Who's the Boss?

Last week I had to make an uncomfortable phone call, the likes of which I've never had to do before and hope to never have to do again, to the parents of a student whom I have not met to apologize for the actions of my student. After months of my child bullying this other child at school and on the bus, it was finally brought to the attention of the teacher.

This child of mine seems to be hard-wired to do whatever possible to take over, be in charge, boss others around. It's getter harder and harder to come up with creative responses to the child's attempts at taking authority. My first line of consequence has been the simple 'time-out' approach as in: "Well, if you need to be in charge, you'll need to go to your room and do it where you are alone and can be the boss."

That sometimes works if we are at home, but when the behavior occurs while we are out of the house, or at times when I am not around to address it, that is a different scenario. That was the case with the situation at school; since I could not be there to give direct instruction, we needed to find a way to address this at home and then have it carry over into various areas of life.

We began by agreeing that bullying is simply someone misusing whatever power they have or can get. It stands to reason, therefore, that someone with no power would have no ability to bully. Having no power for our child meant that whenever we were in the house, that child would be in the bedroom with the door closed. The only power available was the decision to obey or disobey the simple rule of "stay in your bedroom with the door closed." All other decisions were made on behalf of the child: what to wear, what to have for breakfast, what snack to pack for school, when homework would be completed. It was painful to watch my child dissolved to tears over the realization of what was being missed - family movies and games, special snacks, going to dinner and kids quizzing at church, kids worship. I agreed with the child that it was painful and sad to have to miss out, and I don't like when my kids are in pain. I also told this child that I was glad that the pain was felt because that meant that there was a connection being made between the bad choice and the bad and painful consequence.

But tears are cheap. Changed attitudes and behaviors are the goal; and for some it takes longer to reach a goal. A week of testing ensued: coming out of the bedroom to go to the bathroom three times an hour, blaming a sibling for 'hiding' a flashlight under the pillow (the flashlight had been removed the day before), manipulating the Sunday School teacher into allowing things that we had clearly made 'off limits', waiting until Mommy - who has set up the boundaries - is out of the area and Daddy - who wasn't aware of said limits - is in charge, and then disregarding the rules. So the punishment wore on and on with the hope that a connection would be made.

More 'power' was given at the beginning of the week after a day of solid obedience on Sunday, and with an apology on Sunday evening. Monday saw more smiles over being able to choose an outfit and the breakfast menu. Over the past few days, there have been opportunities to point out when this child is being considerate and kind to others - more smiles. There have also been a few times when it's been good to immediately point out instances of bullying. On Tuesday morning, after being asked to get ready to go out the door for school - twice, this child ignored my requests and then got upset when we went out the door and started up the driveway. After catching up to the rest of us and pouting, I pulled the child to the side and pointed out that power had been misused. This child had power to get ready to go out the door, power to listen and obey, power to be considerate of our schedule; and, I pointed out, that if that power was too much to handle, it could be taken away.

So for now we are just working at understanding what it means to be responsible with the 'power' that we each have and can use for good or for harm.