The Rookery

Our day took an unexpected turn today when I heard a murmur about teasing on the bus.  It seemed that there was a fair amount of drama about who had a crush on whom.  I brought it up to the Herons in our class meeting and yes, it was going on and yes, a lot of kids were involved.  It was the perfect opportunity to talk about crushes and friendships and, mostly, the importance of respecting others.

"The crush game" is a perennial issue in elementary school.  Kids who have friends who aren't the same gender as them or are nice to another kid who's not their gender are asked if they like that person.  Some said they have seen adults who tease kids about "liking" someone they're just friends with.  The Herons acknowledged that some of them had laughed at the game.  But they also acknowledged how uncomfortable it can make them feel – and how self conscious they become about their friendships.  Many kids mentioned how they have a wide range of friends but the crush game makes them avoid sitting with certain friends they might get teased about.

I listened a lot but also took a lead at times.  Our classroom depends upon connections among all kids and we are so much more interesting when we have friends that aren't just like us.  I had male friends throughout middle school and high school and my experience would have been so much more limited had I not had them. 

With further exploration, it turned out that the crush teasing was a part of truth or dare games that had been going on.  I was very glad to have a chance to talk about this.  Truth or dare doesn't work if you don't push boundaries and make people uncomfortable.  After all, telling the truth about what you had for breakfast would hardly be an interesting game.  I shared that I once came across a game of truth or day and asked the kids involved how many of them wished they were playing something else.  Every single one of them raised their hand…and yet they had all assumed they were the only one that was uncomfortable.  We know that peer pressure often works that way.  Kids assume they are the only one who is uncomfortable when, often, they are in the majority.  Having that knowledge can make kids much more likely to speak up or walk away when something is going on they don't like.

We practiced language to use to stop the crush game.  How to deflate teasing by being firmly bored and disdainful of it.  How to say "Stop it" without a smile and without giving the situation more energy.  We talked about the importance of stepping up and telling kids to knock it off when teasing like this starts up.

The Herons seemed primed to step up and get the teasing to stop on the Prairie Creek bus (they shared that it wasn't happening at school because there are "always teachers around").  They felt they had the tools they needed — and truth told, peers are a much more powerful than teachers when it comes to this kind of thing.

We ended the conversation with hands up…there were a lot of stories to share still.  I hope you'll continue the conversation with your child — share your own experiences with peer pressure or "group think."  How did you manage it, or, perhaps even more powerful, how do you wish you'd managed it.  The more times we have conversations like this with our children, the more likely they are to see us as resources as new situations come up.  The door is open.