Being in a Montessori school since he’s 18 months old my son (now 6) has well learned how to treat others respectfully and thus in his school environment he hardly comes across a typical bully. It’s a relatively small school and all the children there learn of course these rules and behaviours. However outside that closed space it’s a different story. We live in a complex now with many new friends and children and while most are nice kids and so far we haven’t had any troubles at all, I thought (more to myself) perhaps it’s time I started thinking what I’m going to teach my kid how to deal with bullies.
So we had a discussion the other day as one of the boys at school hurt him. It wasn’t a bullying situation at all, more a typical little fight as they have. But it was a situation where one child hurt another and so I took it as a case in point and I suddenly knew what to say to my son, how it is possible that one can hurt another intentionally. I explained to him that in such a case, children or adults, the person that hurts the other one (by saying something unkind or physically hurting) they have simply forgotten how to love. I explained to him that me too, when I am angry at something, at that very moment have forgotten to love. And he could understand that, he could relate himself, that when he’s upset, he “hates mommy”. But of course it’s not true, it’s just momentarily forgotten. And so it is our responsibility not to forget to love.
I was reminded of this way of seeing things when I had the pleasure of watching this amazing little video. We have the book on which this is based. Nice to see it put into a story like this.
You can get it at Music To Nourish.
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