Is Ballet the answer for a Shy, Homeschooled Boy?

[Lanny]

12 hours ago, Clarita said:

As an aside a lot of pro athletes like football players (that's pretty manly right?) take ballet. I heard it helps them have better control/insight into the detailed movement of their muscles and have better balance (helps with agility I believe). 

Yes.   This was *many* years ago (I've lived in Colombia since 1995) but I do remember seeing on TV in Dallas that the Dallas Cowboys were incorporating some Ballet into their physical conditioning training. I had a girlfriend who was into Ballet and I have a cousin in California who has been interested in Ballet all of her life. I believe she still participates in a foundation or group dedicated to Ballet. 

I would like to see the OP suggest to her DS some other things that are more traditional for boys, like Softball and Tennis and Soccer and Football and Tether Ball and Basketball and other things that kids who are in brick and mortar schools play. Running. Track.   Possibly he will find an additional activity that he enjoys. I remember doing Archery for awhile and then when I was about 10 or 11 I began shooting handguns and a Shotgun (I was good at Trap).   Someone mentioned Figure Skating.  When I was about 8 someone gave me a pair of Hockey Skates. They were too big for my feet and I stuffed cotton into the toes.  I skated much of my life, including about 2 years ago in Cali when they installed a tiny rink in a shopping center here.  Sadly, I gave my skates to someone who lived in the NYC area when I moved here.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Lanny
remove several words

[Pam in CT]

re teaching kids on how to *respond* to bullying / bad conduct in others, vs telling kids to *change their own conduct* in hopes that bullying / bad conduct stops

4 hours ago, EKS said:

IMO, this is completely wrong.  It is a fact that certain behaviors elicit certain responses.  Why is it that certain kids are bullied and others are not?  The bullied kids are (frequently) engaging in behaviors that make them targets.  Being sensitive to teasing, for example, is fairly sure to result in further teasing.  Learn to let it roll off your back and the teasing is likely to stop.

In fact, I would argue that learning that one can change how other people respond by changing one's own behavior can be incredibly empowering.  That said, there is a difference between changing superficial behaviors and fundamentally changing who you are.  I would never tell a child or anyone else to change what they love (for example) so that other people will "be nice."  But I would absolutely tell them about behaviors such as oversensitivity that are making them a target for teasing.

I agree with both bolded insights.  

The first bit is about *response to* poor conduct in others.  And while it's hard, I agree that equipping kids with tools to *respond to* bullying and other bad conduct is important.  And while it's hard to get those tools: empowering to use them.

The second bit is what I was addressing. 

A boy wearing a yarmulke, or a girl wearing a headscarf, is very likely in America to become a target for bullying.  Could those students take those symbols off? Yes. Would doing so stop bad conduct in others? Very unlikely.  And even if it did, it would come at tremendous cost -- a cost that is the *opposite* of empowering.  A cost of internalizing the message, subsume your own self and (maybe) someone else will become the target.

 

We talk a lot on these boards about boundaries.  That's because boundaries are indeed the foundation of mental health and healthy relationships with others.

To advise young kids that they am somehow responsible for the poor conduct of others is to set them up for bad-boundary problems down the line.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Pam in CT
verb tense

[dirty ethel rackham]

4 hours ago, EKS said:

IMO, this is completely wrong.  It is a fact that certain behaviors elicit certain responses.  Why is it that certain kids are bullied and others are not?  The bullied kids are (frequently) engaging in behaviors that make them targets.  Being sensitive to teasing, for example, is fairly sure to result in further teasing.  Learn to let it roll off your back and the teasing is likely to stop.

In fact, I would argue that learning that one can change how other people respond by changing one's own behavior can be incredibly empowering.  That said, there is a difference between changing superficial behaviors and fundamentally changing who you are.  I would never tell a child or anyone else to change what they love (for example) so that other people will "be nice."  But I would absolutely tell them about behaviors such as oversensitivity that are making them a target for teasing.

This made me sick to my stomach.  As a kid, I was always advised exactly what you said.  If I only did or didn't do X, then I wouldn't be bullied.  Unfortunately, I couldn't stop wetting the bed.  I would have sold my soul to be able to do that, but it was something my body had to outgrow.  I couldn't stop being a sensitive kid who cared about things.  I wasn't going to grow a suit of armor for my emotions at age 8.  I wasn't going to stop being a geek/nerd/dork.  What I learned was that I deserved to be bullied because I couldn't change the things that got me bullied in the first place.  So I learned that I was defective and deserved to be treated poorly.  And that lesson was so formative that I am still working on rewiring my brain and psyche into my late 50s.  

22 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re teaching kids on how to *respond* to bullying / bad conduct in others, vs telling kids to *change their own conduct* in hopes that bullying / bad conduct stops

I agree with both bolded insights.  

The first bit is about *response to* poor conduct in others.  And while it's hard, I agree that equipping kids with tools to *respond to* bullying and other bad conduct is important.  And while it's hard to get those tools: empowering to use them.

The second bit is what I was addressing. 

A boy wearing a yarmulke, or a girl wearing a headscarf, is very likely in America to become a target for bullying.  Could those students take those symbols off? Yes. Would doing so stop bad conduct in others? Very unlikely.  And even if it did, it would come at tremendous cost -- a cost that is the *opposite* of empowering.  A cost of internalizing the message, subsume your own self and (maybe) someone else will become the target.

 

We talk a lot on these boards about boundaries.  That's because boundaries are indeed the foundation of mental health and healthy relationships with others.

To advise young kids that they am somehow responsible for the poor conduct of others is to set them up for bad-boundary problems down the line.

 

 

 

 

 

If only my parents had been willing and able to separate the bullying from my self-worth and given me tools to change my response to the situation instead of telling me that I had to be something I had no hope of ever being in order to make the bullying stop.  

[EKS]

28 minutes ago, dirty ethel rackham said:

This made me sick to my stomach.  As a kid, I was always advised exactly what you said.  If I only did or didn't do X, then I wouldn't be bullied.  Unfortunately, I couldn't stop wetting the bed.  I would have sold my soul to be able to do that, but it was something my body had to outgrow.  I couldn't stop being a sensitive kid who cared about things.  I wasn't going to grow a suit of armor for my emotions at age 8.  I wasn't going to stop being a geek/nerd/dork.  What I learned was that I deserved to be bullied because I couldn't change the things that got me bullied in the first place.  So I learned that I was defective and deserved to be treated poorly.  And that lesson was so formative that I am still working on rewiring my brain and psyche into my late 50s. 

Interesting.  I was bullied as a kid as well, and was counseled by my parents in the way I described above.  I learned to ignore the bullying and eventually stopped caring.  And once I stopped caring, the bullying stopped.  I'm not sure how this equates to learning that one is defective and deserving of poor treatment.

[Magical_mommy]

7 hours ago, Catwoman said:

 

I'm seeing inconsistency here. You previously posted (in an older thread, quoted above) that your son was bullied because of his name and because he acted "girly" when kindergarten first started, but seemingly once you "changed his name," all was well. 

Your current post suggests that he was bullied throughout kindergarten -- and was even physically attacked, which you hadn't mentioned at all in your earlier post.

I am confused.

The name of DS was officially changed after kindergarten... personally, I don't think a boy who is considered girly is helped by a name used by both boys and girls. But Cameron is a good name... I wouldn't say all is well now exactly but I do think his new name can only help. 

[WildflowerMom]

10 minutes ago, Magical_mommy said:

The name of DS was officially changed after kindergarten... personally, I don't think a boy who is considered girly is helped by a name used by both boys and girls. But Cameron is a good name... I wouldn't say all is well now exactly but I do think his new name can only help. 

You seem pretty set on calling your kid “girly”.   I think people are prone to want to label themselves and other people, so I understand the inclination to do that.  However, please do your best to stop.   It does not serve your son well to have mom label him as anything at 6 years old (or whatever age he is now).    He’s a 6yo boy.   Not a ‘girly’ boy.  Not a dancer.   Just a 6yo.  

[Catwoman]

2 hours ago, Magical_mommy said:

The name of DS was officially changed after kindergarten... personally, I don't think a boy who is considered girly is helped by a name used by both boys and girls. But Cameron is a good name... I wouldn't say all is well now exactly but I do think his new name can only help. 

Ok, hold the phone.

Now you’re saying that you allowed your son to be miserable and viciously bullied all year because he had a name that he hated because it was used by both boys and girls, and you only changed it at the end of the school year when you already knew you would be taking him out of that school and homeschooling him?

If you were going to do something as extreme as actually changing his given name, what possessed you to wait until the END of the school year, at which point it didn’t matter anyway, because he wasn’t even returning to that school?

And when reading your older post, it was quite clear that you meant that you had changed his name early in the year, once he kept being “mistaken” for a girl (apparently by his classmates, who had to have known he was a boy,) and because a girl in his class had the same name.

This story is getting more and more inconsistent and preposterous.

[Catwoman]

2 hours ago, WildflowerMom said:

You seem pretty set on calling your kid “girly”.   I think people are prone to want to label themselves and other people, so I understand the inclination to do that.  However, please do your best to stop.   It does not serve your son well to have mom label him as anything at 6 years old (or whatever age he is now).    He’s a 6yo boy.   Not a ‘girly’ boy.  Not a dancer.   Just a 6yo.  

I agree!

I can’t help but wonder, though, if the constant use of “girly” is an attempt to get a reaction out of us.

Personally, I find it to be an extremely odd way for a mother to refer to her own son, particularly when she is using the same term in almost every post. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

8 hours ago, Catwoman said:

I agree!

I can’t help but wonder, though, if the constant use of “girly” is an attempt to get a reaction out of us.

Personally, I find it to be an extremely odd way for a mother to refer to her own son, particularly when she is using the same term in almost every post. 

Don’t feed the…

 

[Clarita]

17 hours ago, EKS said:

Interesting.  I was bullied as a kid as well, and was counseled by my parents in the way I described above.  I learned to ignore the bullying and eventually stopped caring.  And once I stopped caring, the bullying stopped.  I'm not sure how this equates to learning that one is defective and deserving of poor treatment.

I think it depends on the type, intensity, and how many people are involved. I've seen kids begin to feel defective because they are being bullied by essentially the entire school and yeah I can totally see how someone can start feeling defective. Also whether the thing you are being bullied for at the moment is in your control to change, for example if you like pink, you can ultimately choose to pretend not to like that color (not that you need to but you "can" always choose to) versus something more physical where you can't actually change. 

[EKS]

9 minutes ago, Clarita said:

I think it depends on the type, intensity, and how many people are involved. I've seen kids begin to feel defective because they are being bullied by essentially the entire school and yeah I can totally see how someone can start feeling defective. Also whether the thing you are being bullied for at the moment is in your control to change, for example if you like pink, you can ultimately choose to pretend not to like that color (not that you need to but you "can" always choose to) versus something more physical where you can't actually change. 

I was more talking about changing the reaction to the bullying (or teasing, which is probably a better term for what I am referring to) rather than the topic of the bullying.  This is what I mean by changing behavior rather than changing who one is.

[Ting Tang]

16 hours ago, Magical_mommy said:

The name of DS was officially changed after kindergarten... personally, I don't think a boy who is considered girly is helped by a name used by both boys and girls. But Cameron is a good name... I wouldn't say all is well now exactly but I do think his new name can only help. 

There is a story, albeit about a girl mouse, Chrysanthemum.  She loved her name until she got to school.  In the end, the others wanted flower names, too, and the "bullies" didn't perform as well as she did in the class musical.  We parents put so much heart into our children's names, and they are meaningful.  It makes me sad you gave into other people's behavior.  Bullies either grow up or end up with not very good adult lives.  I think our job as parents is to protect our children from them, not change (their names, hobbies, etc) them for them. Just my two cents. 

[dirty ethel rackham]

24 minutes ago, EKS said:

I was more talking about changing the reaction to the bullying (or teasing, which is probably a better term for what I am referring to) rather than the topic of the bullying.  This is what I mean by changing behavior rather than changing who one is.

For some people, this is as natural as breathing.  Just ignore it and it goes away.  But for others, it is practically incomprehensible how you actually do that.  I did my best to ignore the posse of bullies (I don't call it teasing because it was meant to intimidate and isolate me, making it undesirable to be my friend lest you enter their crosshairs.)  But nothing I did made it stop.  They tormented me from grade 3 to grade 8.  I begged my parents to let me go to the public high school rather than the Catholic high school that they were going to.  Fortunately, they relented, which probably saved my life.  

I remember one of my siblings telling me to just let it roll off of me like "water off a duck's back."  I looked at him like he was from Mars. I could not even imagine how it could be possible to not be wounded by all that was happening to me.  One more area in which I was defective.  

I don't mean to highjack this thread, but it does relate back to the OP.   How we talk to our kids , and whether or not we listen to them, can have a huge impact on the message that gets internalized.   I don't think my parents ever meant that the lesson I got from the whole experience was that I was defective.  But I think they were overwhelmed with other pressing issues parenting my older siblings who were teens at the time.  If my parents had actually verbalized that what the other kids were doing was wrong, that we can't change them, but we can work on changing our reaction to them (and actually giving me tools to do that rather than just admonishments) ... I think the whole situation would have worked out differently.  Maybe the bullies would have stopped.  Maybe they would have continued.  But at least I would have felt that they had my back and that I was loveable as my imperfect, dorky, sensitive self.  

[Lady Marmalade]

My son danced for 11 years and never once got picked on by non-dancers for dancing.  He was never shy about sharing his love of dance, and always proudly told about his accomplishments in all styles- including and especially ballet.  People always would ask him what sports he was playing and he always said that he danced.  The only teasing he ever encountered was within the dance bubble and not from outsiders. 

Dance was extremely rewarding for him and I wish he had decided to finish out his senior year in the studio.  

[EKS]

6 hours ago, dirty ethel rackham said:

If my parents had actually verbalized that what the other kids were doing was wrong, that we can't change them, but we can work on changing our reaction to them (and actually giving me tools to do that rather than just admonishments) ... I think the whole situation would have worked out differently.  Maybe the bullies would have stopped.  Maybe they would have continued.  But at least I would have felt that they had my back and that I was loveable as my imperfect, dorky, sensitive self.  

This is what I was trying to convey in my post(s), but you did it so much more eloquently.  I'm so sorry this happened to you.