Baby with a Backpack

Even though it’s cold in the winter, my 4 year old son C has been wanting to walk his 6 year old sister E to school in the mornings. C even wants to put on his backpack so he could pretend to go to the elementary school just like E. It’s the cutest thing.

Recently though, there was been a few boys at the elementary school that call C a baby. They constantly say that there is a baby and that he knows how to ride a bike (when C used to ride a bike for drop offs). It would make C sad because he isn’t a baby. I’ve told C to try and ignore those comments, but easier said than done. We have also tried to role play where I am a bully and C would need to come up with the right things to say and do. I felt like he was relatively prepared after the first onslaughts. Fast forward a few months and this still made C sad on occasion.

This particular morning, the boys at the elementary school were calling C a baby with a backpack. C was running and even though he felt sad, he ran as fast as he could to the drop off area. The boys said that C was a fast baby. Even though C didn’t year the hidden comment, E pointed it out and said those boys recognized the speed. C has always loved being fast and he loves Cars the movie (all three of the movies). That made him feel surprisingly better.

I wish there was more I could do to help my kids get to my level of understanding on how to deal with these types of difficult situations. I realize that the talks and role playing could only go so far (and I’ll keep doing them), but they have to experience it for themselves and figure out how to react to learn. At least this particular morning, C showed those boys how fast he was and the speed was the turning point in how he looks at the situation now. Hopefully he continues to show people what he’s made of.