You see she hadn't watched the movie herself so you can only imagine her dismay when one girl in her class proclaimed that E had "The Cheese Touch" and incited all the rest of the kids to run away from her. Fortunately, one boy did stand up and say that that wasn't very nice and refused to participate but still, it embarrassed my daughter to no end.
When it finally struck me what the heck the cheese touch was, I was able to tell her where it came from but she wanted to know why the kids would do that. (If you don't know what it is.. the story goes that there is this piece of cheese lying on the basketball court, no one knows how long it's been there but we're talking years here. If anyone so much as touches the cheese, they instantly become labeled with the cheese touch and are completely ostracized, no one wanting to be accidentally touched by the person who has the cheese touch.) I didn't know how to explain why kids would do that. Sure I could go on and on about insecurities, jealousies etc.. but really, how much would she get? In the end, it comes down to reassuring her that there is nothing wrong with her.
Thinking back, there was a good reason why I didn't let my daughter watch this movie. It's the same reason why I felt bad having let her watch Alvin & the Chipmunks 2: because of the bullying that's portrayed. Sure there's always a message in the movie, don't bully, just be yourself etc but how much of that message actually sinks in? Did the no bullying message sink in with that little girl in my daughter's class? No. What she learned was a creative way to single out a kid for teasing.
Do my kids really need to learn about swirlys? I don't think so.
Going to school is daunting enough without being shown all the many ways one can be bullied.
I read a parenting book lately that discussed books that portrayed sibling fights and how the siblings made up actually just encourage siblings to fight with the new techniques from the books. The parenting book said that kids didn't have the part of the brain developed that would understand and link to such complicated morals and storylines. I'm thinking the bullying is the same way.
ReplyDelete