Primary School - Little Monsters

The first day of school (every child's nightmare), there I was lost and didn't have the slightest clue of what was happening around me most of the time I was at school that day. Although it wasn't actually my first day at school, it was my first day of going to an English school since my parents came over to Australia and I was being brought up by a non-English background. Just like in most cases I was the "new kid" in the class and I couldn't speak English properly. Being the new person in a group and having a disadvantage like not being able to speak English properly are the 2 obvious attributes of an easy target in the eyes mean kids (This also applies for adults, with more complications though). After a few good weeks of being teased with obvious but effective lines like "go home" and "go back to your country", I decided to be creative on how I was going to go about stopping the kids teasing me. Of course since I couldn't speak English properly neither did I have the smarts neither to answer back nor to be able to make own lines to tease them back.

What I did?

Okay, I couldn't fight back verbally, so I had to find a way to fight back physically. It would've been useless to fight back with physical violence since the roles would've been reversed and I would've become the bully. What I did was to act in a way that would embarrass the kids that were teasing me, I thought to myself of what was embarrassing to me (back then) and I came up with the following. Before I came over to Australia, I was being taught my culture as I lived overseas and I remembered how I was embarrassed every time an elderly person kissed me on the cheeks and I would be uncomfortable (The young kiss the hands of their elders as a sign of respect and in return the elderly kiss or get their cheeks touch each others cheeks, this is a common practice.).

Although I wasn't finding the idea of kissing some kids cheeks comfortable but I knew I had to do it if I wanted the teasing to stop. I assumed right, after the first day of kissing the kids (mainly boys) who were teasing me, the next day they didn't tease me. Instead I found out later that day that the kids complained to one of the class teachers and so I explained the situation as much as I could, how I was doing it because they were teasing me. Afterwards, neither did I get in trouble from the teacher neither did those kids tease me again.

My recommendation to others

Note to Parents: Do not try to solve your kids bullying problems all by yourselves in order to protect your child's mental health because you'll be doing more bad then good. First thing a parent needs to do when they find out their kids are being bullied is to "Think Before You Act", learn why your child is being teased or bullied. Then give your child some time for them to solve the problem by themselves meanwhile telling you (the parent) on what they're doing and restrict them from doing anything inappropriate like taking it to the next step i.e. "physical violence". If the child is unable to solve this continuous problem by themselves, try to help them by supporting them and giving suggestions on what they can do. It should be the last option for you to as a parent to solve the problem yourself since with the repetition of this process in future cases of teasing of bullying will cause your child to not learn how to defend themselves.

To all the kids out there, I know what you're all going through. Things can get real though and frustrating when the solution isn't as simple as 1+1=2, but one thing I can tell you all that after some time, your all going to look back and one day laugh at those kids who were teasing you. My recommendation to all of you is, if it is only verbal teasing like name calling just ignore them and time will definitely make them go away, you just need to be patient. If you can't handle all of the teasing or if the bullying is becoming more than teasing and turning into push and shove kind of situation, that is when things are getting serious and the time to get an adults help (whether it's a teacher or your parents). But if it's as simple as name calling, you can either ignore them as I've recommended or you can also do something similar to what I've done (if you feel like you have the courage) and come up with a creative way to stop the bullying.

Here's a book that I came across for parents to help their child with bullying.
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