Will My 10th Grader Get Bullied For Wearing a Personal Pendant? What Parents Should Know
Last Wednesday, I stayed after 10th grade study hall to grade exit tickets when Mia, a quiet student I’ve had for two years, lingered by my desk twisting the strap of her paint-splattered canvas backpack. She wouldn’t meet my eye, kept shifting her weight from one sneaker to the other, and finally blurted, “Can I ask you something stupid?”
The question she asked was the one that’s been popping up more often lately, as kids pick up small custom pieces that tie to people or moments they love: “Would I get bullied for wearing a 67 pendant to school?”
She pulled the small silver disc out of her pocket to show me. The numbers were stamped deep into the metal, worn soft at the edges from being rubbed between her fingers for the past week while she debated wearing it. It was cut from the VIN plate of her grandpa’s 1967 Ford F-150, the truck she and her dad spent every weekend restoring before grandpa’s Parkinson’s got bad enough he couldn’t hold a wrench anymore. She’d saved up three months of babysitting money to have it made, but couldn’t bring herself to put it on for school. She’d seen a group of juniors tease a freshman for wearing a custom cartoon necklace the month before, and she’d cut her hair shoulder-length at the start of the semester and gotten enough unwanted comments to last her a while. She also mentioned seeing a TikTok that listed “gang numbers” and 67 was on the list, so she was worried even people who didn’t know the story would get the wrong idea.
I leaned back against my desk and thought about the kids I’ve had over 12 years of teaching high school. There was Javi, who wore a small wooden spoon around his neck his sophomore year that his grandma carved for him to stir hot cocoa when he visited her in Texas. He joked about it, would pull it out to stir his soda at lunch and tell anyone who asked the full story, and no one ever bothered him about it. Two years before that, there was Lila, who wore a small locket with a photo of her mom who’d passed away. When anyone glanced at it, she’d yank it under her shirt and go red, and a group of mean girls started teasing her about it, not because it was weird, but because it got such a big reaction.
I didn’t tell Mia “no one will bully you, you’re amazing” like I knew her mom would. When she texted her mom the question while we were talking, her mom wrote back “That’s ridiculous, anyone who says anything is an idiot, wear it proudly.” Mia just frowned and stuffed her phone back in her pocket. Dismissing the fear doesn’t make it go away, it just makes the kid less likely to come to you with the next question.
Instead, I gave her three small things to try, the same things I tell any kid or parent who comes to me with this kind of worry. First, do a low-stakes test run before you wear it full time to school. She had soccer practice that Saturday with half the team from our school, so she could wear it there, where the stakes are lower than a full day of classes. If it went fine, she could try wearing it under her shirt the first two days of school, then leave it out when she felt comfortable. No rush, no pressure to be bold all at once.
Second, prepare a one-sentence answer to anyone who asks. No long emotional story unless you want to tell it, just something short that ends the conversation if you want it to. We practiced hers: “It’s from my grandpa’s old truck we restored together.” If someone wants to hear more, they’ll ask, and if they’re just being nosy or making a joke, it disarms them before they can keep going. If anyone asks if it’s a gang thing, the line is just “No, it’s family. That’s it.”
Third, for me as her teacher, I said if she was okay with it, I’d casually ask her about it once before class one day, so the kids sitting nearby hear the story and it doesn’t feel like a weird secret. That small, casual positive acknowledgment from an adult takes away a lot of the awkward tension that kids might pick up on.
It’s been two weeks now. The test run at soccer practice went fine—one of the other girls’ dads restores old trucks too, so they talked about it for 10 minutes after practice. She wore it under her shirt the first day, left it out on the second. Only one kid made a dumb joke in the hallway: “Why 67, that your mile time?” Mia just laughed and said “Nice try, it’s for my grandpa” and the kid shrugged and walked away. No big scene, no bullying, just a dumb 10th grade joke that went nowhere.
A lot of parents ask me how to stop bullying before it starts, and they assume the answer is changing what their kid wears or avoids, but most of the time, the fear of being bullied is a lot bigger than actual bullying in 10th grade. Kids this age are hyper-aware of every little thing that makes them different, and that’s normal. They’re figuring out how to be their own person outside of their family, so carrying something that matters that much feels both precious and risky.
The concrete stuff works better than big speeches or empty reassurance. When your kid comes to you with this kind of question, first say “That makes total sense to be nervous. Standing out is scary at your age” instead of brushing the fear off. Help them pick a test run that fits their comfort level, help them come up with that one short line if they want it, and let them go at their own pace. Teachers can do their part by casually normalizing the item if the kid is okay with it, instead of making a big deal out of it that draws more attention.
Yesterday, Mia left her water bottle in my room after class. I picked it up to put it away, and the silver 67 pendant peeked out over the collar of her gray hoodie. She ran back to get it a minute later, smiled when she saw I noticed, and said “No one’s said anything bad. Most people don’t even look.” She waved and ran off to geometry, late as usual. There’s still a chance someone will say something cruel next month, or next semester. Bullying doesn’t disappear just because you have a meaningful necklace. But for now, Mia’s wearing her pendant, and that’s enough.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Will My 10th Grader Get Bullied For Wearing a Personal Pendant