He is so naive. I love it but when people act meanly for no reason, he gets really confused by it. He's 12 and in 6th grade (at a middle school) and just doesn't understand a lot of the clique stuff that goes on. Luckily, he just does his own thing and has a lot of friends because of that.
Unfortunately, this afternoon on his way home from school (our house is less than a mile away and he walks home), some teenager leaned out of a truck driving by, flipped him off, called him several swear words and pretended to throw stuff at him. He was so upset when he got home. I tried to explore if he had done anything (i.e., run across the road in front of the truck, etc.) and he really didn't. He also said it was an older teen, not one who goes to his school. Things like this make him so sad. He feels badly that someone has so much anger in them that they take it out on random strangers. I told him to remember this feeling so that if he ever felt like he was being peer pressured into being mean, he would understand how that would affect (or is it effect) the person being bullied.
Of course, my momma bear instinct came out a bit (how dare someone be mean to my "baby"!!!) but I contained it.
So I guess my question is, should I try to, um, not sure the correct word for it, "toughen" my son up a bit? He is going to run into mean people in life, and I don't want it to hurt him. But how do you do that without dampening their belief in good in people?
Unfortunately, this afternoon on his way home from school (our house is less than a mile away and he walks home), some teenager leaned out of a truck driving by, flipped him off, called him several swear words and pretended to throw stuff at him. He was so upset when he got home. I tried to explore if he had done anything (i.e., run across the road in front of the truck, etc.) and he really didn't. He also said it was an older teen, not one who goes to his school. Things like this make him so sad. He feels badly that someone has so much anger in them that they take it out on random strangers. I told him to remember this feeling so that if he ever felt like he was being peer pressured into being mean, he would understand how that would affect (or is it effect) the person being bullied.
Of course, my momma bear instinct came out a bit (how dare someone be mean to my "baby"!!!) but I contained it.
So I guess my question is, should I try to, um, not sure the correct word for it, "toughen" my son up a bit? He is going to run into mean people in life, and I don't want it to hurt him. But how do you do that without dampening their belief in good in people?
