Recently, he’s been telling me about a problem a few of the neighbor boys. Two of the boys he used to be friends with and the other one we have been having problems with for a long time. The day we moved in, this boy called my son the N word. (My son is half-Caucasian and half-African American.) Now, I don’t promote violence but I also don’t want my children to get walked on or beat up by anybody, either. Being that this boy called him that, him and my son got to fighting. I spoke with the boy’s father at that point and we agreed that the boys just needed to stay away from each other. That was five years ago.
The things between the three boys and my son and his friend (who is African American) are escalating. Apparently, either the “main” boy is lying, or my son is lying, and the bottom line is that there is a rumor going around that my son is in the woods in our neighborhood starting fires. And this boy is the one that told me about it.
Credit Henning Buchholz
Well, that’s something I’m definitely not going to tolerate since I don’t want to pay for my son committing arson, so I went looking for my son and he was walking with this other boy in the neighborhood, and I asked them where they were and they both said that they were at the other boy’s house. They weren’t far from this other boy’s house, 100 feet tops. The woods are behind that row of townhouses, a little ways from where we were.
I meant to go down there to speak to the boy’s parents who said that my son was igniting fires, but between working 10 hour days and daily life here at home, I hadn’t made it over there. Mind you, it’s only been 2 or 3 days since this all went down.
Yesterday evening, after I got home from work, the boy’s father knocked on my door and told me my son got in his face and all this other stuff. Of course, my son claims that this is not true, that this adult threatened to beat my son’s A-word!
Being the parent, you automatically want to side with your children. But there is a part of you that wonders if they’re lying. Let’s face it, we’ve all done things that maybe we shouldn’t have when we were kids. But considering the players that are involved, the history of the situation, and the fact that there’s a smidgen of racism involved, I am tending to lean towards the assumption that my son is telling the truth and the other boy is embellishing a little bit.
Yes, embellishing. Meaning not the whole truth.
I’m sure some of the things I heard from the father are true. But not all.
The father told me that the other three boys were planning on going to the Guidance Office at school today and talk to them about my son “messing with them all the time”. The story I get is that the “main” boy mentioned above is the ringleader and always has these two other boys do things to my son on the bus, little things like throwing things at him and flicking him. Of course, I’m not there so I don’t know what my son is doing to them, either.
Last night, after all of this went on, my son and I talked about it and I explained to my son that from now on he needs to ignore these boys from now on and not feed into the games that they are playing. That if they took him into the Guidance office on account of this situation, to keep his cool and explain his side, and if necessary, bring the other boy in as a witness.
What would you do?
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Angela,
I would first start with talking with your child’s friends parents to make sure your son was at their house like the boys stated. Next, I would contact the school Guidance Counsler and the Principal and request a formal meeting. You need to find out from them if the teachers, bus drivers, gym coaches, etc have witnessed or noticed any behavior that is not acceptable from any of the children. You also need to tell them what the history with the ring leader is. Once you have this meeting you find that the next step would be to schedule a meeting with the ring leaders parents. Leave the kids out of the meeting, but have the meeting at school. As a parent you never want to imagine your child doing anything wrong but there also comes a time when you have to realize that not punishing for behavior is doing more harm than imaginable. Kids can be so cruel to one another and we as parents want to teach our children to be independent and be able to handle situations on their own but at the same time we just CRINGE when our kids are hurt by another child. My daughter was told this year by her best friend that they are not best friends anymore; this crushed her at the time. Now, she has two friends that she enjoys playing with and the previous best friend, well, she was able to see that a real friend stays your friend. I hated for her to learn this but at the same time was relieved because as a parent my Husband and I were able to see her true colors before they were revealed.
Say a prayer for God to lead you in the right direction. And good luck.
Tanya
Do a little espionage. Go out into the woods, check out where the fires were lit and see if there is any evidence of your son or anyone else. Did his clothes smell like smoke? If he were lighting fires they would smell heavily of wood smoke, it would be unavoidable. What about the other boys.
I’m sure that the boys would be on their best behavior if you were present but perhaps you could have the bus driver keep an eye out for you to see if he/she can find out what is really happening.
Hi Angie, You are obviously a good, concerned parent. My advice is, whilst all this ‘he said’ ‘they said’ is going on, try to focus on your son’s self esteem – that he knows the positives about who he is, what he stands for, what ambitions he has and any successes he has.
Also, try to keep the communication open between you and your son – emphasise to him that you are on his side ‘Who’s side am I on?”, at the same time, point out that you need to know the warts and all story from him about anything because you need to be prepared for whatever is going to be put to you by others.
For self-esteem, I found this web-page useful – http://www.take-your-power.com/10.htm