Rumor Has It…..

As years pass we hope that things change for the better. Kids growing up these days still deal with social difficulties as kids in the past, but these difficulties intensify as years go on and dealing with them have changed. Children deal with difficulties in learning new things, making friends, keeping those friends, fitting in, staying unique, bullying, not being a bully, and the list goes on and on.

My mom shared a memory with me about a situation that she had to deal with when she was young. She witnessed her sister getting bullied by three other girls. She was out numbered and didn’t know what to do and perhaps felt it’d be worse to fight back. My mom on the other hand didn’t hesitate. She pushed the “head” girl and told them to back off. She pushed the girl hard enough for her to fall backwards into a wall. The other girls took off afraid of the same punishment. My mom took her sister home and did not tell their parents what had happened. Should there have been teachers or monitors out making sure that kids behaved themselves on school ground, perhaps. But even with monitors, eyes cannot be everywhere. Should her parents have been there to pick them up from school instead of walking home? That was the time of latch-key kids.

One time on the bus home, my brother and I were getting off the bus when his nemesis grabbed my brother around his neck and started choking him. These two boys never got along, and I never knew why. My brother’s face was turning red! I slid into the seat behind this boy and knocked his head as hard as I could against the bus window to get him to let go! He let go and my brother and I got off the bus. I was told the next day that this boy was crying after I had done that. Should the bus driver had done something, YES! Did he/she, I can’t remember, no. Was there any more friction on the bus, no. Should my parents have been there to get us off the bus? It would have been nice but we were also latch-key kids.

I spent a day in middle school where I had no friends. A rumor went around saying that I had said something bad about one of my best friends. I didn’t, but this friend got everyone to turn on me. Even my one true best friend turned on me. I felt like crap the whole day. I had no friends, and no one was speaking to me. Even on the bus, a girl harassed me about the whole situation. The next day I spoke to my friend and asked her what this was all about and when I told her that I didn’t and wouldn’t have said it, we were friends again and everyone liked me again! Out of this whole situation, the one thing that did hurt the most was that my true best friend turned on me. What if I didn’t like this girl, did that mean she wasn’t my friend anymore? I had to like who she liked? It obvious struck a nerve because I remember it to this day. Should I have told my parents, at least my mom, about this? Yes, I think it would have felt good to do so. I’m not sure why I didn’t. She may have been in school or work at the time and my dad was the one home with us. Dad wasn’t the sensitive type for these conversations.

My oldest is in first grade. She is dealing with small bully issues and friends issues already. I don’t remember having to deal with much of any of these issues until around fourth grade. She has told me about someone in her class being a bully to other kids and sometimes her. She has also told me about one of her friends telling her they weren’t friends anymore because she wouldn’t do/give her what she wanted. She has even gotten off the bus crying because no one would sit with her. I felt I gave her the typical answer, but also what was true in my heart. I told her that it’s “their” loss if they don’t want to sit with you or be her friend. That if you show them your weakness, crying, then they will know how to hurt you! I told her that next time if no one wants to sit with her, shrug it off (because they will be sitting together the next day) and take out her trusty notebook that she always has and draw. She loves to draw. I told her that I would LOVE to receive a drawing from her when she got off the bus and that it would make my day. Since then, there hasn’t been an issue. I wanted to give her an outlet. Something to absorb those frustrations.

From my mother’s childhood and mine, these were pretty brutal offenses we had to deal with and retaliate in kind. Yet, the situation was handled and more or less done with. This is not acceptable anymore. I feel that because they are not, we are seeing more and more harsher retaliations and devastating end results. Things are handled with “talk” and not enough action, in my opinion. It’s harder for adults to pay attention to their surrounds without having their phone in their hand or in their face. I’ve always said that we need to disconnect to connect! I’ve seen too many people on their phones while supposedly spending time with their kids. At times, I even catch myself doing it. But I am glad that I can and do catch myself and correct it.

The latest rumor/advisory going around these days is a series on Netflix called 13 Reasons Why. We have received emails from school about it and it has also been in the local paper. Parents need to talk to their children about suicide and either watch the show with them or don’t allow them to see it because it “glorifies” suicide. Since my children are not old enough to watch these shows/movies anyways, I was curious on my own. So I watched it, intensely. I beg to differ with these opinions. It doesn’t glorify suicide, it gives possible scenarios that kids, mostly teens, might go through in school. It is a bit far fetch by thinking that all of the 13 experiences would happen to just one person, but just one of those alone could truly have an impact on a young person. Most of the experiences were based on rumors! Just one rumor can have a deep affect on someone, just one. The rumor can change a person’s life completely, or be a memory, a life long memory, see above to my rumor (that took place in 7th grade, 1990).

I feel that society loves to blow things out of proportion and the need of the “helicopter parents” call signal is always shinning in the sky. Yes, we do need to pay attention to what is going on in our children’s lives. We need to respond in a timely manner and in a kind manner. Yelling at our kids for not speaking up or saying something will make them never come to you again with a problem. Spoiler alert! If you watched 13 Reasons Why, her final reason was because she was asking for help, straight out, from the guidance counselor and he wasn’t paying attention to her cry for help. She told herself that if he would reach out to her and help her she wouldn’t kill herself. Instead, his cell phone kept ringing and his mind was on that phone and not on her even though he kept ignoring the call. He wasn’t ignoring the call, he was ignoring her! We need face time with our kids not FaceTime.