"Fitting In"

Nathan and I listened to Adventures in Odyssey last night on our way to basketball practice. We rarely listen, but this episode really bothered me. So here's the story: a boy named Freddie wants his dad to change jobs so they would have to move. It turns out that he is getting bullied at school, has no friends, and the reason it takes him an hour to get home from school in the afternoons is that he is taking this long, circuitous route home so he won't get beaten up. The dad talks to the principal, who is sorry and will discipline the offenders but said it wouldn't really make that much difference, since he can't watch over Freddie all the time. The parents decide to send Freddie to a private school, although the dad doesn't want to teach Freddie to "run from his problems". Poor, poor Freddie! Nathan and I were quite sad at this point, and I was glad that Nathan wouldn't have to face that sort of treatment as an elementary age student!

So then Freddie went to the private school. His teacher asked him to stand up and talk about what he liked to do. "Collect butterflies" was his answer. Everyone laughed. The kids also laughed at how he combed his hair when he first stood up. Then his teacher asked about an interest in music, and Freddie said he wanted to learn how to play the harp. Yeah. Through a conversation with another kid later, we also find out that Freddie wears pants that are too short. Freddie tries to change his hair, but he still ends up getting beaten up at the new school. The parents are full of platitudes such as "Well, we think you're great just the way you are, Freddie! Why should you change your hair and clothes?" Eventually the dad has a talk with him about how no matter what he does to the outside, the inside will always shine through (which must have been so depressing to a kid who can't find a friend anywhere!) Now Freddie eventually accepts Christ as his savior and is going to let Christ work in him, so it ended up okay. But I was very bothered by the story on many levels.

First of all, if you as a parent are going to send your child out into the wide world all by themselves, then I think it is up to you to teach your child a few tricks of how to relate and get along in social situations. It cracks me up that people always think homeschoolers are so unsocialized, and actually my fear was that they were going to start homeschooling this poor geeky kid (which wouldn't have been a bad option for him), thereby adding to the myth of the unsocialized homeschooler. Obviously this boy's problems started earlier, and the parents never helped him see that you don't try to make yourself stand out in hostile situations? That you wait until you get to know people a bit before telling your big dreams, especially if they are what others might consider weird, like a boy wanting to play the harp? Why let your child MAKE himself into a walking bully target?! And make sure your child is not wearing clothes that are way too small and has totally geeky hair!

Obviously, there are going to be people out there who are just bullies no matter what you do, and of course there are areas that you should not change, no matter how you are bullied, but just leaving it as "Well, we like you!" seems to me to be a bit of a cop-out on the parents' part when there WERE legitimate social areas they could have helped their son develop in that would have made him not be such a target.

And the whole thing about "not running from your problems"? Good grief! The kid was obviously in late elementary school. I'm sorry, but life just should not be so dreadful for a CHILD at that age. Parents should be helping him avoid those kinds of problems, not letting him potentially be scarred for life! Take the kid home, teach him some social skills, let him enjoy life and whatever his interests are at his own pace, and then when he is older, let him find people out there who share his unique interests. By then, a person is much more confident in himself, and there are just more options for finding like-minded people than when one is in grade school.

Boy, the whole thing made me glad to be skipping the public school stuff though. Children's hearts are tender and precious. I don't want my child's heart out there, being stomped on daily, and me feel like there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.