A couple of weeks ago my kids got their report cards. They are both excelling in elementary school and always have. For a lot of parents this would be a moment of parental pride. For me this is not very important. As far as school is concerned, what I care most about is that they enjoy going, they love learning, and they have a natural curiosity about the world. These are the qualities I want to foster. Marks be damned.
What made me do the parental fist pump happened a week later, and has absolutely nothing to do with school “performance”. Or maybe it does. More on that later or I’ll spoil the story, and ya’ll know how much I love a good story. My daughter came home one day and told me that a boy who “likes” her at school (I put that in quotes because what happened clearly shows a complete and total lack of understanding of what it means to care for someone else) has been touching her without her permission. Mama bear wanted to rear up on her hind legs and roar, but I took a deep breath and said, “Oh? Tell me more.” Breathe mama, breathe.
Apparently this boy has been repeatedly putting his arm around her and touching her hands (his desk is stuck to hers) during class. Every time he does it she shoves his arm away and tells him to stop but he hasn’t been listening. On this particular day she had had enough so she yelled at him and went and told the teacher, then came home and told me.
First I told her how courageous she was to tell him to stop and then to speak up and tell the teacher and I about it. I reminded her that absolutely no one is allowed to touch her without her permission and that what he did was absolutely not okay. Since it happened at the end of the day, the teacher had told her that she was going to speak to the vice principal about it and that the vice principal would speak her and the other kids the next day.
I asked if she felt she needed any support or if she was comfortable to speak up for herself. At first she said she was okay on her own but then she got a funny look on her face and I knew something else was up. She then told me that this boy was making obscene gestures of a sexual nature behind her back and this has been witnessed by her friends and some of the other boys who have been egging him on.
Oh my. Well now mama bear is going to have to do something. She said she was not comfortable discussing this particular issue with the vice principal so I assured her I would send an email. The next day she told me all about talking to the vice principal and describing what happened and how she felt about it. The boy and his family has been spoken to and he hasn’t come near her since.
Well, this whole thing might not seem like much but I can assure you it is. My daughter was able to set and uphold a boundary around being touched. How many of us adults still struggle with this? How many of us have an I-wish-I’d-have-said-no story that didn’t turn out so well? It takes a tremendous amount of courage to “make a scene” and yell at someone to get their hands off of you, and then go report the inappropriate behaviour.
If someone had taught me how to set and uphold boundaries as a child it could have spared me so much misery. And here is my daughter in elementary school kicking ass in the boundary department. That right there is the ultimate parental fist pump moment as far as I am concerned.
Barely had my arm descended from this pumping motion when my ex-partner told me that my son had come home from school and said that a substitute teacher had hit him. Apparently this teacher had tried to whack a ball out of his hands in impatience (admittedly he didn’t listen when she had told him to put it down) and hit him on the arm. Granted this could have been accidental, but when he backed away from her she came after him and hit him on the arm twice more while trying to get the ball from him. Are you KIDDING me??
Earlier in the day she had grabbed another student by the scruff of the shirt and pinched her neck in the process. I swear I’m going to dislocate my jaw the way it’s been hitting the floor lately. Following in his sister’s footsteps, my son spoke up and told the teacher that what she did was not okay. She scoffed at him, claimed never to have hit him, and then later told him not to tell anybody what happened.
Deciding he wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing, at recess time my son and several other students marched straight to the principal’s office where they told her what had happened. The principal immediately threw the teacher out of the school and asked one of the resource teachers to take over the class.
My son, like my daughter, was able to set and uphold a boundary regarding his physical safety. He spoke up in the face of what must have been a frightening authority figure and then he went and reported her. This quite literally brings tears to my eyes because I know the kind of suffering that can be avoided if children are supported and taught to stand up for their rights and uphold their boundaries early.
This right here is a thousand times more important than marks on a report card. This is my parental happy dance moment. I am also tremendously grateful for the principal and vice principal who have always listened and responded when we have needed them. My kids know that the administration has their backs and that means everything.
We have had several incidences of wildly inappropriate behaviour around my children recently and I had found myself asking why it was always happening to us. These more recent incidents have made me realize it isn’t just happening to us. It’s happening all the time. It’s just that my kids are the only ones who speak up.
There’s no way that this is the first time this substitute teacher has hit or grabbed a child. There’s no way that this boy hasn’t made inappropriate gestures or touched another girl without her permission before touching my daughter. My kids have witnessed others being subjected to unacceptable behaviour and not speak up. My kids do and so that lands us in the soup more often than may be comfortable, but I hope that by setting an example they will show others the way.
I believe that if we want our children to have joyful and peaceful lives as adults then teaching them how to set and uphold boundaries is absolutely essential. Without boundaries we aren’t safe, and when we don’t feel safe we cannot learn and grow. Without boundaries we take on things we don’t want to do and become resentful. Boundaries are a form of authenticity. Boundaries are love – love for ourselves and love for maintaining authentic relationships based in honesty and integrity.
Talk to your kids early and often about what boundaries are and how to set them firmly and respectfully. Teach them that those who refuse to respect their boundaries should not be tolerated. Encourage them to speak up for others when appropriate. I believe if we can do this the world will be a better place.