Well bully for you!

Well - I'd like to say the blog has been languishing because of Easter and recommencement of term 2 with associated kids homework, but its actually a little more simple than that. My chattering Chipmunk has been part of the bullying cycle - and the emotional turmoil associated with that as a parent is well.............exhausting.

As previously hinted, I'd been saving myself for a self-rightrous tirade directed at religous education, when the Premier saw fit to remedy this immediate evil. There is much still to be said on this situation, but unfortunately, not today.

My little boy is experiencing something remarkably common at this age - little boys who know how to make friends but don't know how to keep them. Bullying is all too much like a label, and it fails to address the fact that genuine regard exists, if somewhat tempered by jealousy, competitiveness - and an "I want to be a part of this too" syndrome!

And my little boy is not entirely a saint in this exercise. He's a justice child - it's not always black and white, but he needs to see the precepts of decency and civilisation served. And as anyone with children knows, a controlled situation, as demanded by this scenario, can only happen when the child is living in a biosphere of one form (quaker society) or another (space vacuum). So the finite tension in this exercise is not so much the black and white of what's right and what's not - but rather the alluring beast better known as 'pack behaviour'.

And once again, a need to explain. We've brought up the Chattering Chipmunk to understand that when the pack turns feral, and does the wrong thing, it is important that his pack animal speak up and call it wrong. That's a lot harder than it sounds. Little boys from around 5-10 years of age run as this innocuous pack. They may have closer friends than others, but ultimately, they're in it together. There is no real pack leader at this age - but you see the jossling commence. The stronger personalities - sometimes termed charismatic - will start to exercise their influence - increasingly shape the pack to determine the followers, non-compliance, anti-pack mentality members - or personalities with their own leadership aspirations. It's too early to call it, but I suspect Chattering Chipmunk may well be in the non-compliance group. And this is no suprise, given our very strong anti-naughty-pack-mentality indoctrination. ( I'm quite happy for you to blame the NRL's appauling off-field behaviour over the last few years - it's no accident our son is on the Auskick program!)

And so, as a consequence, our son finds himself facing a type of pack behaviour that he doesn't like, is sure is wrong, and can't see anything being visibly done about it. You see at least one of his friends engages with fists, and legs - and taking the negative side of an argument when it comes up. If you think back to your own childhood, its remarkably common - the child was usually termed the "class bully" - or "most likely to succeed".

Poor Chipmunk, I hear you murmer, it's life, get used to it. But that's not strictly true - you see my child sits in the potential victim group - and will for a very long time because of the choices his parents have made. We've refused to allow Chattering Chipmunk to attend religous Ed - not because we are athiest ( which of course we are!), but because it is not provided in a balanced environment by an educator required to present no postion on the issue. We've also required Chattering Chipmunk to test the "naughty" words at home to see if they are a) naughty; and b) have an acceptable context. We've built a trust with our child where if we don't know the answer, we'll admit it, and then seek to clarify with further research. We won't let Chipmunk play with children whose parents we have yet to get to know - we won't even let Chipmunk walk next door without checking in once he's arrived. And we encourage Chipmunk to question.....everything! And that's hard, because it even drags in our authority as parents. but how can he become a truely valued member of society if he can't question our decision making, given that we so pretensiously claim that indeed, we are not omnipotent. In effect, we have chosen to accelerate our child's impact with the bully cycle early - because we wanted him to know from the outset that pack behaviour has a price - and you have to decide how much you are willing to pay to remain a member of the pack.

So when we deliberately place our child in the group of the different, we can't deny all responsibility for all that proceeds from these decisions. Like when he stands up to the "charasmatic figure" and says "that is UTTER nonsense!" or when he becomes deeply, mortally offended, because the only person observing the actual rules are him. And as his mother it is damned hard. Because I want to throttle the child that makes his life a misery. Because I want to tell him to give in to the urge when he stresses he wants to hit that child, yet continues to deny himself physical satisfaction. And I scream at myself - because our indoctrination - and lets face it - it's nothing less - places him in this situation at particular points in his life. And then you really do question if the end justifies the means.

There are many who cruise through life, unwilling to ripple the pond, to allow minor injustices to proceed either through themselves or their children - and to each of you, I envy you. But you see, that's not me. I live in fear of the what if - if I leave my child/ren unattended, someone will grab him/her/them (not so difficult to understand if you grew up in Adelaide!). If I don't teach my son that running with the pack is no excuse, will he be part of a pack rape of some young and potentially less than perceptive woman as a univerisity student, army solider or football player? If I don't teach him now to question the veracity of what is placed before him as fact, when will that time be? My biggest fear is burying my children - whether it be as a result of their own hand or someone else's is actually irrelevant.

So, you see, I can't just stand back - I don't think I'm a helicopter mum - simply because I don't have time to be as a working mum - and also know that my own compulsive tendencies would make it all to easy to become one. But here's the big question? Is it okay to use your child as a social experiment? And I desperately want to stress that's not what's been intended here. However, by actively choosing to make my child different - by asking him from a very early age to consider the right and wrong of every situation, I make him every so slightly diferent, but just enough that other kids notice, other parent's notice and teachers notice too. But they all notice differently - other children will say - every child is Chattering Chipmunk's friend - parent's who spend more than 1/2 an hour with Chipmunk will state what a lovely child he is, accolade, accolade, while parents whose children are part of that "charasmatic character group" will suggest that Chipmunk "is a very sensitive child" - and teachers will suggest that not only is he "a lovely child, you can have a real and very interesting conversation with him".

The morailty of this situation rests entirely with what you believe to be right and wrong - and when should you enforce those beliefs? Is it right that we choose from an early age to make him different? Arguably, he would encounter this issue as some point in his life, but is it fair that from the moment he enters school that this be the case? He's left handed, non-religious, aniphalectically allergic, thoughtful, the constant friend of the isolated child...could he sit any further on his own? And yet he's not alone. He has multiple friends, is well liked, and never stops trying. But the moments of isolation are a never-ending torture, because afterall, underneath lies the knowledge that this is how we've shaped him.

Is this a "poor me" rant? NO, absolutely not.........but that's not to say it is not without moments of "have we done the right thing". But if you compromise on the timing of teaching your child what's right, and what's wrong...........how long before you compromise on the content???? This is our (husband rather than royal "we") dilemma, and I'd be damned keen to know how others have dealt with it. I can bear pretty well anything that life throws at me - as long as it doesn't involve my children.

As every parent does, I harbour aspirations for my children. But for my son it isn't like most........I see something in him........a rare and precious gift, where, if it survives the blunt instruments of his childhood, he will be one of those truly inspirational individuals, with the power to change the world, simply because he's spent his whole life thinking about it. In a generation where there is little to celebrate, I crave this opportunity for my child to knowingly make a difference.