136 – Porn on the School Bus

I was approached at the grocery store the other night.  A high schooler told me that he has been seeing me pick up my daughters from the bus and wanted to let me know that there was an older kid talking to one of them and has been talking and teasing her about a lot of different things.

Asking her if she liked porn.  She is in elementary school.  And it became clear about where she had been learning about a few things that have been coming up.   Things about “momo” and how to cut your wrists, not so innocent rhymes and songs, and even comebacks like “I just posted on Facebook that you’re the meanest sister ever.”  And while her sister probably was, I was floored that she had said that.

I understand that I can’t protect them forever.   In fact, I know they will be exposed to more than I want to admit just out of earshot from their parents and teachers, but I implore everyone to have a talk with their kids.  We talk to our kids about dirty words and how they may hear them but not allowed to use them until they are much older.  We discuss that everyone is different and unique and they are going to see a lot in their lives and they have to decide what to invest time and attention towards.  But this is a situation where it requires me to help her come up with an action plan.

Is the school or school bus to blame?  No.  I will let them know but here’s what we did.

We talked to her first.  Then the family.  But she came up with an action plan to stay away from those kids and to sit with her best friend or her classmates.   We also came up with a family safe word that she can use to make her sister sit with her on the bus (sometimes she only wants to sit with her friends).  We talked about if something is happening that she needs to trust her gut and she doesn’t feel safe or feel like this is something she should be doing, to trust her heart and gut and run.

I’m sure I could have done more.  But I want to empower her to also be actively keeping herself safe.  It’s a world where our kids don’t get to enjoy being kids for as long as we got to.  So please remember that as your working on these daily lessons, that we pass some along to empower our kids.  That’s how we create our legacy.