Bully For You

Last night’s parenting workshop on bullying was very informative. I went to one of these school workshops a while ago on the topic of ‘Self esteem’ which was also very helpful. I had been to that one because I was a little concerned that one of my kids seemed to be rather anxious and unsure of himself (but then, if you read this blog, it will hardly come as a great surprise, given his mother).

Instead of fanning the flames of parental neurosis, the workshop helped me to see that in fact, he doesn’t have low self esteem at all. It’s just that many of the kids in his school suffer from eye-wateringly high levels of the stuff.

High self esteem seems to be the modern parenting Holy Grail, it’s what we all want for our kids, to help them become strong, confident individuals. But it also has a very unfortunate side effect, which is lack of empathy. The woman who ran last night’s workshop pointed out that, contrary to popular belief, many bullies do not suffer from low self esteem at all. In fact they frequently have way too much of it, which is why they have very little empathy with their victims. I know it’s not a simplistic topic, but this makes a lot of sense to me.

There was a great section at the end of the workshop about what to do as a parent if you think your child might be being bullied. Among the suggestions were the following:

1. Don’t over-react (moi?).

2. Talk to your child about what has been happening (without going into Spanish Inquisition mode I suppose. So, no staccato machine gun fire of: ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Who did?’ ‘When did this happen?’ I don’t think they encourage the use of the term ‘little shit’ either).

3. Communicate with the school (The fantasy scenario of grabbing the bully by the throat at the school gates and threatening them will have to remain a fantasy then).

If one of my children was being bullied, I think I could probably manage the first two. I’m not so sure about the third. Deep breath. Repeat the new mantra: “I am a grown-up.”

I am posting early today, so I am without my usual ‘mother’s little helper’ glass of wine, which always helps to correct my warped perspective.

I am taking my daughter to an International netball match after school. England beat New Zealand (world champions and Commonwealth gold medallists) earlier this week, for the first time in 32 years. Tonight they face Australia, who are currently second in the world rankings, so we shall both be screaming our heads off (no change there for me then!).

Pump Up the Volume

I was walking along the pavement to school with the kids this morning, when I had one of those heart-in-mouth moments. My youngest, playing ‘It’ with his sister, dodged away from her on the pavement and stepped into the road, narrowly missing a car.

I have a loud voice. It’s the sort of voice which can perforate eardrums, and shatter windows.

In full fishwife mode (and I don’t mean Sweet Molly Malone), I bellowed at them both to “Come here NOW!” The entire street appeared to freeze, and then a couple of kids whom I’ve never met started to gravitate towards me obediently. There was even one harassed-looking man in front of me, who turned and, for a nanosecond, started to move towards me too. He just managed to stop himself in time, but our eyes had already met and registered our mutual embarrassment.

My children, of course, were the only two people in the street to take no notice whatsoever.

The problem is that I have continually ‘raised the bar’ in terms of the volume I use to address the kids. They take no notice of any instruction issued in a moderate voice. Therefore, for anything to get done, I need to shout to add the necessary emphasis. This has continued across the years, with the amplification gradually ratcheting up. When it got to intolerable levels, I made a major effort to go in completely the opposite direction, and say things so quietly that they were forced to listen. However, this resulted in me talking to them in the menacing tones of an East-end gangster, and was equally ineffective, although it certainly frightened some of the other mums.

More recently, I have concentrated hard on not shouting so much, but the trade off is that I have to repeat every request ad infinitum. The result is a pressure cooker effect, where I am determined to maintain a calm control of my voice, but am forced to breaking point by the repetition. The longer I try to maintain control, the messier the subsequent explosion.

There seems no way back from the Mummy As Shrew scenario. I want to wipe the slate clean and start again (if I had a penny for every time I have said that as a parent.....I would have £19.73).

I think I might try and start tomorrow by communicating with them in whispers. I reckon we will be back to full Godzilla roaring within the week.

I am not drinking any wine tonight as I am going to a workshop for parents on bullying, organised by the school. I can guarantee they will say that if you want your children to avoid being bullied, DON’T SHOUT AT THEM!