How to fight bad parenting
A story of standing up against a bully, together.
It’s 4pm. Our 3 year old is at her usual weekly ball practice in the park.
The parents and their children are gathering around the instructor. Some kid is fiddling with his shoelaces. Another kid is running around like a tornado.
Everything looks normal, except I know the normality is superficial.
I‘m standing next to my wife, and next to us are 2 other dads.
One boy is in all of our minds.
The tornado boy.
The instructor waves and gestures for everyone to gather around. There are 6 kids today. I swear it was 8 the last week and maybe 10 the one before.
The children start running around as they're told. They have their arms in front of their noses, pretending to be elephants trampling on the grass.
Charlotte starts doing a little jog. Do elephants jog?
Before the thought leaves my mind, I see the boy – Jay – reach out for Charlotte's collar from behind her. He's out to do damage and he manages to grab it, yanking Charlotte backwards. She falls on the grass with a thud.
I see this happen and my first reaction was, Oh shit.
My second reaction was, Your mum's not going to gentle-parent this situation away because I'm gonna slap you.
Although rare, I do sometimes succeed at being an adult. I manage to suppress my rage, because I know a bigger thing is at play.
On the car ride before this, we'd already rehearsed for this situation.
"Charlotte, if Jay hurts you again today – if he pushes or pulls you or does something hurtful – what will you do?"
"I will cover my head and and I will bring my legs in when I fall."
"Okay, that's great. You're putting the things you learned in Wing Chun to use. Is there something else you will do?"
"I will say, 'Schhttopp!! I möchte das NICHT!!!'" (Translated: Stop! I don't like this!)
"Exactly. I know it will not be easy, because you will be hurting, but if you don't do it to a boy like him, he will always do hurtful things to you. You must show him that you are strong. Then he will never disturb you again."
Charlotte is crying.
And I totally get it.
I would cry too if I was running, happily imagining myself as an elephant, when some asshole yanks my collar from behind, choking my neck and causing me to fall to the ground.
My wife and I remain still. We know we need to observe her reaction. To give her time and space to react the way we rehearsed.
But the next thing that happens is Jay's mum coming and taking him out of the situation. She literally picks him up without a word and extricates him from the group. They are now sitting under a tree in the sidelines.
I think I hear her say something about "not being nice."
Well, I guess the window for learning to stand up to the bully just disappeared with that one move.
My wife goes up to Charlotte and squats next to her to check if she's alright.
What do I do?
I think fast and decide that the moment's not over. There's still a lesson here.
No, I'm not going to slap tornado boy.
I go over and squat next to Charlotte and open my mouth —
"Hey, what Jay did was horrible. He really shouldn't have done that, because he's hurting people.
"I know why you're crying. It hurts to fall down like this.
"You know what? I think you should still go up to him now and tell him that you don't want him to do that again.
"Do you want to go up to him? Daddy can come with you."
All this time, she continues to cry. But she's paying attention. I can tell because her cry has gotten a little quieter. And a little quieter...
She contemplates my proposal for a few seconds as she calmed herself down. Balls of tears still welling up around her eyes.
Then she says, "Ya. I want to."
We walk a bee-line to the boy and his mum. I want it to feel as if we're about to go over and give them a smack down. That ought to give Jay a taste of himself.
Charlotte's gripping my hand tight. We arrive in front of Jay and her mum. I squat down next to them.
No smackdown. Just two parents and their two children. I can feel the other parents looking at us. I sense the activities paused around us.
I look at Charlotte, wait for two seconds, and, seeing her stay quiet, I give her a little verbal nudge. "What do you want to say to Jay?"
She says it. For the first time in front of a bully.
"STOP! Ich möchte das NICHT!"
I can't help but let out a smile.
My job is done.
But I thought I'd squeeze in another lesson in self-defence, so I squeeze in a few more words on her behalf.
I say out loud for both the boy and his mum to hear –
"That's great, Charlotte. That took courage. Now you have warned him. And I think he heard you.
"But never again. The next time this happens, if Jay hurts you again, you're going to push him back. Right?"
She mutters a quietly confident, "ya."
"Good."
Jay and his mum remain quiet.
We walk away from the bully and this time, I notice it is me who has balls of tears in the eyes.
We fought bad parenting with good parenting today.