It is that time of year again when school is back in session. As we go back to school, there will be some parents that will send their child to school with some hesitancy. They may have noticed changes in their child in the last few months of the past school year. They may notice that their child did not ask to hang out with any friends through the summer. These changes happen and sadly, there is nothing as parents that we can really do about it. I know I experienced these changes and I felt helpless.

You just never really know your kids. You know them but you don’t really know them. You pray that you raised them to be good kids and be a nice friend, classmate, teammate, and more, but unless you are one of their peers we really do not know them.

All three of my boys were “bullied” at one time or another during their school years. I say “bully” as it was a repeated behavior and was usually a bigger child or a group of individuals that there was an imbalance of power and was done with intent or with purpose. It was not just a one-time event or a nudge or a bad word said to one another. It was the kind of behavior that is done to “break” someone, until they no longer want to be around those kids anymore.

As a mom, I did not feel that I raised “odd” children or the kind that were so easy to be picked on and ridiculed by other kids. I had no idea. They looked normal to me, and I thought they had the same interests as other kids. Not that there is any true reason for a child to be mistreated or as an “outcast”, but usually there seems to be something that we might expect and may know in advance that we may need to “rehearse” with them, but kids and adults alike, can just be mean. Plain and simple.

Our kids were not “red-shirted”, we did not hold them back a year from school to be bigger, like so many others had. I learned that many parents had done that for sports and for maturity reasons, as boys develop later than girls, it is a given. Many times, while my boys were in their school age years, I regretted not holding them for a year. I thought they would maybe have had better experiences, if I had. They were like the “babies” of their classes, with so many of their classmates getting their driver’s licenses, some almost a year ahead of them.

Most bullying started in the middle school years and although schools have processes in place to help prevent or stop bullying, it is just inevitable for it to happen. As boys develop at different stages and depending on when they go through these growths, depends on when and how much of the “bullying” they will be subject to.

One child went through his “chubby” middle school years in 5^th and 6^th grade, which got him teased endlessly, until one day he grew up and thinned out and developed muscles and then he became the “bully”, as I had learned later. I had no idea. I also had no idea of the hurt he had felt in his younger years. I knew that there were changes in him and I could see his unhappiness but did not know the extent of what he was feeling as I had never been a middle-aged boy. I had one son that was very small for his age. He was short and very skinny. He did not grow until his high school years. He was a brilliant kid, but because he had been observed to have some ADHD tendencies, in which we did not learn until later years on how to help him, he went through some tough times. I can’t imagine what he may have experienced amongst his peers. Another child was just a bigger boned child. He was athletic and always seemed to have friends around him, but even though he always seemed to be  happy, he too, experienced bullying and intentional meanness amongst peers. It just goes to show that although each of my guys were all built differently, they had experienced bullying.

As a mom, I only knew that loving them was all I could do. No one loves their child like a mother, but sadly loving them does not change what happens to your children when they are not in your care. The hardest thing for me was to learn that my children were bullied by kids they knew. Some of them were kids they had been friends with from preschool on up. The kids that parents seemed to be so nice. The ones that you had outings with and included them and vice versa. The ones that are well known in our community. Then later became the ones that would make comments like, “I am so glad that our boys’ are so close,”, knowing that your child was not included in that knit of friends and knew full well why.

As a mom of boys, they would never talk to me about what they were going through, but I could see it. As a mom you see the changes in their demeanor. The change in their attitude and more. My mom heart would hurt so much at times.

I could see changes in my child, but I couldn’t understand how these kids raised in homes with parents that were once classmates/school friends of mine or parents that attended the same church and more, couldn’t see how their children acted and didn’t know they were not nice kids. I also had more than one teacher tell me at a parent teacher’s conference that my child would do so much better once he got to high school, because he was not in a very nice class. I appreciated their honesty and their insight they had shared, some may not agree that a teacher should be so forward, especially this day and age where we get so easily offended, but I had the utmost respect for them, as it said so much to me about my own intuitions. I know too well that when it comes to our own kids we wear “rose colored” glasses and all is well.

I will always remember it was the last day of school of my son’s 7^th grade year, my son ran to my car and asked if I would give a classmate a ride, as most of the kids were going to Sonic to celebrate the last day of school. We dropped this classmate off at Sonic, but my son did not want to go. He just wanted to go home. I will never forget how sad I was for him.

I know that too many times, as parents, we just do not know. We do not know what our kids are like or how they act amongst their peers. We are all about acceptance and in the middle school years and high school years, we seem to put too much emphasis into our kids’ friendships as well as who the parents are. Sometimes as parents we don’t know that our son or child is the “asshole” or that they may be in a group of friends that is labeled, “not so nice”.

Looking back, I also know we did not do too badly and although just loving them does not protect them from mean kids or from bullying. I look at my grown sons and see them as the unique individuals that they are. They all have their own strengths. I know some of what they had went through made them who they are today. They grew to be confident young men be whilst the mean kids that they had encountered or may have become at one time or another, in their developmental years that not a teacher or even us parents could shield them from.

As we start this school year, I pray for all that they will have a fresh start and may those that were outcasts or bullied be strong and know their worth.

I have learned so much from my youngest son. He seemed to live by the following, “If they do not like you for who you are, then be yourself even more.” He developed such a sense of knowing who he was and more so, liked who he was whether others appreciated him or not. He was so comfortable in his own skin he didn’t need anyone else to build him up.

God, how much I love that kid.

{Sigh}