live and let live

Ash started going to first grade this October. Never thought I would have to deal with a possible bullying situation this early in his school life. Thursday I came home from work, to find Ash very sad and tending his swollen lips. The whole situation started when Ash was waiting in the school lunch line, another kid Josh[name changed, bully kids need privacy too] cut in front of him. Tit for tat, Ash cut in front of him, but Josh did it again, and Ash duly responded. Not to be outdone, Josh pulled Ash into the ground, giving him a broken lip. Deeps was called to the school, Principal explained her the sequence of events. She took the sad and upset Ash home early. Josh was assigned the last position in the lunch line for the rest of the week. Deeps and I decided pass this as a random incident, as these are first graders. Sometimes kids do push each other playfully.

The next day passed without any incident, or we thought so.  Over the weekend, I asked Ash how his Friday lunch went. Initially he tried to ignore the question. I persisted, then he reluctantly informed me that he skipped the Friday lunch as Josh asked him not to stand in the line. Josh also warned Ash he may get kicked too.

I wasn’t sure how to handle this. Josh is a much bigger kid physically. Ash is 5 and Josh is 7, so I can understand why he feels intimidated. Even if they are of the same size, Ash is not an aggressive personality.

Now that I have to teach my son to handle situations like this, I did some reading online. Most of the advise goes like this.

- teach the affected kid to be assertive in a non confrontational way

- teach him/her to walk away from conflicts

- inform school authorities

Looks like good advise to me, so I did all these. Now I am eagerly hoping that it makes some positive impact here.

To be continued ..