Triggers

Charlie seems to be entering the time of life that leads to lots of triggers for horrors long past for me. (FYI-horrors might be a tad strong but scans nicely.) I've been working hard to make sure to keep my baggage separate from my parenting but it's a tough thing.

Charlie's getting ready to start kindergarten in the fall. At least I hope he is. We have a conference with his preschool teacher in a couple of weeks in which she will give her learned opinion. I'm fairly confident he's more than ready academically but I worry about his social skills. At the same time, as I told my husband, I'm not sure the social skills he needs learning will be acquired any more smoothly in another round of preschool than they would be in kindergarten. His main downfall is assertiveness and I actually think his best tutor there is his sister, anyway. However, the lack of assertiveness brings us to the first issue...

Charlie likes to run in large circles. I occasionally worry just a tad that it indicates some sort of psychological something but I think it's actually a little boy version of pacing which his father does all the time and while my husband can be quirky, he's psychologically sound. Anyway. Charlie was running around and has his mittens attached to his coat with the little elastic clip things. This makes the mittens flap in the wind in a manner quite alluring to other little people feeling a hankering to play "chase." The upshot was that the mitten holder got ripped off and mommy did a bit of sewing over the weekend. There was rather more to the issue involving a game about good and bay guys and a jail but what it came down to was that Charlie was a victim of bullying. It was bullying in the most innocent sense. I don't think the other children had any concept of intimidation. It wasn't a terribly targeted thing. But, Charlie was also completely unable to stick up for himself. His concept of yelling consists of that fake sort of yell they do on the very genteel cartoons I allow him to watch where it's really just someone pitching their voice a bit higher. We've been practicing talking like Mommy does when she's being very stern but it still worries me about kindergarten. Charlie tends to play by himself, isn't terribly aggressive (I think he's hit Megan once in his entire life and that was when she was 3 weeks old and I think was actually a misguided attempt to play) and isn't all that assertive. He's also not terribly socially aware when it comes to pecking order and so on. The social awareness is actually a nice protective factor at the moment. He is relatively immune to teasing and verbal sorts of bullying and taunting. He tends to not even register those sorts of things. But, all of these things make him a more likely target for physical bullying.

Of course, this brings back all the bullying I experienced at various times. I'm much better at dealing with those sorts of issues now. I have a lot more confidence in myself and that helps a lot. But, it still makes it a squirmy sort of thing and I still worry a lot that I have no real idea of how to model how to not get bullied.