What to Do When Your Kid Asks “Am I Going to Get Bullied at School for Existing”
It’s 8 PM, two nights before my 12-year-old Javi’s first day at his new middle school, and I’m folding his clean hoodies on the couch when he leans in the doorway, one sock slouched around his ankle, and says, “Mom. Guys am I gonna get bullied at my school for existing.” The “guys” is a leftover habit from talking to his friend group chat, but I get what he means. The half-melted cherry popsicle he left on the coffee table is leaving a pink ring on the wood, and his new backpack propped by the TV has the frayed T-Rex patch he insisted on sewing on himself. I don’t have any quick answer ready, which is probably for the best.
I pat the empty spot next to me on the couch, and he flops down, picking at the edge of a popsicle sticker stuck to the coffee table instead of looking at me. He says he saw a Reddit thread earlier that day, where a 13-year-old new to his school wrote that no one talked to him for a whole semester, and he ate lunch in a bathroom stall most days. Javi’s always been quiet, he stutters a little when he gets nervous talking to new people, and he’d rather sort his 90s Lego collection than play Fortnite with the kids he met at the neighborhood park last month. “I just feel like I’m too much of something, or not enough of whatever people want,” he mumbles.
I don’t say “That’s silly, no one will bully you.” I learned that mistake last year, when a kid at his old school called him weird for bringing dino nuggets for lunch every day, and he didn’t tell me about it for three weeks because I’d brushed off an earlier worry he’d had about fitting in. When kids ask a question this raw, they’re not asking for a guarantee that everything will be okay. They’re asking if you can handle how scary it is to even think about this. So I just said, “That’s such a fair thing to worry about. I’d be weirded out if you weren’t worried about it, honestly.” He looked up, a little surprised, and that opened the door to talk about what we could do if it felt bad.
When we registered for school, the counselor told me most new kids need a pre-planned exit strategy for the first week, so I’d already emailed the librarian to let her know Javi might drop by. I pulled up the school map on my phone and pointed to the small quiet corner by the graphic novels, far away from the main lunch crowds. “She said you can sit here any time you want, the first day or any day after,” I told him. “You can even bring that mini Millennium Falcon set you’ve been working on if you want. She said it’s fine.” He blinked and asked again, “Really? I don’t have to sit in the cafeteria if I don’t want to?” I told him no, the point of school is to learn, not force yourself to be somewhere that makes you miserable for 45 minutes. If he wants to sit in the library every day all semester, that’s okay with me.
I also told him about when I moved the summer before 8th grade, how I ate lunch in the bathroom stall for the first two weeks because I was too scared to ask anyone if I could sit with them. I’d never told him that before, and he leaned in a little when I talked about it, like it was a secret I shouldn’t have been keeping. It helped him see that this kind of worry isn’t something only he has.
Drop off on the first day was uneventful. I didn’t make him hug me by the front doors like some parents do, I just waved from the car and he waved back. I checked my phone every 10 minutes all day, no text until 2:15, when school got out. It just said: “Sat in library first half of lunch. Talked to a girl who also has a Lego Eiffel Tower. Sat with her second half.” That’s it, no big dramatic happily ever after, just a small good thing.
Since I posted a quick note about Javi’s question on my local parent Facebook group, three other parents have reached out with the same worry: their kid is starting a new school, their kid is neurodivergent, their kid is just quiet, and they asked the same terrible, honest question. The things I tell them are all small, easy things that don’t require a big parent-teacher conference or a ton of prep. First, don’t rush to reassure. It feels good to tell your kid everything will be fine, but it just makes them shut down if it’s not fine. Starting with “That makes total sense” takes half the fear out of it right away. Second, prep one concrete backup plan, not a long list of rules. It can be a safe spot in the school like Javi’s library corner, a code word to text you that means “I need to get out of here early no questions asked,” or a pre-introduction to a teacher who knows your kid needs a little extra space. Third, let them bring the thing that makes them them. If they want to bring their Lego, or their stuffed bear, or their favorite rock collection, don’t make them leave it at home to “fit in.” That “weird” thing is exactly what will connect them to the kids who like the same stuff.
Last night, Javi came home and said an 8th grader made fun of his T-Rex patch on his backpack. He shrugged it off, said the girl he sits with told the kid to get a life because the patch was cool. He just wanted an extra chocolate chip cookie after dinner, no big lecture, no trip to the principal’s office. I still worry. Next month there’s a school dance, and I’ve seen him scrolling through TikToks about awkward school dances, so I know he’s already wondering how that will go. I don’t have a guarantee it will go perfect. But I do know I’ll help him pick out the hoodie he likes best, I’ll email the PE teacher to find out where the kids who don’t want to dance hang out, and I’ll have his favorite mint chocolate chip ice cream waiting for him when he gets home, no matter what happens. That’s all I can do, right now.
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