Hot Stoves and Amusement Parks
It's Your Responsibility To Teach Your Kids Not to Bully Disabled Kids
Photo by Ricardo Moura on Unsplash
It seems the social media multiverse is patting humanity on the back because a few people, including some celebrities, rallied around a kid bullied due to dwarfism and now the kid is going to Disneyworld. That’s great.
Now look in the mirror and see whose fault it is that the kid got bullied in the first place.
You teach your little angels not to touch a stove, don’t you? To say please and thank you?
Then how fucking hard is it to teach a kid not to pick on another kid who is different than them?
There’s this thing Al Gore may or may not have invented called the internet.
At the first sign of morning sickness, on this internet, you can download a gallery of every conceivable-pun intended-way a kid may differ from your plausibly physically and intellectually normative kid.
Have you pumped the brakes on this rant yet and thought “kids will be kids?” If that’s the goddamn case, how come three out of five kids in second grade don’t have third-degree stove burns on their palms? Because you taught them not to fucking touch the stove.
In that same conversation, you can say, “Hey look, Junior Perfect Specimen, in life you will encounter other kids who may be different from you in a variety of ways.” (If you must illustrate these differences with photos from this amazing internet tool, do so. Whatever it takes).
“DON’T BULLY OR OTHERWISE HARASS THOSE CHILDREN. IT MAKES YOU AN ASSHOLE AND THAT IS A PART OF THE ANATOMY EVERYONE HAS AND NO ONE EVER WANTS TO BE COMPARED TO.”
No kid should be bullied. We know this. But if no kid is gonna be bullied, how about Mommy and Daddy teach Little Johnny Scholar and Little Johnny Athlete that the kids who have differences that they have no control over don’t get fucking tormented for it. If they get used to that idea, then maybe they can extend some of that compassion to the nose pickers and the bedwetters too.
But ya gotta start somewhere. And that starting line should be showing respect-true respect, not pity-to the kids who start the day with challenges.
It ain’t that hard.
Photo by Pedro Velasco on Unsplash
Kids should go to Disneyworld because they sold the most raffle tickets or spelled the most words right, not because they come home from school traumatized, threatening to off themselves because another child tormented them.
Somebody else’s kid didn’t do that. Your kid did that, or will if you don’t add one more lesson to the repertoire.
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Originally published Feb.2020
Bravo, Jimmy, but it goes beyond this, as I know you're aware. Conversations with our kids on bullying and other behaviors are important but so is modeling the behaviour you want them to embrace.
Too many parents don't check their own behaviour and attitudes, regardless of what they tell their kids to do.
What we do shows our true beliefs and our little sponges soak that up and emulate it. Don't make disparaging remarks or jokes about others when you think no one is listening. I guarantee, sponges have ears.
Well said !!!!!