My son is sensitive. He gets hurt very easily. Maybe it’s because he’s an only child and has never fought or been teased by a sibling. If a child makes a nasty comment or calls it a name, they will linger on it for days.
I get it: I’m definitely a people pleaser like my kid. Back when I was in school, I was a real ham, but that was to get the first laugh and avoid the teasing. I was always very tall and very thin, and I was a reactor so I was a perfect target for the PITA kids. But my son is such a combo of my husband and me: he appeals to people like me, but more quiet and reserved like my other half, so he’s not one to ‘get into it’.
This morning was a morning of tears before school. Sigh. I’m writing this on a Monday – after a fun weekend, it still sucks going back to school on Monday. But the third year was difficult for my son. He’s in a 3/4 split, so he had a limited number of third-year friends to choose from (because a fourth-year boy would have never playing with a CE1 student!). He was home with me last year, so he missed a year of socializing with friends, and maybe that took a bit of a toll. And third grade feels like kindergarten again in that friendships change, kids change and find their way, and there’s just a lot of politics (lol).
Plus he gets teased a bit…it’s not really bullying because I know kids who do that – they were his friends and they just push his buttons because he lets them. He doesn’t want to rock the boat so he’s not just going to cut them off (besides, with only 12 third graders, if he cuts them off, he said he’d be alone all day). I don’t think he really knows how to fight words with words. So all I can tell him is to enjoy it, get out of it, keep your head up, and one day it won’t matter.
But it’s important to him now. A lot. To tears this morning. And my mom heart sank. I’m still worried, hence this blog rant.
I think my son feels a bit lost in school now. He doesn’t really know who his good, loyal friends are. He is still floundering in immersion and goes to school in a language that is not his mother tongue. It’s been a tough year, and I’m just as excited as him to see it come to an end next month.
Are there any other parents who can identify? What words of wisdom do I pass on to my child?
Full-time working-from-home mom Jennifer Cox (our “Supermom-in-training”) loves getting involved in healthy cooking, craft projects, family outings, and more, sharing all she knows with readers about being an (almost) superhero mom. .
