We all know one. That child at school who calls other kids names. The one that says rude comments. The one that doesn’t play fair during games, or tries to control who gets to play with the group. As a parent seeing your child’s feelings get hurt, this can be heartbreaking, challenging, and down right infuriating.
Hi! I’m the parent of that bully.
But instead of saying bully, for now I am going to say “perceived bully.” I believe a bully is someone who intentionally tries to harm, insult, or coerce other people. Many people believe that bullying is the result of poor parenting. A child who is modeled bad behavior…exposed to violent movies or video games…or someone hanging out with the wrong crowd. This can often be the case, but sometimes…sometimes, it can be special needs.
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For those who have read my blog, you know I have multiple children who have special needs. They all have varying degrees of needs, and all exhibit their behaviors in different ways. But two of my kids have been s as perceived as a bully: one at home, and one at school.
My child who struggles at school truly has the sweetest heart. She relies on medication to assist with some of her behaviors, and when she first wakes up she is WIRED. Within 45 minutes, however, she is my most helpful, sweet, and compliant child of the family. More so than any of my children without special needs. She helps with her younger siblings, assists with tidying up, making lunches, and any other tasks I need help with during the crazy morning routine. She loves snuggles, hugs and kisses, and adores all of her friends. She is a social butterfly, loves organizing activities, and joining in with her friends. She loves other people and being accepted into the group.
As the year goes on, however, and her meds work a little less, and she becomes more comfortable with her class and surroundings, her challenging behaviors start to emerge. Transitions are her weak point and line-ups, recess, and after school are her struggles. She routinely says hurtful comments to her friends, neighbors, and siblings. By the end of the day her meds have worn off and things get even more challenging. By the time Christmas is over and the new year is beginning is when I usually start to receive e-mails. Some are from teachers. Some are from parents. Some are from neighbors. Sometimes they are even from family members. I am well seasoned in receiving them. The great thing about my community is that they are usually done in a loving way. I have always appreciated knowing when my child has done something wrong or hurtful so that I have the opportunity to discuss it with my child, teach them, give them an opportunity to apologize and hopefully impress some sort of lesson in all of it.
Unfortunately, with some types of special needs/invisible disabilities, learning not to do something is difficult. Many children have brains that are wired differently and are unable to process the same lessons their peers can. Some of my kids don’t understand cause and effect. Many don’t comprehend how mean comments hurt others. They have difficulty realizing that cheating during a game might cause children to seek out new players. My child doesn’t understand that personal thoughts should often be kept to yourself rather than stating them out loud. These social norms are beyond many kiddo’s comprehension and often result in hurt feelings. Although my child can hurt others, I can’t think of anyone they dislike. They don’t seek out to hurt other kids. They don’t intentionally want to cause harm, and they certainly don’t target anyone with the intention of anything sinister. But they continue these behaviors due to their special needs; their permanent brain damage that unfortunately has no cure. Reading social cues will always be a struggle and the fall out is often disastrous.
The most challenging aspect of being the parent of a perceived bully, is the effect it has on children. Not only is there a child somewhere getting their feelings hurt, but every time I receive an e-mail, or phone call, I am reminded that my child too faces the fallout of their actions. While they may have friends and children to play with at school, they might not have close friends or best friends because of these struggles. My biggest prayer as a mother is that my children will all have friends, and often that is not our reality. Kids crave friendships in the early years and friends to play with. As kids continue to age and enter middle and high school, close friends mean a lot. Being invited to birthday parties and special events are important, and being excluded down right sucks. I know my child can say mean things, but I also know her heart. Her intentions. And her love. I know the serious obstacles that she will have to face throughout her life due to decisions made before she was born, and the constant price she has to pay because of it. It breaks my heart. Seeing your child as anything but accepted can be excruciating.
So why do I share this? Of course to shout out solidarity with any other special needs parents out there who might be facing the same challenge, and to let you know you are not alone. But also to the parent of children on the receiving end. To the teacher, and neighbor. I am sorry. My child is sorry. We never want to see another child hurt. But also a reminder to have grace. To see their innocence as a child and behaviors that are beyond their control. Know that so many of these kiddos really do mean well, but get stuck in their execution of things. I want to say it is OK to tell your child that my child had special needs. That sometimes my child does things they shouldn’t, or sometimes needs extra help to understand and play games. To know that my child loves your child, and desperately wants to be friends, but has struggles we all can’t see on how to execute that. And of course to say I appreciate and want to know when incidents come up and that hopefully together, through education, understanding and grace, we can all move forward together.
And finally, to know that my child is not a bully. Please don’t tell your child to no longer be their friend, avoid them, or do something hurtful back. But to instead realize that mean behaviors from many children are actually behavioral challenges from an invisible disability. That education and understanding can go a long way, and that as much as a child might be hurting others, they are equally hurting themselves, so we can hopefully all find a way to move forward for everyone. Let us not be against bullies, but for kindness.
For those of you with kiddo’s also struggling, I have developed a great system that you can present to your child’s class, coach, teacher, neighbors, or family members in understanding your child. You can use it to explain to your own child about invisible disabilities and help foster better understanding in the classroom! To find out more information, click here.
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Great writing. Thank you for sharing and being so open and vulnerable. This piece is definitely eye opening, and helpful to view things from another not so obvious perspective.
Thank you for this honest and insightful post. You may a very good point that what can be perceived as bullying behavior may be stemming from an invisible disability or other personal challenge. And that we as parents should always show kindness, as we would want our children to be kind to others too.
What a difficult situation for all of you. I’m glad to have read your perspective. I always try to tell my children, that we never know what another person is going through, so we shouldn’t label or be judgmental. As a teacher, I had a student who needed a lot of guidance to help make kind decisions.
Although she didn’t have a diagnosed disability, I really believe that she didn’t always know when something she said or did was hurtful, so I worked hard to help her stay on track. She picked up a lot of skills that year from the other students and feedback from the adults, but I know it was tough for her at times. (She was also quite intelligent, so a lot of parents thought she was a classic bully.)
I read your article with interest but the flip side concerns me, especially for young girls. There is a danger in teaching them to ignore their instincts when they feel unsafe or hurt or scared. We can’t teach them to fix/accept everyone. Those behaviors lead them into relationships that can be abusive … if we took the ages off and just described the behaviors and attributed them to a significant other we would tell the person on the receiving end to run for the hills.
But I am also the mom noticed (before the parents had him diagnosed) that my son’s classmate had Asperger’s Syndrome and helped my son understand why his classmate had extra energy and needed to be refocused when playing games. I spoke with the mom and found activities the other child was good at, so we could have playdates where his strengths were shown. I also organized my son’s birthday parties at places they could visit in advance so that he could be acclimated and less stressed … in the end, my son was his silent sentry and learned valuable lessons BUT at a great cost to my son … so this solution is not for everyone.
the cost was social … my son never got to ride in the “fun” car on school trips because ALL knew that the other child would not handle the trip well without my son … he stayed behind in gym class at slower speeds while the others ran ahead and played