How about them apples? These are two that I found, faced-down, in a bowl of drying fruit, swiped by my 2-year-old Nate and then replaced because he knew he wasn’t supposed to have more fruit. This week, the child training challenge has been on. We talked with our 7 year old about standing up to bullies, even recognizing when they’re putting him down. We encouraged our fruitaholic to save us some apples; and we directed our 11 month old not to throw a tantrum and fists and get beastly with his baby talk when he can’t play with the phone or remote control. Frankly, Flynn and I don’t know what we’re doing. I’d like to tell Josh to give the bad boys a beat down, hide the fruit from Nate and block the baby in the corner, but none of this is godly behavior. We don’t know, but the omniscient one knows and I’m glad He does.
He knows that I feel helpless when Josh hurts from the words and I want to yell stop when Nate’s grabbing fruit and Justus is babbling beastly. God knows and sees all, and, like Hagar and how he has done for me before, he will show me what I need for my children—how to get it and how to give it. I am His child and He will take of me. He will take care of us. When I remember that God is omniscient, I live like I will know what to do even though I might not yet know what to do. This is the life I plan to lead, continually, along with embracing His daily grace and mercies. How do you live or plan to live in light of God’s omniscience? I look forward to your comments.
Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. smith
Rhonda, there’s a great book called Sticks and Stones: 7 Ways Your Child Can Deal with Teasing, Conflict, and Other Hard Times by Scott Cooper that has a ton of useful techniques for dealing with bullying. It’s got a kinda Eastern religion flavor to parts of it, but take what’s useful and modify what’s not.
One technique in there that my kids found incredibly helpful is “You might be right”. Someone says something insulting about you, e.g., “You are SO dumb!” and you reply, “You might be right!” They say it again, and you say, “You might be right!” It’s like having a racquet that lets you bounce back anything someone else says, making it clear that you are NOT in their power and you’re NOT going to bite.
Thanks so much, Julia. I’ll check the book out. And that technique your kids use sounds like it would really stump a bully, leaving him/her not knowing what else to say or do.