This morning, I had to ask my son's teacher if someone was calling him stupid at school. It's not a word we use in our house, for obvious reasons, but yesterday, he came home asking what stupid meant and later, after we had deflected the question, he yelled "why are you so stupid!?" during a miniature meltdown that I think was brought on by pure exhaustion. (Thanks, daylight savings time!)
His teacher's reaction made it hit home to me that what I was really asking was whether he was being bullied. She reassured me that, first, he is not perceived as stupid by his classmates (she said he is the student who has answers to all the questions she asks) and, second, that this was not something she had heard anyone in the class say at all, and that his aide would have overheard it had someone said it to him. His aide said that maybe he had overheard older kids on the playground.
I was reassured that he probably hadn't been called stupid at school, but also slightly shaken by the reality that further conversations about bullying are probably inevitable. Anyone who is even a little different from the norm makes for an easy target, so.... that sucks. Fun times ahead.
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