This morning was a blur… Fran was practising skipping, Maddy and i read several more books together, Amelie was playing Cbeebies. We were supposed to get to Tesco but didn’t quite manage it.
The afternoon was good, we went to Activity World and there were several new faces there, which was excellent. Maddy was overjoyed to see hers and SB’s names up on the birthday board in readiness for tomorrow. They all seemed to have a good time largely; Josie was playing quite independently in the baby area while i chatted and i rarely saw the others.
The only notable moment really was one that brought a lump to my throat; one little boy, who is in school only part time at the moment and visiting us for the first time told Fran that she spoke “like she was speaking another language.” Poor Fran was initially distraught. In one way it was mildly gratifying to see that she got a band of immediately offended groupies surrounding and comforting her. In another way it was mindblowingly impressive that despite being very hurt, my whispered explanations that the other little boy really had lots of difficulties of his own that meant that he neither really understood what he was saying, nor understood that it hurt. From my talks with his mum, i imagine he must be having a very hard time in school at the moment and perhaps he has learned that personal criticisms of differences are acceptable.
Fran agreed that it was kinder to forgive and forget. She also believed me when i told her that her speech is doing just great and that if it needed work i would tell her, as i always do tell her when she needs to put more effort into practising something. She seemed to accept very readily that this was something to put behind her and move on from; just an instance of people not understanding and not really being very kind. She was much more resilient to it than i could have been. Remarks like that used to tear me to shreds.
Ironically we’d just been talking about the reasons for choosing to HE. Our original reasons seem so far lost in the mists of time now; my confidence lacking, speechless child who i was so afraid of being bullied has morphed into someone i never really dreamed off. We saw someone there we used to go to toddler groups with and that just threw it into sharper relief. When Fran was 4, i felt it was much to early to be expected to stand up for herself and explain her difference in a way that would gain understanding, not ridicule. At 5, she was smart enough to be able to tell me that it needed saying at Rainbows and we did it. At 7, it can hurt but she is beginning to be a child who knows that these things will happen, that it is okay to be hurt but that it is important to see that wherever the reason and fault lies when it does, she is not intrinsically deserving of being taunted. Today she was daunted but not, i think, damaged. I guess over the next few years she is going to begin learning the “and your point?” shrug that i have so wanted her to be able to carry off. The one i never did learn in all my school days.
I didn’t have to bale her out today, though i did have to hug her and wipe away some tears. I did have to explain the situation and ask her to make some allowances. I’m rather proud of her that she could make them and move on without dwelling. Most of all, the sight of sisters to one side and bestfriend with arms wrapped about her, was warming indeed. I don’t think there was ever a time when i had someone standing by my side while someone poked fun at my toes and humiliated me for something i couldn’t change. Even now i can’t forgive that person for putting me so on my own. But it seems that, at the very least, i have passed on to my daughter the ability to be stronger than i ever was.
And because of that i can feel genuinely and completely forgiving towards a tiny who hurt her feelings. Which is something, because i remember sitting in a maternity ward and thinking that if anyone ever made her feel small, i would rip them limb from limb. It is something to be glad of that it has turned out so much less murderously 🙂
I can well understand that you have a particular reason to feel like that about fran, but OTOH, I think kids often just comment at what isn’t in their experience. Hannah is FREQUENTLY told when she sees puddlers that she talks funny, and was last year at Melrose asked if she was actually talking English. Two years ago she was asked what was wrong with her that she talked funny. Yes, the first time she was a bit upset, and I did go and explain to the child involved that it was an accent, which in fact was common *here*, and if they went to the local playground, it was indeed them who would sound funny.I think often it’s just a comment on “not being like me,” rather than anything else. Ironically kids *here* think she talks posh, and *they* say she is English, simply as she doesn’t have a local accent, as neither Bob or I do. And we have managed to confound Gwenny today with a selection of phrases that are just completely normal day to day language for us, and she keeps having to ask for a translation. But she does at least know what a bahooky is now 🙂
giggle… yes, i think it is so. The problem of course is that, it having happened once, Fran was only going to see it as a comment that was cleft related. But, she will have to get used to it to some extent.
In fact, the little boy had very poor vision so was probably being significantly hindered by not being able to read her face and once she understood that he had something like her cleft, she was quite understanding. Two fish in the same pond really.
Ah, lovely to have had her family support really. I think you are right Merry, in that having that support, it wont damage her.
Sb notices all sorts of things about people – and in fact joyce, was telling me there is a scottish boy at nursery, and wondered if everyone would sound like him at Melrose.
Well, actually, the local people in Melrose are *very* posh, and talk a sort of strangulated English, the like of which is not heard anywhere else in Scotland 😉
But it isn’t Scotland, as you have often said, it’s the BORDERS!!!!!!!
They sound Scottish to me though 😉
So what is a bahooky Joyce? Well done to Fran for handling the situation so well. With a family and mummy supporting her and surrounding her with love she will get through these times better than most. I have seen children making fun of Emma by flapping their arms and making her ‘noises’ and ‘I’ don’t know how to handle it as Emma hasn’t a clue they are doing it to make fun of her so doesn’t care.
My now 13 year old dd has speech differences cos she was deaf as a child. She now shrugs nonchalantly and gives those who dare to say anything her famous bored look. Fran will to. I can still remember the raw pain I felt when kids used to make her cry tho.
Well done to Fran for being so grown up about it.
*Hugs* to Fran, and well done for being so understanding. Although, speaking from the boy’s mother’s point of view, I have a child who was absolutely cringeingly blunt in her none-too-quiet assessments of someone else’s apparent shortcomings. It’s not that she was poking fun at things, it’s just that she asked, point blank, about things that were different. Which was fine as long as you weren’t in earshot of the person with the wheelchair, crutches, limp, missing limb, speech impediment, CP etc.
It took an uncle having a stroke, losing his speech for a while, and his sight permanently, to make her realise that “although some people are different on the outside, they’re still the same underneath” (her words). She’s never commented about the way Fran speaks. And she’s so excited about seeing her next week. And the fact you’re coming up for lunch. Every couple of hours, she has to go check the calendar to see how long it is until you get here. 😀
Well done Fran for handling it so well.
I think Fran – and you – handled that very well. And I also think that you deserve a great deal of credit for having raised a child who, at her age, is capable of being so understanding and so solid.
That protective feeling – absolutely. I remember a childless friend asking me, when ds1 was about a year old, how it felt to have a child, and I replied that it wasn’t possible to explain the feeling in words – we don’t *have* any words for it. In exploring this idea, he asked if I’d kill for ds1, and I, without hesitation, said I would.
Fortunately I, like you, have never had to 🙂
Oh Merry, I sat here shedding tears for her – not just for the incident itself but the wonderful way she handled it! I just so know exactly how you feel – I (partially) didn’t send my eldest daughter to school because I feared bullying. She has Hypermobility and cannot dress or undress herself, write properly or even open a packet of crisps or a yogurt. She trips herself up constantly and has virtually no upper body strength. I panicked so much when she started to join classes that she would still suffer but it just goes to show how HE can give them so much confidence – now, if someone makes an unpleasant remark to her she just gives them her best Paddington “hard stare” – she’s absolutely perfected that one lol! Well done Fran! 🙂
I remember whispering the very same words to my Christopher 14 and a half years ago….I whispered to him how strong he would be overcoming this cleft business… and he has… a few tears along the way… but a strong determination I don’t have… he is my hero…