The steps I told my kids to deal with mean kids kindly

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Now that my girls are in the 2nd grade we are finding out that some kids tend to be plain mean. I’m not saying when they were younger kids weren’t mean, but now it seems to be more often. I started telling my children that the kid was likely “struggling to get along,” which seemed to be the kindest way I could explain why anyone would want to be mean to them. My main goal is raise kind-hearted humans and want them to have strategies in place when they are in these situations. mean kidsWhen I was talking to a teacher friend, she gave me some guidelines for dealing with mean kids, so far they seem to be working.

Here are the guidelines: 

  1. Ignore the kid’s mean/jerky remarks. 
  2. Say “that’s not kind” when another kid says something mean or rude. 
  3. If it persists, walk away, moving away from the situation and choosing another situation. 
  4. If moving away has the mean kid following them, get help from a teacher or adult. 

I started thinking, why would a kid be a mean kid?? One option is the kid is trying to figure out socializing with classmates and friends. Maybe the mean kid is trying to be funny to gain friends (which again is a socializing issue). Then I thought about where these kids learning the mean behaviors. I’m mostly kind to my kids, of course I lose my mind sometimes, but I attempt to have real conversations with my children. 

I’m sure I’ll get some backlash for this, but here goes…

Let’s be honest, some kids are just plain mean because their parents are probably mean too. Sorry, not sorry. 

If you hate me now, I’m okay with that. At some point in my life I realized I wouldn’t be friends with everyone and that’s perfectly acceptable. I’m going to live my life being kind to others, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept poor behavior or befriend everyone. We were all created with our own blessings and  I’m not going to have the same morals, values and energy as everyone else and that’s okay. 

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