Parenting is hard.

pinchvalve said:

In reply to Nick (Bo) Comstock :

You may have to work to get the school to understand the situation.  Pulling a kid aside and putting him in front of people in position of authority - and with the power to punish those he is tattling on - is going to make any kid hesitant.  They need to understand that he is scared of getting the bullies in trouble, as counterintuitive as that sounds.  He is scared of even worse repercussions from them.  

Indeed. A girl at my daughter's school has been messing with her. Not to the point of "bullying," but it has me trying to figure out what to tell her about how to handle it. 

My buddies and I were harrassed by a kid in 4th or 5th grade when I was in 2nd. My parents didn't care. The teachers didn't care. My brothers taught me how to fight. One good ass-kicking, and he never messed with me or my buddies again. I miss those days.

It could be that he is gay. Although neither us nor his counselor believe that to be the case. In any case we've tried to assure him that no matter what we still love him the same. I'm wondering how or why a ten year old is having sexual thoughts gay or straight.

 First of all, this is so important and I love that you told him that you'll still love him.  I hate to sound like "love cures all" but major kudos for not being fearful of it and supporting your child.  It shows me you have the skills and talent to get through this together.

Having said that, I am not a parent so I won't give advice.  I have been dating a woman for almost a year who has a 3-4 year old and I'm struggling with him, so no advice to really contribute.  What I can do is talk about me as a kid with some emotional shortcomings.  I was originally thought to be what we now call "on the spectrum."  Back then it was called emotionally disturbed or "doesn't play well with others."  I may be very slightly but it doesn't really show - likely because 44 years of peer interactions has allowed me to find ways of operating in ways that make me appear "normal."

The last sentence I can talk about.  I had sexual thoughts VERY early.  Like 5 years old.  I got the birds and bees talk when I was 5 because I was asking so many questions.  I actually remember it and I remember understanding everything about it except one thing:  Dad gave me the talk and then I had more questions from Mom.  She talked about how "when two people love each other..." and "take off their clothes...." and "tab A, slot B" (paraphrasing), and the one thing I couldn't figure out was why did they have to be naked?  You could accomplish the same thing by just undoing a button and a zipper, right?  She tried carefully explaining what I now know to be intimacy and vulnerability and how nudity is a really awesome thing, but at the time the naked part was the only thing I didn't understand.

If what this other kid is saying to yours is something that includes words that imply your son is gay, or homophobic content, it is quite possible that your son is inferring that gay is bad, and therefore his reaction is simply fear of discovering he is something that is bad in the eyes of certain others... even though he may not be even close to the point where that realization is on his radar.  Kind of like if one girl says to another girl, "you're going to be fat when you grow up and nobody likes fat girls."  Its not that being fat is bad, and she may not even be old enough to have a body image yet, but those words could cause the girl to infer that fat=bad and "oh geez, what if I DO grow up to be this thing they call fat. That sounds terrible."  I'm simply thinking that its possible that your son doesn't HAVE those sexual ideas yet, but if this other kid is saying "gay is bad, and you will be one," it could be mixing with his beginnings of sexual awakening in a not-safe environment.  I remember the first time I saw a naked woman in a magazine.  It was a little too early in my development and I remember thinking it was pretty yucky.  It didn't scar me for life, but it was a bit violating.  I'm just saying that maybe this other kid is introducing your son to sexual conversation topics before your son is ready to assimilate it and that is the cause of the discomfort.  Let's face it... we all had aspects of our lives that were introduced to us by our peers before we were ready to learn about them.  Not saying its right or wrong, just saying we learn a lot at that age from our peers and since each kid is on a different path, they all get schooled in certain things earlier than others.

If you ask my girlfriend's 4-year-old if he wants to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, he will say girlfriend.  Usually with an incredulous look on his face like "silly Curtis, of course I like girls."  But the truth is, he probably has no idea yet what gender he likes to be naked with, he's just responding to all the input from society that he has assimilated.  Nearly all of the loving couples he sees are male-female.  If it were closer to 50/50, his response might be different, but the point is its possible to answer that question at his age without any reference to attraction or gender.  The answer sometimes just gets coughed up based on "well, everyone I see is with the opposite gender, so that must be the right answer."  A metaphor:  Think of a Miata as having a heterosexual preference.  I know that Miata is the right answer, but until I've driven one, I don't really know.  A boy might say "I like girls" because everyone around him demonstrates that being with a girl is right, but until he has sexual tendencies he can't really know.  So I type on this board all the time that Miata is the answer.  But my only experience with them is driving one about 15 years ago in a parking lot.  So I SAY that Miata is the answer, but I drive an F150.  Make sense?  I might test drive a Miata and suddenly realize that I was wrong about my driving preferences.

I think I just boiled gender preference down to saying Miatas are straight and F150s are gay... but I hope it made sense.

The good news is this:  I consider myself at 44 (and mostly straight) to have a history of incredibly healthy expressions of sexuality.  Of course there were a couple in college that were just about getting laid, but I'm in a very healthy and aware place about my sexuality and how it is shared with others.  While this encounter with your son is very important and needs to be approached the right way, there is definitely a bright light on the other side.

and your love for him is obvious and big, so you have the right foundation to get you there.

Sounds exactly like my school experience. Elementary and halfway through middle school was hell. Administration didn't give a damn about solving the problem.

Eventually I got smart and by the time highschool rolled around, I learned to get even other ways.

I got one guy expelled because they found drugs in his locker.

I managed to have another bully get the crap kicked out of him by his homophobic old man when a subscription to Playgirl magazine with his son's name on it started showing up at the house.

I don't condone this behaviour in any way. 

Not being a parent, I have no idea what you're going through. Martial arts training may help with his self-confidence and self-control. I worked for me but I was out of the school system before I figured it out.

Curtis: A very well thought out reply, thanks for that. I worked with a fellow who was gay and he told me about the hell he went through growing up and going through school. He said he knew he was different at a young age. He left home early because when his father found out, he was pretty much forced out. I don't understand how anyone can treat their own child like that.

kazoospec said:

Repeated and constant bullying can be overwhelming to a kid, and honestly, he may have realized that the outburst gets him out of the immediate situation and in the company of adults.  I remember consciously weighing whether is was worth the embarrassment of getting sent to the office to make the bullying stop.  I didn't trust the adults in my school either, but at least the bullying didn't happen in their immediate presence.  

Trans_Maro said:

Curtis: A very well thought out reply, thanks for that. I worked with a fellow who was gay and he told me about the hell he went through growing up and going through school. He said he knew he was different at a young age. He left home early because when his father found out, he was pretty much forced out. I don't understand how anyone can treat their own child like that.

I am a huge supporter of gay rights and I know not everyone is, but I agree with you about treating their child like that.  My (male) bestie in HS came out to me after dating women for years.  His parents didn't care if she was a tatooed hooker or the Blessed Virgin Mary, but bring a guy into this house?  Disowned.

Fack. I had a huge response typed out that touched on a lot of things. Took me over an hour. I lost it trying to spell check everything on another forum that the spell check works on. So frustrating.

I'm taking a break an will try to retype it a little later.

I think a camping trip is in order. You need to get him to open up to you and find out what's going on. Does he have any hobbies that you can get into with him?

Looks like the spell check is still broken so you all will have to get over some badly misspelled words. I tried to go through and answer a bunch of questions that had been asked the other day but cannot copy/cut and paste due to the unique way the forum is operating right now.  I know a lot of questions have went unanswered that I feel deserve to be answered but without the ability to copy and paste it's impossible for me to go back and address all of them without my brain short circuiting.

Curtis, I thank you for chiming in and really appreciate your perspective on the situation.

I was unable to attend the parent teacher conference today but my wife made it and it's seems to be all positive news. The counselor did write a letter and it seemed to have an impact with the school administrators. His teacher was only partially in the loop as to what has been going on.  After my wife explained our side and had the counselor's letter to back up what we have been saying, she has decided to change our sons home room which will eliminate contact from the boy that we feel is the antagonist in this situation, with the exception of recess. She also said they would do what they could to try and keep them separate during recess. She said if the AP was unwilling to take this step that they would go straight to the principle. So they went to the principle and he signed off. The AP was present and read the letter and, according to my wife, tried to do some backtracking.

In other news they feel that it would benefit the boy to possibly skip a grade. They will be doing some test in the upcoming weeks to evaluate that possibility. Also he has an appointment to see the Psychiatrist this Thursday.

I also wanted to address the gay thing. I feel I have a certain duty or responsibility in bringing a child into this world and raising him to adulthood. Personally, I don't feel that sexual orientation changes, in any way shape or form, what my responsibilities as a parent are. I also feel the school system has a certain responsibilty and the same applies to them. If he came home and said he was gay, it wouldn't change the way I feel towards him nor would it change my job as a parent. It may very well add a layer of complexity to an already complex process but in the end he's my son, I love him and have a duty to make sure he has everything he needs to hopefully become a successful adult.

Nick,

I am glad to hear things are looking better. I ready your original post and it brought back really painful memories. It sounded like my 5th grade year.  I was getting bullied and harassed daily. I was new in the school. I was one of a handful of white kids getting bussed in from a predominantly black neighborhood in a school desegregation plan. I was small for my age. I looked like I was 8.  I quickly got overwhelmed by all of it.

There is one fundamental difference in your son's life that give me confidence he will be fine. That is you and his mother.

I don't think my father  he ever wanted really wanted children.  When we arrived in his life, we were viewed like raccoons that gotten loose in the house and treated like unwanted pests. It could be argued he was the biggest bully in our lives.  My mother was a kind person, but kind of lost in her own world. If normal men are from Mars and women from Venus,  I like to joke she was in orbit somewhere around Jupitor.

Things did turned around for me. My mother, pulled me out and set up a home school situation to get me back on-track. Eventually she got enrolled at another school. Other adults in the neighborhood took an interest in me and gave places to go where I was safe from my chaotic home situation.  The greatest gift was knowing there were adults that were on my side who had confidence that I was going to be okay.

I am not a parent. From experience, I can tell you you that if your son sees that you are on his side and you have confidence that things are going to turn out well, it will make a big difference.

It's great to read that the counselor's message has made it, finally, to the administration in the school. Wishing your family more good days.

It sounds as if the situation is on the right track and good luck with the rest.

It's great to hear it went well. Getting to the right spot can be a series of smaller victories, and it sounds like this was the first of hopefully many!

Nick:

I wouldn't get too concerned or put any emphasis on the "gay" idea.  With middle school age students, any student who is different in any way will sooner or later get labeled "gay" by other students (usually the bullies).  This is a fairly common bully type behavior at that age.

BTW: I taught middle school for 28 years and have dealt with this frequently

In reply to Hal :

It's more than just being called gay. It's very detailed and specific sexual acts that have been tormenting his mind.

In reply to Nick (Bo) Comstock :

And where is he getting this info/ideas?  Probably from the bullies.

In reply to Hal :

Yes, that is correct. But it is all very confusing to a young man who already see's himself as different.