Bullied

On Monday, Sean did not want to go to school. He was being quite difficult so I was rather testy with him. I told him to stop talking for a while while I concentrate on driving him to school and keeping a cool head. So he did. He went really quiet. With my son, being quiet means something is wrong. I asked him if he was ok, he said, " Yes, I'm ok." ( but rather subdued)

This was after a battle of getting him to eat before school. I gave him more than an hour to eat and he still didn't finish his food. The moment I parked the car, he said he was hungry. So we quickly nipped to the supermarket nearby to get him some pastries to eat.

So as we were walking to school, he said again
" I don't want to go to school. My friends are stupid."
I was surprised because that's not how he usually behaves. So I asked
" Why do you call you friends that? That's not nice."
"My friends are stupid"
I asked, " Did someone call you stupid?"

I was guessing, but I know that he hasn't been picking up mandarin at school. After 8 months at school, he still speaks mostly English at school. So maybe some of his friends who are more fluent may call him names, and then he said,
" Yes. My friend call me stupid."

He didn't want to enter his classroom. I talked to his teachers about it. They said they don't allow name callings in class, but they'll be more alert and talk to the kids about it. When he came home, we found out further who this 'friend' was.

It was a girl. She seems quite nice enough, and even passed me Sean's water bottle once when he forgot it. Sean says, " Yen Ling calls me silly and stupid."

I can quite imagine the situation because Sean is a joker and likes being silly. But he is very sensitive and must be feeling very hurt. My cheerful son who is always a joker has been rather subdued these last few days, and does not want to go to school. He hasn't been himself

I feel very sad for him. :(

I think it's hard for a boy to be bullied by girls. I always tell him to treat girls nice. But little girls can be hurtful in their words, and he has no defense against this. I do hope mummies with little girls would remind them that they should be nice to little boys too.

P.S.
This lasted only a few days though. After that things went back to normal.