Is It "Just Because?"

05.15.2010

I had a discussion with Rob yesterday about a boy that he knows who is having some trouble at school. The boy is acting out and the parent was surprised to find out that the school wasn’t doing anything about these outbursts. He, I think, has been diagnosed with some disabilities and isn’t receiving the support that he should be receiving. Rob was frustrated to hear that this boy is getting picked on at school and is called names that increases his anger and instigates more outbursts. Having been picked on himself as a kid, Rob didn’t like hearing that the school tried discussing psychological reasons for his outbursts instead of just accepting how difficult it is to be a kid, especially a boy who may stand out from the crowd. Rob kept saying to me that sometimes psychology has nothing to do with it and that it’s merely just about being a kid.

I found myself disagreeing with him and, as usual, felt no hesitancy to express as much. He then told me that he got into fights a lot when he was a kid and that he turned out fine; that the fights had nothing to do with some sort of a psychological meltdown or that it was because of some hidden, deeper meaning. His fights were just about the fact that he was a kid trying to make it in the big, great (kid’s) world.

It’s one thing to find a kid who gets into one fight. Maybe two. But when a kid is getting into repeated fights, I will argue that there’s a deeper meaning. Kids will pick on kids who stand out. Hell, freakin’ adults do that. How many times did I have to listen to my former boss bitch about someone she didn’t consider to be up to her standards? But a kid who constantly disrupts class, gets into fights regardless of repeated steps taken to stop it, or a kid who breaks down emotionally at the slightest discrepancy to the day….I’m sorry, there’s a problem. A psychological problem that needs to be addressed immediately.

We all may have had our moments growing up where we got into fights at school, stole from others (like I did), or were mean ourselves by picking on others and we turned out OK. But I challenge to reflect on those times and what was going on in one's own life at that time that caused the manifestation of such behavior. It’s never because "I just 'felt' like it.” Every action is a reaction to something. This is a constant that leads into our adulthood but something we learn in childhood. Being a kid is never easy no matter where you fit on the spectrum of “normalcy” or “weirdness.”