When Your Kid Asks “Would I Get Bullied For This At School?”: What I Learned As A Mom And Teacher
Last Sunday night, I was folding Lila’s soccer uniform and the fleece blanket she insisted on bringing for her 7th grade fall campout when she leaned in the laundry room doorway, twisting the drawstring of her neon hoodie until her knuckles went white. “Mom,” she said, then paused. “Would I get bullied for this at school camp?” She pulled Mr. Floof out from behind her back, his one plastic eye half hanging off, his cream fur matted at the paws from that time she dragged him through a mud pit on a third grade field trip. She’s had him since she was two, and I thought he’d been packed away in the attic for good two years ago.
She told me all the other kids were bringing portable chargers and travel-sized skincare, no one was bringing stuffed animals. If someone saw him, she said, it’d get around the whole grade by lunch the next day. I leaned against the dryer and thought, I get that question at least three times a semester as a middle school teacher, and it never lands the same way twice. It was the same question a quiet 8th grade boy asked me last month when he told me he wanted to bring his ukulele to lunch to play during free period. It was the same question a trans 7th grader asked me last year when he was ready to start using his new name in class before he’d told his extended family. It’s never just a question about bullying, is it?
I used to answer it wrong. When I first started teaching, I’d say “Of course you won’t, everyone will love it.” That’s a lie. There’s always at least one kid who’ll say something dumb, and if I guarantee it’ll be fine, then when that kid does say something, my student thinks they can’t come back to me about it, because I said it wouldn’t happen. Once I tried to talk Lila out of bringing Mr. Floof to a 6th grade dance, I said “Maybe just leave him here, you’ll have more fun without worrying,” and she didn’t talk to me about what she was actually nervous about for three days. That was my mistake.
So this time, I didn’t do either. I patted the floor next to me and asked her to tell me what the worst thing she can imagine happening is. She said someone yells “baby” across the cabin, everyone laughs, and she never lives it down. I asked her to rank how bad that would actually feel, on a scale of 1 to 10, not how bad it feels buzzing around in her head right now. She stared at the running dryer for a minute, then said “A 3? Maybe? It would be awkward for like, five minutes.” I asked her how much better camp would feel if she had Mr. Floof with her. She said “A 9. I’m already nervous about sleeping away from home, and he makes it less scary.”
That’s the core of it, right? Kids don’t ask for a guarantee they won’t get hurt. They ask for help weighing the risk against what they gain. Once you frame it that way, it’s not your call to make for them. Then we worked out concrete stuff, the kind that actually helps instead of just sounding nice. First, we came up with a one-line script for if anyone says anything. No big speech, no fighting back, just something casual that defuses the whole thing and takes away the reaction bullies are looking for. For Lila, it was “Yep, he’s my good luck camping buddy. You don’t have a thing you still like from when you were little?” If someone still pushes, she can just walk away, no need to prove anything.
Then we figured out a middle ground, so she didn’t have to choose between bringing him and hiding him completely. He’d go at the bottom of her duffel, under her sleeping bag, and only come out after lights out when everyone else was getting ready for bed. If she wanted to bring him out to the campfire later, she could, but she didn’t have to. That gives kids control, which takes away a lot of the fear on its own. I do this with my students too: the kid who wanted to wear rain boots every day even when it was sunny kept a pair of sneakers in my closet if his feet got sore; the boy who wanted to use his new name started with just me and his core teachers before telling the whole class. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
Lila came home from camp three days later, tossed Mr. Floof on the couch, and grabbed a soda out of the fridge. I asked her how it went. She said her best friend saw him when they were changing into pajamas, said she still has a stuffed unicorn she brings to sleepovers, and that was it. No one else said anything. She slept better than she thought she would, so it was totally worth it.
That doesn’t mean it always goes that smoothly. The boy who brought the ukulele to lunch got teased for a week by one kid in his class. But he kept bringing it, started playing Taylor Swift songs between classes, and now a group of kids gather around to listen every Friday. It didn’t fix everything, but it worked out for him, on his terms.
Last Wednesday, a 5th grader in my after-school study hall pulled me aside after everyone left. He’s got a pet goldfish he’s really proud of, and he wants to bring it in for show and tell next week. He looked at his scuffed sneakers and asked, “Would I get bullied for this at school?” We went through the same steps: weighed the risk against how much it matters to him, came up with a short script, agreed I’d keep the tank on my desk at the front of the room instead of passing it around if he wants. He decided he’s bringing it. We’ll see how it goes. Some days it’s smooth, some days there’s an awkward comment that sticks for a little while. But that’s not the end of the world. It’s our job to give them the tools to handle it, not keep them from ever taking a risk on the things that matter to them.
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