Lola is back at it! AnnaBelle has learned...maybe. Or she is still tired from yesterday. Either way, my involved bystander was not here today and my workout was filled with slobber and attempts to snuggle by Lola. Today I was determined to not let it deter me or cut my workout short. Why does Lola not get it? Yesterday, as I studied, I shared a tough personal story about my son, Kota and the bullying he faced. I shared about a book, "The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander." I received many, comments and direct messages, some containing stories of their own bullying experiences. I never heard from a bully. Interesting. Don't you think?
1. Bullying for Kota began with compassionate correction. Many people, adults included, felt it their responsibility to teach Kota how to be "normal." (which is really only a setting on a dryer) I have to admit, I participated in that movement at first. We constantly nagged Kota for chewing on strings, money, pop can tabs and we now know that what he was doing was stemming, a self-soothing action taken by people, and once we redirected to something safer to chew, all was well, sort of.
2. Shunning and teasing was a constant in Kota's world. He still doesn't have a friend and when he is vulnerable and honest, he will tell you he craves someone who will just call up and ask to hang out. They have to be ready for a lot of information dumping (fact filled one-sided conversations) and lack of eye contact, but the good news he only peoples for a short time, so you can hang if you ever want to.
3. I shared yesterday that Kota was bullied by a teacher. There were actually two distinct teacher bullies. Sometimes the bullying was micro-aggressions; told to act like the other children, he didn't want to look weird. Sometimes it was cloaked in the form of discipline. Kota was once punished at school for itching. He had sensory issues which makes sensations feel stronger. He was told if he didn't stop, he would be paddled. He couldn't stop. He was paddled at school and when I arrived at home, I found he was covered in hives due to a food allergy. The teacher had convinced herself that the punishment was appropriate because he was distracting everyone and would not stop as she ordered. But in middle school, armed with an IEP, Kota received the worst bullying he ever dealt with at the hands of a trained, educated professional. Along with refusing to honor some of the items in the IEP, she constantly told him to act normal, to stop acting weird, and restricting the other children from playing with him because he was "so strange". She tried to keep him from entering academic school competitions because he was in special education He has a 132 IQ) and often failed him (because of not working with his differences) in assignments that kept him from field trips. She even boldly stated, I don't want to take him, he is too much trouble. She encouraged other students to tease him and even police him.
4. In high school, Kota was videos with a smart phone, while using the restroom, over the top of a stall, by a young man in an attempt to fit in with kids that had bullied him his whole life. He shared the video and it spread through the school like wild fire. Sadly, he was caught, kicked out of school for a year, and taken through court by the school system. I say sadly, because the original group of bullies that incited him to action, were never identified, nor punished and are free adults, in the world today.n I can only hope they are no linger bullies.
1. We must accept people for how God created them. In our house, we don't believe autism is a disease that you try to be healed of. It is how he is made, how his brain is wired. If you spend time with Kota you will see, he is brilliant, wonderful, fun and weird. (He likes that word.) His mind is beautiful.
2. We need to teach about differences in humans. Both teachers that Kota had the most problems with, were asked to receive additional training. The first on health issues in students and behavior training. She refused and retired early. Apparently, learning more about children was more than she was prepared to handle as a teacher. The second teacher, the one that ultimately had Kota in class for three years of torture, begrudgingly went to a training held by Temple Grandin, world famous autism authority, paid for by the school system and came back, verbally refusing to do anything she was taught. She felt the training was a waste of time and ignorant, her words, not the words of the others that attended the training. People are different and knowing their differences is critical to embracing them. There are nearly 1.5 million people in the U.S. with Autism. And if you have met one person with autism, you have met one person with autism. No lumping allowed. While 60% of America is white, 18 percent of us are Latino, 16 percent are black, 6 percent are Asian and about 1.5 percent are Native American like me. Women outnumber men by a few percentage points. America has been called a melting pot but I had a human geography professor that preferred the term, chop suey, each race and ethnicity and gender maintaining their individual flavor and attributes, yet blending together to make a wonderful dish. Ponder that!
3. Rules and laws are created to hold fast to order in our communities. Laws and rules are meant to be fair, equitable and not to cause harm and are supposed to be the least possible restriction to create order. For laws and rules to work, we all must follow them, included people in authority. When people with more power have less accountability, like Kota's teachers, we open the door for bullying...oppression...harm. This is where we see teachers abusing students in the name of order, police using excessive force in the name of safety and even average Americans using their status to "correct" others so are not faced with dealing with their difference. In our world there are people with power, due to jobs or positions, race or even class. Using that power to create good is awesome. Unfortunately too often, that imbalance of power is used to keep those that are different in their place, beneath those with power. *Maybe someday I will gain permission from his brother, Dylan to share about abuse of power and bullying at his expense.
4. We have to protect those in a weakened state; those that have had their voices taken away. They are vulnerable to being recruited by those out to create terror. The tactic of recruiting the oppressed and afraid to join in terrorism has been used throughout history in the world. Imagine if we recruited people, by including all people, elevating them to a status of power and accepting them as they are, so that they are not prey to bullies looking for willing allies.
All lives cannot matter until all lives matter to you as much as your life matters to you.
Today:
- Check yourself
- Are you oppressing anyone, anywhere anyway?
- Are you rationalizing harmful behavior towards others?
- Is there a group of people, anywhere you see as beneath you?
- Meditate on the scripture, "We all fall short of the glory of God, but by the grace of Christ I can be made right" (Romans 3:23-24 Monica's version)
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