Bullying Update

A wrote a few weeks ago about two neighborhood boys that were bullying Ryan at the park.  When I wrote that post, I had no idea what was going to happen. 

Since then, I am very happy that the younger boy, C., seems like a new kid!  I saw him at the bus stop the very next morning, after he had been pushing Ryan, after he had stared me down, and I had talked to him.  I said hi to him, and he said hi back.  I still make it a point to say hi to him every morning at the bus stop.  I say hi to the older boy too, but he ignores me.   

After about a week, C., started coming to the park in the afternoons without his “friend,” the older boy.  He would play with Ryan and the other younger kids really well.  He showed the younger kids his skateboard and let them try it a few times.  One day he was playing football with Cole, and another little boy who is also three, and he was great with them.  

Another mom comes to the park a lot in the afternoon as well, and one day she brought her quilt pattern she was working on, along with the fabric squares.  I was asking her about quilting, and C., came and sat down next to us and listened and asked about quilting too.  The other mom explained the patterns to him, and he really seemed interested in it.   

Another day C. ran up to me and told me had a new GPS.  When I asked him if it showed him where he was, he said no, it played music.  I realized he had an MP3 player.  I asked him what kind of music he liked, and he talked to me for several minutes about music.  On Tuesday afternoon, Ryan, C., and some of the other kids in the neighborhood played for an hour at all of our houses- skateboarding and riding down the driveways on their scooters.  I no longer see C. with the older boy, and the older boy if he is at the park, stays away from the younger kids. 

I have never seen C.’s parents around though.  I am not sure what the situation is, but I can see that C. just soaks up attention from adults.  I think sometimes any attention, even negative attention is better than nothing.  I am happy that our neighborhood- the kids and parents have been able to give C. some positive attention, and he has responded so well!

I have no reason to believe that C. would be bullying any kid now.  He told me after I started talking to him that first night after he had pushed Ryan that he “was a good kid.”  These past few weeks have proved that C. was right.