Bullying Sucks

Bullying sucks, which I know from personal experience.  I was bullied for five years, until we moved to a new school system in another state. One of the "highlights" of my experience was being pinned against the wall of the school by four girls while a fifth one, the ringleader, beat me up.  We were in fourth grade.

Fast forward a few decades, and I have a five-year-old who loves school and who loves riding the bus to school.  Or at least, she did until about two weeks ago.  Today, we finally found out why she doesn't want to ride the bus anymore.   Two boys who sit up front are mean to her; they call her "stupid."  The seats on our buses are separated by grade level, so these two boys in front are either in preschool or kindergarten.  We watched as she got on the bus today, and two boys stood up as soon as they saw her and started saying something - I couldn't hear what, but I did tell the bus driver what my daughter said was happening.  He said he'd take care of it.  Our bus driver is a very nice, caring person, and I'm sure he'll do his best.  Kids, however, when they want to be mean, are very good at not being caught.

My daughter is not "stupid" - whatever that even means to these two boys.  She is, however, introverted, quiet and sensitive.  In other words, just the kind of kid who can be a bully magnet.  A lot of people, possibly most, would say that they're just little boys doing what little boys do - kids in general, really, not just the boys.  How many times have we all heard people say how mean kids can be?  Are these two boys bullies?  I don't know. I do know, however, that the path is pretty short from having two kindergarten kids calling one child names to having those two kids be part of the gang that's holding a fourth grader against a wall.

We're going to be working with LG on how to handle kids calling her names.  For those of you whose kids are happy extroverts who are willing to say what they think, teach them how to handle bullies too - even if they're not the ones being bullied.  Teach them how to not take part and how to support kids who are being targeted.  Lots of research on bullying shows that even one child refusing to participate or telling a bully to stop helps the target immensely.  And if your child is the bully, or the one who calls other kids names and might become a bully in the future - listen.  Please.  If anyone has ever told you about your child exhibiting this sort of behavior, listen.  Too many parents brush it off as "kids will be kids" or "my child would never do that."  Guess what - somebody's kid is doing it, and it very well just might be yours.  And it's not OK, and it's not trivial, and it's not just something kids have to be expected to do.  It's wrong, and it needs to stop.

Atlantis

And I'm not talking about Legos this time.

It's a really slow day at work today, which for once I'm happy about.  I was able to watch Atlantis lift off for the last time.  I remember watching Columbia launch the space shuttle era.  I remember that I watched as many of the first five or ten shuttle launches as I could.  I know that at some point I started having the same feeling most of us seem to have had - even though they didn't launch all that often, space shuttle launches were routine.  They were safe.  We had done it - we could send people into space and bring them back whenever we had the money and will to do so.  If we missed one launch, we could always see the next one.

I also remember when that little delusion was shattered.  I was in high school when we lost Challenger.  Even though one of my favorite teachers was our state's representative to the Teacher in Space program and was at the launch, our school didn't think we all needed to be watching on tv.  Of course, that quickly changed as rumors started spreading through the cafeteria, and we all knew something was really wrong when my social studies teacher was sprinting down the hall pushing a tv cart.  Then we all couldn't stop watching tv.  I'll never forget hearing the first-hand accounts from our teacher of what it was like to be there for that tragedy.

But we moved on.  Eventually, the shuttles flew again.  The first launch after Challenger was nerve-wracking in a way even the very first Columbia launch wasn't.  Honestly, I was never again able to watch a shuttle launch without nervously wondering whether or not I was going to see that horrible big white puffball again - even today's.  But they all made it up.  Every one of them.  Then, of course, we got reminded again that just because the shuttle gets up safely doesn't mean it's going to come back again, and we lost Columbia.

But again, we moved on.  Eventually, the shuttles flew again. Today, Atlantis lifted off for the last time.  My five-year-old is incredibly sad that there will be no more space shuttle flights.  No more manned flights from the U.S. of any kind, at least not for awhile.  She's hoping we go to Mars next.  I hope so, too.  I hope we go somewhere, because human spaceflight is too exciting and too inspiring for us to just abandon it.

In the meantime, the shuttle program isn't over yet.  Not until Atlantis comes home.

Farewell, Wonder Woman TV

Wonder Woman NBC | Inside TV | EW.com

Well...I can't say I was a fan of the costume. But we were hoping it was going to spawn legions of Wonder Woman toys for Christmas.

Braaaiiiinnnssss....

I'm sure, as a mother of a 5-year-old, I'm supposed to be deeply disturbed by my daughter's habit of sitting around and saying "Braaaaiiiiinnnnnssss" in her spookiest voice.

That's right, my daughter's obsessed with Plants vs. Zombies. She says she wants the plants to win, but I'm not always entirely sure that she means it.

The Geek Mom in me thinks it's pretty cool.  I don't think I'm supposed to admit that (at least around the non-Geeks!)