When Jon Magidsohn’s son and one of his friends have a falling out, Dad wonders what part of the story he’s not hearing.
It’s one of parenting’s age-old conundrums: How can I tell if my child is being bullied when evidence suggests they might be doing the bullying? It’s been discussed before on The Good Men Project.
My son started a new school this year that had only two other boys in the class, let’s call them “Pete” and “Joey”. He befriended them both straight away and the threesome became inseparable, according to his teacher. We were so pleased he’d made friends this quickly.
After a few months, our son came home with stories about one of the boys.
‘Pete stole my glasses and ran off with them.’
‘Pete got angry when he lost and threw the ball at my head.’
‘Pete kicked me in the leg.’
My wife and I were starting to dislike Pete.
When we finally met him, we noticed Pete behaved aggressively to both our son and to us. We’d invited him to our home and discovered that his manner and his manners were sorely lacking in decorum, respect and tact. Not that we are prudes; we’re all for children being children but not at the expense of acceptable, Western, middle-class behaviour. Rudeness and hurt feelings cut deep.
Soon after, our son told us he only hangs around with Joey now and that neither of them liked Pete.
‘Of course not,’ I said to my wife, ‘Pete’s a bully.’
She cautioned me about jumping to conclusions.
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Weeks later we received a birthday invitation from Pete’s mother. He was turning eleven, an age where birthday parties are still important. I asked my son if he wanted to go.
‘No.’
‘Why not.’
‘I don’t like him.’
‘But he’s your friend.’
‘Not anymore.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I hate him, okay?’
We tried to dissuade him from using the word ‘hate’ and managed to pry a few more details out of our son that showed Pete was consistently losing friends. It turns out Joey had no intention of going to Pete’s birthday party either. In fact it started to sound like there had been some collusion among all the kids in the class. Nobody wanted to go to the birthday party and everyone made some excuse. We decided to tell Pete’s mother the truth.
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this,’ I said as diplomatically as possible. ‘But I don’t think they are friends anymore.’ I gave a few of the examples to which my son had willingly confessed and suggested it might be a mutual turn of events.
Pete’s mother was ‘saddened’ by hearing this. Apparently Pete had really wanted our son to come to his birthday, not saying anything about leg-kicking or glasses-stealing. That’s when it occurred to us: perhaps this had all been triggered by our son, not hers.
That Pete has anger issues is indisputable. We’ve seen them. We know his parents have been called by the school office more than once and he’d served a day’s suspension (in an incident not involving our son). But what if he was simply reacting to our son’s own lack of tact and respect? While we support his decision not to attend the birthday party of someone he doesn’t like, how can we see the truth, which obviously lies somewhere between his account and Pete’s?
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I will concede that this may not be bullying that makes the evening news. Nobody has been injured, the police have not been called, no fights have been captured on someone’s phone and posted on YouTube. They were friends once and they might be again Still, I’m concerned that if nothing is done at this early stage, either Pete or my son could develop into behavior that is far more destructive than name-calling.
It would be tempting to tell our son to ignore his ex-friend; as we grown-ups frequently ask ourselves, what’s the point of wasting time with someone we don’t enjoy being around? But he’s not a grown-up and he’ll see Pete every day, sit next to him in class, even play on the soccer team together. They are co-workers.
Something tells me I’ll never know the truth. The optimist in me believes the boys will work out their own issues, as boys often do. But as parents, my wife and I are at odds about how to proceed. Something needs to be resolved before someone really turns into a bully.
—Photo Eric Lewis/Flickr