We happened to see the CUTEST movie this weekend called Small Foot, has anyone gone to see it yet? If not GO! NOW! It’s one of those feel good movies, the kind that you leave wanting to hug your family longer and smile at passerby’s. I am a firm believer in the need of love in the way we communicate. I think everyone uses kindness. Maybe not every day all the time, let’s be realistic. Sometimes when I am running through target and my son is being obnoxious the last thing I want to be is kind to him, but that doesn’t stop me from using love. This movie teaches us to love each other no matter what our first impressions are, no matter what we might have been taught and most importantly to love each other even when people tell us not to. I think that is huge lesson for kids these days. I am not saying we need to teach kids to go against their guts and to love those who they don’t want to, I believe all kids have a voice and that they can use their voice to say yes or say no. I am talking about from a bullying aspect. When a group of kids, or adults say you can’t like a person or group of people for this reason or that, but you instead use love and do it anyway. We need to teach kids that they always have their own voices in all aspects of life. That it is absolutely ok to always question others. To always wonder, to figure out their own way through life and most importantly never stop exploring their own ideas and opinions. I don’t want to give too much of the movie away, but I want people to understand how meaningful this message was to me. How it truly had me walking away wanting to make my family more open-minded viewers of the world who never diminish someone else’s questions or light. Nicolas is homeschooled, a lot of that had to do with when he got sick. But what people don’t know is that another major factor in why we chose to homeschool was, when he was in 1stgrade and he was being horribly bullied. It was heartbreaking as a parent to have to explain to your 1stgrader why other kids were mean to him for no reason. Watching your child have to learn how to stand up for themselves is so hard, so finding movies, books or lessons that instead teach tolerance is how I want my son to combat bullying. I want him to stand up for himself by also standing up for others. If other kids say he has to do something, be a certain way or act a certain way I want his confidence in himself to be so high he doesn’t have a problem saying NO. So, that’s what I have taught him. I have taught him that he will always get to decide that he makes his own choices and each choice he makes has a reaction. Whether positive or negative is up to him and the choices he makes. He has the choice to stand up for himself, or he has the choice to allow someone else to destroy how he feels about himself. Only he has the choice to make their words valid. Only he has the ability to give them power. Take their power away by changing your outlook. If you know me personally, you know I am an obnoxiously positive and self-assured, outspoken person. Not to say I don’t have insecurities or things that I work on myself every day, but I don’t allow others to have the power to tell me I need to work on something or feel a certain way about myself or others. Nicolas is not me. He is an extremely quiet and shy child. Teaching him choices gave him a voice he didn’t have before. It gave him a confidence to rely on himself before others, because even if your friends are around you, you can’t always rely on them. You need to learn to create your own ability to stand on your own two feet. I say that because we as parents, cannot be there through every issue, every fight or every disagreement our children have. Nor do I want too. I want him to always honestly tell me what happen no matter what. I want to always have an open form of communication and understanding but I don’t want to fight his battles for him. My job is to equip him for life, not hold his hand through it. I know I am such a mean mom! I don’t want to always be there for my son! I don’t want him to share with everyone, or always say yes. I don’t even care if he walks out of something, if that’s the something he believes in. Because those are his choices, those are the decisions he has to live with whatever reactions happen. Now that doesn’t mean I am going to throw him to the wolves and never help him when needed. I will absolutely guide him, help him and anticipate that life happens. Part of learning how not to accept bullying teaches you also how not to be a bully. I ask Nicolas on a daily basis how his choices or reactions from his choices or those he observes make him fee. How he would feel in those person’s shoes and what would he have done differently. None of these questions have a right or wrong answer. I am just trying to get him to understand that even if a kid is bullying you, maybe that person/group of people is going through something, maybe they need a friend, maybe they didn’t know the reaction their choices would have. Educating him there are two sides to everything. I want him to see both sides of the spectrum to understand why not only does it hurt his feelings when it happens to him, but why it would hurt someone else’s feelings if he chose to participate in bullying. He’s not perfect. He’s definitely participated in bullying and when questioned about his reasons he felt bad about his choices. He learned from his experiences and learned how to be a better human as we all have through our “lessons” in life. Being 10 is hard, being a mom of a 10-year-old is harder. We’ve come a long way with bullying in this society. Understanding people, using love always even when you have no kindness left, and always trying to see all sides of bullying both the bully and the bullied will have us keep moving towards a positive place. One where bullying no longer defines groups or certain demographics in our society. I hope people create more movies like Small Foot to give us positive teaching tools for our families. I hope you spend time having a positive open form of communication with your children whether you see the movie or not but use this as an opening to really see how they are reacting to the cause and effects of growing up in today’s society. Gauge their reactions to bullying and then give them the tools to stand on their own feet. By having these conversations hopefully one day bullying isn’t something that they have to worry about but instead are equipped to handle.
