Kindergarten started about a month & half ago. It's been an adventure! Charlie loves it for the most part, though he has had some behavior issues, mostly just mischievious boy things...like sitting under his desk when it's circle time ("it feels good on my head") to getting into an arguement with one of his classmates about who got to be the caboose on the way back from the lunchroom, even though it was the other boy's turn ("well I like being the caboose, so I pushed him")...those things aside, he has a sweet teacher, Mrs. Roberts, who though she recognizes his bad behavior has admitted to me that he's one of her favorite kids.
The past couple of weeks we've been dealing with his first "bully"... Trust me I want to beat this kid up...what a BRAT! However, being a responsible adult, who doesn't want to go to jail for roughing up some random kid, I'm trying to teach Charlie the appropriate response to these acts of bullying... See this girl (hey - she's older) Jazzmine has decided to call Charlie names... they really aren't bad names, and actually not even that mean, but he doesn't appreciate it...NONE... she calls him "Chili" and "Chocolate". My first reaction as a mom and I'll admit it, immature, was to tell him to call DJ Jazzy Jazz a name too like "Jam" or "Jelly" or "Jingle Jam" (or DJ Jazzy Jazz) -- OK not the best idea... then I said, well Charlie two of my favorite things in the world are delicious chili and chocolate - didn't make him feel better. So the best advice I could muster was to just ignore her. She, like all bullies is looking for a reaction, if you don't give that to her, she'll move on. I went on to explain that she'd probably always be a bully, maybe she gets bullied at home... there could be a number of things that are wrong in her life.
That's when I began to feel bad for this girl - this mean child who makes my sweet boy feel sad... I guess it's a sign of maturity, but we talked about it, and realized that God wants us to pray for our "enemies". So we are praying for Jingle Jam - oh alright, Jazzmine.
That makes me sad he has a bully, but I'll pray for DJ Jazzy Jeff too in hopes it'll stop. There was a Little Bill episode where he was bullied and his dad taught him to just say "So?" and put up his hands. He could try that too ;)
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