Last year I embarked on a wonderful series called Get Ready for K Through Play with some of the best kid bloggers out there. Well, it was such a success and helpful to so many parents, that we decided to do it again. Over the next 6 weeks, we will provide you with all the tools you need to prepare your child for Kindergarten. Each week, we will to focus on a different Kindergarten readiness skill. This week, we are sharing ways to develop Social and Emotional Skills that will help your child succeed in Kindergarten. Last year I shared about Helping the Shy Child Prepare for Kindergarten. This year, I will be focusing on how to Help Kids Deal with Hurtful Comments.
I feel like I have a bit more knowledge of getting ready for Kindergarten this year, since my twins just completed their Kindergarten year. There were some things that came up that I would not have expected. One day, one of my twins told me that a girl at school told her she didn’t like her. My kids have been in preschool for a number of years, and this has never happened before. This was entirely new territory for me, and I’ll be honest, my first reaction (which I didn’t tell my daughter) was “I’ll fix that kid!” But logic and rational won out and I had to come up with some strategies and tips to share with my daughter in case this ever happened again with this girl (it did) or anyone else (it did not).
Tips to Deal with Hurtful Comments
1- Give your child time to communicate
My daughter didn’t come straight home and tell me that a girl was mean to her. She seemed like her normal self when she came home, and later in the evening when we were cuddling, she told me what happened. Boy, was I glad I had taken the time to cuddle with her and give her an opportunity to share. My daughter does not like answering a bunch of questions and I don’t think she would have shared if there had not been that silent one on one time.
2- Don’t judge
As a parent, a very natural reaction when someone makes a hurtful comment about your child is to say, “well, that kid is mean.” Please refrain from putting down the other child in front of your child. This only teaches that calling names is okay and may build a barrier to your child ever becoming friendly with the child who has hurt them.
3- What happened before
We talked about how the hurtful comment made her feel and thought about if she did anything to this girl causing her to say that. In some situations a child may unknowingly or on purpose do something to classmate that leads to them making a hurtful comment. The mean comment is still unwarranted and unacceptable, but sometimes knowing what happened before is helpful in diffusing the situation. If you find your child did do something, such as not include the child in a game, it is easy to help them correct the behavior in the future so the other child responds in a more positive manner.
4- Brainstorm responses
Next, we came up with responses that she could say when this girl said “I don’t like you.” The first thing my daughter thought she could do was say “STOP!” in a loud, assertive voice. Okay, she came up with the “stop” and I added the loud and assertive voice. My daughter is quite soft spoken, so we really had to work on her loud, assertive voice. I explained to my daughter that not everyone would like her. I told her that not everyone likes me. And that is OK. Not everyone needs to like her. She came up with list of classmates that did like her, who she could go play with instead. So after she would say “STOP!” she would respond “you don’t have to like me,” and walk away. Of course your child’s response will be different based on their particular situation. In our case, this girl kept telling our daughter that she didn’t like her, so that response was appropriate.
5- Role play
You want your child to be as prepared as possible in the situation. The best way to do that is to practice and rehearse what that will say. We took turns being the child who makes the mean comment and the child who stands up for herself. This way my daughter could listen to how I stood up for myself and she could work to make her inflections similar.
I am proud to say that the girl stopped bothering my daughter after my daughter used these tools a few times. There were even days when my daughter said she played with her. Now I don’t think they will ever be best friends, (they have very different personalities and my daughter has a long memory) but this is a step in the right direction.
For some great books to help kids deal with hurtful comments and bullying, check out:
Tease Monster
Bye Bye Bully
Stop Picking on Me
The Bee Bully
Be sure to visit the following bloggers and check out their Social and Emotional Skills posts:
Cooperation Game from The Pleasantest Thing
Kindergarten Social and Emotional Intelligence from Mama Smiles
Encouraging Social and Emotional Development at Home from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Playing School from Coffee Cups and Crayons
Visual Timetables from Rainy Day Mum
So glad to see this series is back! It's so hard to hear hurtful comments aimed at your child, but teaching them to cope is crucial (even if you have to bite your tongue sometimes!)
Thank you Emma! It is very hard to hold my tongue, but I am sure my kids have made/will make their fair share of insensitive remarks so I try to think of how I would want someone to deal with them,
this is a great article, I'm sure my fans will love it. I'm going to share it on my fb page.
Thanks for the kind words!
Pinning this! it's a good topic and something I'll probably be references again when school starts again.
Thank you so much! I probably will too! 🙂
I LOVE this series and it is such a fantastic resource for parents! This time in a child's life can be very difficult to navigate because they can imprint and be imprinted with behaviors we don't even know we are doing, are seeing, or are all around us. Thank you for the tips!
I agree Jill and thanks for the kind words. I love working on this series.
I am glad your daughter was able to overcome this. Situations like this are tough, and your advice is great!
Thanks Maryanne! I am sure we will run into something similar down the line and hope this will help again.
My son is a bully's dream. He is quiet and soft and does not fight back. It is one of the main reasons that I homeschool. However, recently at a homeschool co-op, I discovered that another kid was punching him and my little guy was just taking it (he is 7 yrs old, this kid is 6). My initial advice was to punch back. I felt it was the only thing he could do as he needed to assert himself. After the third incident and he still hadn't defended himself, we spoke to his jiu jitsu (similar to wrestling) coach. He has been going for a few months in order to build his confidence. His coach advised him that retaliating with violence does nothing bur escalate the situation and that what was needed was for my son to gain control and get the other kid to promise to stop doing it. The coach role played with my son to tackle the other kid, get him into a lock and then with his forearm on the kid's collarbone, tell him to stop doing what he was doing. He was then to ask, "are you going to stop it?" until the kid agreed. When we got home, my hubby and son practiced a few times more. Before our next meet up my son and I went over what was going to happen and spoke it out. Naturally at our next meet up it happened again and my son took control and got the kid to promise not to do it again (I did explain to his mum first before any of this happened and she was perfectly happy with it – seems she has had some issues with her kid bullying before). We have had no other issues since! In this day where you don't want to teach kids to fight physically, but still want them to protect and defend themselves, this was GREAT advice! We've seen it work!
That sounds like a very tough situation. I am glad he was able to find something that worked!
This is really useful. My 7 yr old soft spoken daughter get bullied by her classmates and I will use these methods to try n help her. Thanks a lot for sharing
I hope things are better for her Lakshmi. Thanks for visiting!
I really liked this article and it had some great advice for helping your children cope with unkind words. It's important to remember that often times, particularly in very young children, it is difficult for them to empathize with others. In very young children, it is common to see inadvertent bullying. Meaning the children do not intentionally mean to hurt someone elses feelings but do not understand that their words can be hurtful. It is difficult for parents to hear anything unkind about their children and we sometimes become more angry than our children when we hear things about them that we do not like. It's important for parents to help their children by being positive and understanding to all parties involved rather than cynical or outraged. These are not emotions we want our children to feel, therefore, we must model more appropriate responses when dealing with hurtful words.
I agree Marie. It was tough to not make a judgement on the other child but I knew it wouldn't help matters and only make things worse.
Very nice to read! I have a 9 month now and I wanted to anticipate situations like this… totally gave me some good tools. Cant wait to keep reading
As an aspiring blogger I found your website very enjoyable to read. Definitely going to subscribe. You're an inspiration!
Just right in time. Thanks for sharing. I was struggling to prepare my son for kindergarten I appreciate you sharing this info.