I went for courses that taught parents how to stimulate and increase their children’s IQ and I spent considerable time putting all that I had learnt through books or workshops into practice. My “investment” paid off – she turned out to be reasonably bright. However, an experience of hers had  me convinced of a parent’s more important task: to help build self-esteem but  not necessarily the kind that comes with a high IQ.

One afternoon five years ago, my daughter had one of her most unhappy expressions when I collected her from her kindergarten. My five-year old did not offer me her usual greeting of “Hi Mommy!”

As we drove off, she blurted out: “Mommy, today Joe pushed me and when I fell down, he stepped on my head!” And she burst into tears.

After I calmed her down, I asked how her teachers resolved the matter. Joe was asked to stay put in the music room, where the incident occurred, until his mother came. I was satisfied with that and told my daughter to forget about it.

Little did I realise there were more horror stories about Joe. He was not well liked by the other children from the descriptions I gathered from my daughter. Almost always he was asked to stand in a corner or outside the classroom. As soon as he was put back into the classroom, he would reign terror again – shoving, pushing and annoying both his teachers and classmates.

Then I began to notice how it had become so difficult to get my usually chatty daughter to talk about school and when pressed further, she would only talked about snack time and music lessons. I also noticed she became very aggressive towards her younger brother, then aged two and half years. When reprimanded, she became hostile. On many occasions, she would scream on top of her lungs while running around the house and climbing on the sofas – which she never used to do.

I was at my wit’s end trying to understand her change of behaviour. It became a real challenge for me to maintain my composure each time she exploded or just being plain nasty to her brother.

Then the nightmares began. She would scream or kick her legs in the middle of the night and most occasions, it was difficult to wake her up. Upon waking, there would be a distress look on her face. No amount of hugs and reassurances could rid of them.

I took the matter up to the teachers. Apparently Joe had been terrorizing his classmates and teachers (he would be the first in school and last to leave) and his parents were at a loss on how to resolve his aggressiveness. The teachers described him as a restless but intelligent child and he also had a nasty streak. Although they couldn’t confirm it, they suspected Joe was an adopted child as he didn’t bear any of the physical attributes of his parents.

I then suggested some kind of assessment for him and that he was taken off from school until he showed improvement. But I was asked to be patient. As I was leaving, I bumped into two of my daughter’s former teachers. “Is it about Joe?” they asked. They also noticed a marked change in my daughter and that she seemed anxious and not as cheerful as she used to be.

Obviously Joe was a known bully, for want of a label. Some friends I spoke to said that my daughter would eventually grow out of it and told me to allow the school to handle it. After all, they said, she was only five! But I was not able to shake off my worries and her nightmares persisted.

I began reading up; she was coached to say: “No, stop it! It hurts me.” Whenever Joe was nasty, she was to tell her teachers. Unfortunately there were no remarkable changes. I wasn’t hitting it right on target.

Victims of bullies have low self-esteem. To help build a child’s self esteem is to help her learn to love herself. One way is to encourage her to discover her interests.

My daughter enjoyed drawing and fortunately we found an art teacher whom she liked. Then we enrolled her in a speech and drama course. She liked music and started on piano lessons with her aunt, a qualified music teacher and before long, she also found joy in ballet dancing.

On the home front, I became more watchful whenever she played with her brother, to prevent incidents that might give rise to aggression. We gave her more hugs and reassurances of love.

As for school, we gave it another go for a month. When we saw no improvements, we made the decision to move to another kindergarten. Within four months, my mild-mannered daughter was back on track. I never found out what happened to Joe. I hope he gets the right help he deserves – bullies are also people with low self-esteem.

HONESTY

My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he’d dropped his toothbrush in the toilet. So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage. Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush. He held it up and said with a charming little smile, “We better throw this one out too then, ’cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago”.

OPINIONS

On the first day of school, a first-grader handed his teacher a note from his mother.  The note read, “The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents.”

KETCHUP

A woman was trying hard to get the ketchup to come out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her 4-year-old daughter to answer the phone. “It’s the minister, Mommy,” the child said to her mother. Then she added, “Mommy can’t come to the phone to talk to you right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”

MORE NUDITY

A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women’s locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, “What’s the matter haven’t you ever seen a little boy before?”

HELP FROM THE POLICE

While taking a routine vandalism report at an elementary school, I was

interrupted by a little girl about 6 years old. Looking up and down at my uniform, she asked, “Are you a cop?” “Yes,” I answered and continued writing the report.

“My mother said if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?” “Yes, that’s right,” I told her.

“Well, then,” she said as she extended her foot toward me, “would you please tie my shoe?”

DRESS-UP

A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, “Daddy, you shouldn’t wear that suit.”

“And why not, darling?”

“You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning.”

BIBLE

A little boy opened the big family bible He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the pages. “Mama, look what I found,” the boy called out.” What have you got there, dear?” With astonishment in the young boy’s voice, he answered, “I think it’s Adam’s underwear!”