Painting Indian Shirts and Bullys

I was blessed with the opportunity to volunteer in Tucker's class today and help them paint their Indian T-shirts for the Thanksgiving Feast they are having this month. I say blessed, because thanks to God, I am able to be at home with the kids now and can volunteer my time as a room mom for his class.

It was so nice to see all of those little faces, well I guess you can't call 5 and 6 year old little, but they were cute and sweet anyway. Tucker was especially proud to have me there. He kept telling all of his friends that his mommy is an artist. I still do not think that I have earned the right to call myself an artist, because I am simply not that good yet. However, if my little man thinks I am an artist, then I will proudly wear the title when he is around.

There were four of us who volunteered to paint the t-shirts. One of the other room moms, Monique, was there along with two mom's who I had not met until today. One of them is the mother of the class bully, and I was very interested in meeting her and speaking with the bully himself. Before you assume that my mouth got away from my temper, remember what happens when we assume. I was very cordial to the bully's mom, and she was very nice. I am sure that she is unaware that her kid terrorizes the class, because in my experience with daycare and kids in general, the main reason a kid acts like a bully is because their parents are not aware or choose to ignore most their child's actions. When I met the bully, I could see that he was a sweet child, but has obvious issues with controlling his actions. For instance, while we were sitting there painting shirts, we had to perform a tornado drill with the kids that lasted about 5 minutes. On the way back into the class, Minez, the bully evidently hit Joe, another little boy. Joe was crying and the teacher asked what happened. Another child, (thankfully not Tucker) piped up and told the teacher that Minez had hit Joe. Minez was reprimanded, and while the teacher was talking to him, Minez's mom kept on painting like it was not happening. The bully's face was blank as the teacher spoke to him, as if he didn't understand that hitting another kid was grounds for punishment. Which leads me to my next theory on bullys, and if this offends anyone reading my post, I apologize.
I believe that kids bully other kids to get attention, if they are intelligent enough to know that getting in trouble will give them attention. There are other kids who are simply not that intelligent. They do not understand how their actions affect others, and that there are consequences for those actions because their brain just doesn't function on the same level as other's when it comes to conscience and self control. If you look back at your child hood and think about a bully in your school, I would bet you $5.00 (because that is about the amount in my personal account right now) that the bully had at least two of the four characteristics I have listed:

1. Low Income family, usually a single parent house hold with multiple siblings.
2. Involved in a special education program at school for some type of learning disability.
3. Has more than three siblings at home and is from an upper class background.
4. Is a child of a divorced family.

I am pointing out these characteristics to say that a child does not come out of the womb malicious. There are contributing factors that surround the child on a daily basis that cause him/her to bully other children. It is not this little boy's fault that he is a bully, but being faultless does not make his actions inconsequential.

There are bullys that don't fit into this generalization, like the ones who have been given attention and are super intelligent who harbor some sort of sadistic quality that his hidden from view for most of their lives. These are the ones who turn out to be serial killers.
On the other side of the fence you have the bullied kids who do not stand up for themselves out of fear of further retaliation from the bully, or because their parents have told them to ignore the bully and they will leave them alone. These are the kids that end up keeping the hurt feelings brought on by years of torment, welled up inside of them until they suddenly explode, form a posse of other bullied friends and then devise a plan to shoot up a school or college.

I tell Tucker to stick up for himself with Minez and anyone else who picks on him for no reason. From what I can tell he has not had anymore problems with Minez or any other kids since we had that discussion. Brad and I argue on the Christian basis for self defense. I am of the mindset that Jesus did not mean for us to be doormats or punching bags. Brad is of the mindset that Jesus turned the other cheek. I know that Jesus turned the other cheek, but he was also God in human form. If Jesus had retaliated against someone who offended him, not only would his actions have defeated his purpose in showing the rest of us how to live in order to please our Father, as well as die for our salvation. He was perfect, we are imperfect, and therefore have to kick butt every now and again to keep the playing field of life even. My kids are going to stand up for themselves and I don't think that God looks down on me for it. As long as Tucker and Connor live by the Golden rule in treating others as they would want to be treated, violators of that rule are opening themselves up to a nice can of whoop @ss as far as their momma is concerned.