Oh, it’s starting younger and younger these days.
Friends of ours tell how their almost-four-year-old son is being picked on at Kindergarten (!) by a girl who is just a little bit older, but much bigger. She’s been pushing and hitting him, and it’s obviously been bad enough for him to not want to go back (this is something of a disaster as it took ages and ages for him get used to Kiga anyway). Apparently, he’s not the only one being bullied, other children have complained to their parents too, who in turn took the matter up with the teacher. She said she would have a word with the parents, and for a while, all was well.
Then, the other day, our friends’ son came home with a big scratch across his face. When she questioned him about it, he told his mum that the same girl as last time had hit him around the face with a slipper. He was rather proud of the fact that this time, he hadn’t cried, but our friend was furious and is now contemplating what to do next.
And that really is the question – what do you do about bullying, especially when it’s happening at such a young age? We haven’t as yet been confronted with this, but we did have an incident at the indoor playground today which got me thinking.
Henry was playing in the little toy house, pretty much minding his own business, as he usually does. Occasionally, other children would come into the house, or peek in through the windows. This didn’t bother him at all – on the contrary, he seemed quite pleased to have company. Then, however, a much bigger boy came in and started closing the windows from the inside, and pushing Henry’s hands off from where he was holding on. Henry can’t stand on his own yet, so I explained to the boy he should leave Henry’s hands as he needs to hold on to something. He then again pushed Henry’s hands away, I explained again why he shouldn’t do that, whilst looking around for his mum. So far, our experience of the playground has been excellent, as the mums (or dads) tend to look out for what their kids are up to and if they start anything (pushing other kids, taking toys someone else is playing with etc) they come over pretty quick and sort things out. This means it’s a very nice atmosphere there.
However, I couldn’t see this boy’s mum anywhere, and after he started getting quite rough and trying to push the little kids out of the house, I took Henry out and we went to play on the climbing frame. I did keep an eye on the boy though, and saw he was treating all the children he came into contact with very roughly.
Still no mum.
(He also had a really disgusting runny nose that should have been being regularly wiped – so another reason for him mum to have been keeping an eye on him!)
Anyway, just as we were about to leave, my friend pointed out to me the boy’s mum. She was sitting up in the cafe area with her back to the room, completely ignoring everything that was going on.
I think this is where it all starts, and it really is up to the parents to show their children, even at this really young age, what is the correct and acceptable way to treat other children. Nobody wants their child to be bullied, but surely no-one wants their child to be the bully either?
