My Daughter Unknowingly Bullied A Special Needs Kid

bullyMy daughter is not a mean-spirited child. I realize that every parent who has ever existed believes this and I don’t care. I will defend her good intentions and kind heart til my dying day. My little girl is a sweet child.

That being said, she’s also a kid and there are things that she doesn’t understand or hasn’t been exposed to yet. And the first time that she encounters something new, there’s the possibility that her strong voice or curious nature can lead to difficult circumstances. This was one of those times.

Brenna has attended the same daycare since she was a month old. Her provider normally has about six or eight children at a time of varying ages. Through the years, we’ve gotten to know the other families at the sitter’s pretty well, attending each other’s birthday parties and exchanging chit chat in the foyer. And one family that my daughter has grown up with has a daughter with special needs.

I’m not exactly sure what Sarah’s* specific medical diagnosis is. I know that she has physical limitations and wears a back brace. She’s in late elementary school but has the comprehension and speech of a toddler. Sarah is normally a sweet child who has a tendency to invade personal space and misunderstand her own strength, but generally just wants to make people happy.

In the beginning, my daughter simply didn’t understand that Sarah was different from other kids. When they were younger, it didn’t matter that Sarah wasn’t progressing like the other kids were. The children were all small enough that they didn’t notice. This year, however, my daughter finally became old enough to start questioning the situation.

One day, while the kids were playing, my inquisitive girl started asking why Sarah wore a diaper. She’s not one to drop an issue without a satisfactory answer and when Sarah couldn’t explain, Brenna kept questioning. Finally, Brenna said what had been on her thoughts. “You’re too big for a diaper. Babies wear diapers, Sarah. You can’t wear a diaper unless you’re a baby.”

Sarah’s feelings were understandably hurt. She started crying. Brenna remained confused. It’s hard for children to understand the effect their words can have.

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The babysitter told me about the situation in hushed tones that night. She obviously was having a hard time explaining what was going on. “It’s not like Bean to make another child cry,” she qualified, “but Sarah was very upset about being called a baby.”

At home, we had a long talk about special needs and disabilities. We said that even if Brenna didn’t mean to upset Sarah, pointing out her differences had hurt her feelings. We talked about whether Brenna would want someone referring to her as a baby. Obviously not. But the truth was, this was a conversation that I really wasn’t prepared for. I hadn’t even considered how to explain special needs to a child who always looks for the logical answer. I was so worried about keeping my daughter politically correct and kind that I failed to really answer the questions she had about Sarah’s problems.

That’s probably why, about a week later, I had to sit down with my daycare provider again. “We need to talk to her again,” she warned me. “She still doesn’t understand and she’s still asking questions that hurt Sarah’s feelings. Today, we were doing the Slip N Slide and she asked why Sarah “looked funny” when she ran. She asked why she played with baby toys. Really, I know she doesn’t mean to make Sarah upset but she does. And it happened multiple times today.”

This time, I decided to enlist a little support. I called my mother, who has taught in inclusive pre-k and kindergarten classrooms for years. She has plenty of experience teaching young kids about special needs. She gave me a much better understanding of how to actually help my daughter, instead of just chastising her. Here was her lesson.

Explain that everyone has special needs. Some are things that doctors and teachers can help us fix, and some things they can’t. My eyes don’t work right, so I have to see a doctor and get glasses. My husband has back problems, but even though the doctors try to help, they can’t fix everything completely. Just like that, Sarah has problems that she needs help with. That’s why she needs to wear a diaper and a back brace.

What’s more than that, we needed to address the fact that people learn at different speeds. At Brenna’s young age, we’ve so focused on the things that she learns, we’ve never considered comparing her to other kids. But that’s a natural thing for kids themselves to do. People grow up at different speeds. Sometimes it takes us longer to learn things than others. I never could learn to whistle. My husband had a hard time with science, and it took him longer to learn than other people he went to school with. Sarah just has a much harder time learning some things, and it takes her a longer time than it does for Brenna.

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I got ready for our next talk, armed with a new more explanatory strategy. I tried to keep my voice calm, so that I didn’t sound angry or condemning. It was difficult, because I was really horrified at the idea that my daughter made a special needs child cry. Twice. She had pointed out her differences in front of all of their friends, causing another little girl to feel upset and left out. It’s exactly what we don’t want our children to do. It is at it’s core, bullying, even if it wasn’t done maliciously. Even if she wasn’t really cognizant of the damage she was doing.

But I had to set all that aside, the worry and distress over my daughter’s actions. I needed to make her understand why it was important. It wasn’t an easy task. She had questions, and I struggled through answers. She got impatient with all of the explaining I was doing. She suggested that we just draw her a card to say, “I’m sorry,” and call it a day half-way through my planned lecture. I compromised by helping with the card but continuing the conversation as we colored.

The good news is that my daughter hasn’t had problems in a week. She seems to be making an extra effort to include Sarah and play with her, even though Brenna’s moved past a lot of the activities that Sarah enjoys. I’m hoping that she understood my message, even though it’s possible that she’s just avoiding getting in trouble again.

I know that this won’t be the last time we go through these conversations. She’ll encounter more people that are different than her, and she’ll ask more questions that are in no way politically correct. And possibly not even kind. It won’t even be the last time that she hurts someone else’s feelings. And next time she could mean to do it. I’m not trying to act like my daughter will somehow become the perfect, most polite and thoughtful human being to ever live. But I think that should be the goal, right? I should always want to show her the more kind and caring way.

We’ll have lots more talks about bullying with my daughter. It’s a subject that no parent can afford to ignore. But I have to admit, I never guessed that our first talk would cast my daughter as the aggressor, instead of the victim. I had been prepared to protect her, not to teach her a lesson. Now, all I can do is hope that the lesson stuck.

(Photo: fasphotographic/Shutterstock)

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