Another Source of Stress for Kids
I tend to focus on the stresses of academics in my blog posts, but today I want to point out a stress that can come at kids from other sources at school, and that stress is no less real, painful, or potentially harmful than stress from worrying about grades.
I just read an article about two boys, both eleven years old, who each committed suicide after having been taunted by kids at their schools who had been calling them “gay.” Somehow, to those boys, that bullying (don’t belittle it by calling it “teasing”) must have felt like it was more than they could live with.
While the authorities scramble to curb the epidemic of bullying that has been building up at schools as well as over the internet and parents lose sleep worrying about how to protect their kids, I want to talk directly to the kids.
I have two messages. The first is for kids who use “gay” as an offhand pejorative, saying things like, “That is so gay” or “He is so gay” about anything or anyone they don’t happen to like at that moment. My message is simple: cut it out.
I’ve had kids tell me “Oh, it doesn’t mean they’re homosexual; it’s just something everyone says.” Listen, if you talk that way, you are spreading the message that being gay is somehow wrong. It doesn’t matter if you actually think there is nothing the matter with being gay. Your words are saying the opposite. Don’t be a part of something that makes some people feel bad just for being who they are. (And if you are actually bullying someone by calling them gay in order to make them feel bad, please know that you are telling the world that there is something wrong with YOU. Please get help for that. Start with a parent, school counselor or a teacher you like. Maybe talk to a therapist. The need to hurt someone else is only going to bring YOU a lot of pain if you don’t find a way to get rid of it.)
Second, if you are being bullied by other kids at school, you might have heard that you are supposed to tell a teacher, or your parent, or some other adult or that you are supposed to talk back to the bully or bullies. Well, maybe. I don’t really know what the best, safest route for each kid to take is — the best answer may be different for every kid. But I do know one thing; it will get better if you hang in there.
Whether you are gay or you aren’t or you don’t know yet, my message is the same. Stay alive. Life has a way of getting better. No matter how bad it seems now, no matter how long it has seemed hard, your life will change. It always does. As long as you stay alive, you will find ways to be happy, you will make friends, and you can even create a new family for yourself if you need to. As long as you stay alive.
So do what it takes to survive, whether that means talking to a parent, other relative, or a friend’s parent, asking for help from a teacher or school counselor, or finding a therapist to get through this rough patch. But whatever you do, don’t kill yourself over what other people say. Because then you’ll never find out how good your life is going to get.
Nancy Linnerooth, Stress Coach
206.459.1589
