Author: Kimberly Dias | May 05, 2017
When 8-year-old Jack walked in, there was something special he brought along with him. I couldn’t figure out if it was his cheerful smile or his simplicity. Either way, it was delightful meeting him. He also carried with him some hurt and sad feelings that arose from being bullied and teased at school. It had been 2 years since he enrolled in his new school. He had one best friend, several other friends and one master bully. This bully troubled most of the children in his class and enjoyed it thoroughly. The teasing made Jack open his mind to anger and often forced him get in to fights and slap the bully back. He felt good at the time but later it made him sad. Jack wished that the bully would just talk to him nicely.
During our sessions, we discussed several ways of dealing with the bullying and teasing. We came up with several strategies together such as putting his head down to calm down, thinking of a large ‘X’ when he felt like hitting and counting numbers backwards as a way to distract himself from the angry thoughts. Since the urge to slap the bully came up very often in our conversations and hitting is not allowed and is inappropriate, I casually suggested that he could slap the bully but only with his breath. Jack leaned forward and seemed intrigued. He was asked to take a deep breath in and breathe out all the angry feelings with so much force that it should almost release the same amount of force and feelings that a slap would! Ah! That sparkle in his eyes just thinking of this strategy was wonderful!
A few weeks later, Jack walked in very excitedly and told me how he had become friends with the bully and the bullying had discontinued. He slapped him with his breath a few times and it felt great! It seemed like luck was on his side too as the bully had a fall and got hurt. He needed help doing several tasks in class. While most of the students were overjoyed with his pain and inability to bully, Jack was the only student to help him. The bully was a little surprised but was very moved by Jack’s kindness. Jack was happy to be of help. His classmates kept telling him how silly he was being and that when the bully was feeling better; he would start being mean to him again. Jack told them that he was helping the bully because he wanted to and not because he wanted to bring about a change in him. It was amazing though, as there WAS a change that happened anyway! I guess only kindness can inspire kindness! Hmmm… reminded me of what Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”