Day 4: bullying

We were spending Shabbos in Chicago, staying with a large family. It was so nice to stay in a house full of kids and toys. I watched how 4 yo made friends with 8 yo daughter of our hosts, and how the boys seemed to get along with the boys. They played a round of Chicago-opoly, talked about Willis tower and which other Chicago landmarks they would like to visit. I was told how the whole block is frum, and watched kids go from house to house, playing with friends. I became wistful of living in a large enough community, with enough people to have a whole block of frum kids.

In the afternoon, 10 yo and 8 yo went into the backyard to play basketball. A whole bunch of neighboring kids showed up for the son of the host. Next thing I saw was 10 yo leaving with them, going across the street. I was not pleased that he did not ask permission, or told me where he was going.

Next thing I see, he is coming back, fighting back tears. First thing I told him, I did not know where he went, so that is a problem. Then he told me how he went with those boys to play some sort of a game. They made him "it". Then they got into a little altercation. From what I gathered, he showed off a bit, and the other kids made fun of him: of his bukharian kippa, of his homeschooling ("what's 2 plus 2?"), of taekwondo. He finished with getting into a scuffle and using his taekwondo on a kid who claimed to be a black belt in karate. He was mostly upset that they said that he was weird, and all kids from our current city are weird.

So there we have it: such wonderful-looking yeshiva boys, with such great middos, making fun of a stranger because they knew they could. Never mind that we were asked whether our current city is in the US and whether we speak English there (I can assure you that we do). Never mind that these kids do not know whether Wisconsin and Michigan are states or cities. Never mind that in all the time we have been part of our secular homeschooling coop, my boys were never teased for the way they look, talk, dress or behave. These Chicago boys look frum, but they do not seem to understand that they did not behave in a manner befitting a religious Jew.

I talked to 10 yo. I said that there is nothing wrong with being weird or different. I said that the reason other boys made fun of him was to make themselves feel better. I said that they probably did not meet many kids who were homeschooled, or who wore different kippas. But the anguish that 10 yo was feeling was so mature, that it was making me sad. I said that he is better off being himself rather than showing off, and he is more likable as his true self. However, if people cannot accept him for who he truly is, that is their problem.

Once I was talking to this woman about homeschooling and she said the beef she had with it was that kids need to go to school to learn how to deal with teasing. At the time I do not remember what I answered, but it stuck with me. Now I have an answer: kids will have to deal with teasing whether they are homeschooled or not.

I was also saddened that nobody took the side of my son, although that's understandable: risk social consequences by siding with an outsider, or stay safely within the pack. Where is all that great Torah, where is the lesson of not oppressing the stranger because we were slaves in Egypt? I guess I am upset that these kids look all right, but they turned out to be somewhat rotten.

I still have school option on a back burner for my kids, especially during trying days. I fantasize how they could go and learn so much more than at home, and play with other kids, and be out of my hair. Then I have one of these brushes with reality of what school children are like, and I think how I would hate for my kids to be exposed to all this. I was talking to my husband how our kids are not having a standard childhood whichever way you slice it. I wonder whether I would want to give all of this up for conformity and close-mindedness.

diving into books

I got up early and worked out. By the time I got home, the kids were all up, but nobody was in the mood to get dressed or have breakfast. Eventually, they did get dressed. My husband was home, so he regaled with Greek myths. 7 yo read a few of those, so they had a lively discussion.

Davening did not go so well, lots of running around and chasing each other. Then the oldest went to do Rosetta Stone, while 5 yo picked handwriting. Today's letter was i, he claimed he already knew how to write it, so we skipped to e. Now e is a big deal, as he realizes that once he can do e, he can also write shin. HTW uses baseball example to teach e, so he loves "running around the bases", making the curve part. I hope he remembers it. Then he picked megillah. I read to him probably 7 perakim in English, stopping every once in a while to make sure he understands. 2 yo walked around, sat on my lap, sat next to us, etc. She is definitely getting unschooled here.

Then the boys switched. 7 yo asked to do math first. We finished up length and I explained why there are metric and customary units. He is eager to do multiplication, so I printed out some pages from teacher's corner, setting one of the factors less than 6. He did it in a flash ( thanks to Schoolhouse Rock). Now I have to check whether he knows higher numbers.

Then he did arranging sentences from the megillah. I found this activity on http://chinuch.org/ I explained how the sentences will be formed and he dove right in, making sentences. 5 yo finished up and came up to help at this point. 2 yo kept moving the cards around, but at the end, they did form all possible sentences.

Then we went for ice cream and the library. It feels giddy to be able to take your kids for ice cream at 11 am and not to worry about school or crowds or lunch, and just enjoy it. Afterwards, we got to the library. Mercifully, they had a toddler class that morning, so my 2 yo was not the only one running around. 7 yo found Encyclopedia Brown and got lost inside. 5 yo  scanned shelves. I was trying to find books for the toddler group tomorrow. Then everyone helped my check out. When we got home, the boys just pulled out their books and were not heard from again for a while. I keep on forgetting that on the days we go to the library, I will have to distract them from new books to get anything done.

Later, much later, we did finish formal school work. 7 yo read 7 more pesukim from the megillah, did his spelling and another page of Lashon HaTorah. 5 yo learned tzadi sofit, which he called a lamed carrying a pretzel. He even drew a house for tzadi sofit--somehow this pretzel letter moved him. In Yesh Lanu Lama, we read the next page. Then we did math, even and odd numbers. 

All of this was finished by 3 pm. Then the boys watched "Alice in Wonderland" from 1915. I had to explain about black-and-white silent movies and how music came separately. I also realized that reading captions ( I do not know what is the proper name for those flashes of story in between) is good reading practice for 5 yo. They were quite drawn in.

After Alice, 7 yo went back to reading something or other. 5 yo checked on his beans and noted their roots. Then he wanted to make masks, something that I wrote down in optional section. I made an eye mask for 2 yo; he wanted a full face mask. I ended up drawing the shape fro him, with eyes and mouth, he cut it out and wrote ninja on it ( hehe, spontaneous writing). Then he decided he wants eye mask after all, so more cutting and coloring.

After dinner, 7 yo made a mask too. I am discovering that what I thought was itty-bitty bullying problem as probably larger than I thought. Last year, he dressed up as Batman for dress-up day ion school. From that day on, a certain girl teased him, calling him Batman, even though he did not like it. He sort of brought that up, but never in a way that warranted action. Now, with this new mask, he tells me that she cannot tease him, because sometimes he's a ninja, and sometimes he's a ferocious beast. Now that he's home, he hasn't seen her in weeks, yet he's still concerned. Hm, how do those itty-bitty bullying problems affect people?