Teasing and Mistreatment - Part 1 of 4
We've known that younger kids with some sort of disability go through this type of thing to a degree in grade school. Some will experience virtually none, while others will just plain be rejected outright and worse. Sometimes it's moving to a new school that can help or make it much worse.
Those who didn't quite understand those who were different mistreated them in some way. There always were some who did and some who didn't care what your disability was. Sometimes it seemed they weren't around when you needed them most, or in some cases, didn't stick up for you. In other cases, they acted as if they were your friend when they were just putting on a front or an act.
In elementary, they didn't mistreat me at all, or so it seemed.
However, come the sixth through ninth grades, those were the worst years. I was always last to be picked for anything, no matter what. One kid was hurling stuff at my back. I came rather close to hurling my desk at him. I lived near several students from the same school. Some others knew where I lived and my phone number, so why didn't they bother me there?
If I tried to tell a teacher about what was going on, they'd attack me even more. What else was I to do? Should I have brought along something to defend myself? Should I fight? Damned if I did, damned if I didn't. I had enough of it with my own brother.
Next - Part 2 of Teasing and Mistreatment
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2 comments:
Grades six to nine are some of the worst years any kid has to live through. What they're doing is developing a hierarchy of some sort and the most vulnerable kids get picked on. The vulnerable ones are those who are "different" in any way-- if you're too fat, too quiet, too smart, too stupid, live in the wrong place, don't wear the right clothes, have too many zits and yes-- if you can't hear or if you talk too much or have a personality quirk of some sort that makes you different. Kids this age are simply brutal. Everyone is tested. Even the popular ones to see how they stand up to brutality. For boys, if they cry they're out of the group. Girls are just plain catty. We all survive it somehow. Barely. hahaha! It sounds like the kids in your school were very cruel!!!
Bingo. Your response is essentially repeated in another article I came across. The URL will be in the posting in Part 21.
I didn't mention this, but my hearing brother also attended that same school with me for a year before I left the next year. The kid made *NO* attempt to even help me out...
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