopefully be kind-hearted and full of self-esteem.
