Good morning, hope you had a wonderful weekend! So we are now in spring (in Australia) and with spring comes, flowers, pollen and for those of us with allergies - sneezing, itchy, watery eyes, itchy skin etc. Such a wonderful time of year!
I wanted to share something with you that happened during the week concerning my daughter which has upset me. During our afternoon chat about her day, her eyes suddenly welled up with tears and she become quite upset. She gets eczema on her fingers every now and then. I haven't worked out her trigger yet. This particular day was quite bad, the patch was open and oozing. She hadn't told me about it as she knows I'm going through
my own skin dramas lately (TSW) and she didn't want to bother me. Yes, I feel terrible that she felt that way. So, anyway, I wasn't aware of how bad her fingers were. I tended to them straight away with some
Coconut Oil and she felt instant relief.
Then she started crying and told me what had happened at school.
One of the girls in her class saw her finger and started saying how gross it looked -loud enough for the other kids to notice. Then, one by one other kids started saying similarly mean things and began moving away from my daughter, as if she had some contagious disease. She sat there feeling humiliated , with only her best friend remaining by her side. She told me how awful she felt and how she put every effort into not crying in front of her class 'mates!!
My heart just ached for my daughter. I was devastated that she experienced such mean hurtfulness from her peers! I know that kids can be mean to each other. I'm not living in a bubble that I think my kids are angels, I've seen first hand how awful they can be to each other. But, I also know my kids well enough and have raised them in such a way for them to know to treat other people better than this! I'm so pissed about this! I know the girl who started it, and she comes from a 'well to do family' well known in the community - from my experience a family who regards themselves higher than they should!!
I'm not in the habit of judging others, but at the end of the day- I'm a mummy lioness!! Mess with my kids and you mess with me! So what do I do? My first instinct was to go up to the school and talk to the girl ( and suggest she apologise) , my next thought was to 'accidently' trip her over. How awful am I for thinking like that? Then I realised that my vengeful thoughts were coming from a distant memory of my own experience of being single out because of my eczema as a child. I remembered being laughed at because I had yucky skin.
So what do you tell your child after something like this? It's so hard seeing your kids hurt. I told my gorgeous girl about my own experience and she knew that I understood how she felt. I then explained that some people are insensitive and don't think about other peoples feelings. My girl is very sensitive, (like her mumma) and therefore we are more vulnerable to becoming hurt by others. We are like this so that we can also be sensitive to how other people are feeling. We can empathise with others and help them when they feel hurt. I then said that some people have black hearts and are really evil on the inside and deserved to..... NO, I'm kidding. I kept those thoughts to myself!!
So, with parent teacher interviews this week, I will have something to say through the (politically) correct channel. Maybe some awareness about eczema within the class? Or will this just humiliate my girl further? It's difficult to know what the right thing to do is. If it were me, I would just want to forget about it. Ignore it and hope it doesn't happen again. Would this mean that the feelings associated with it are internalised? Is it a teachers job to teach basic morals to students who obviously aren't getting taught from home? Surely, treating others with the same respect as you would like to be treated is a no brainer! It's a basic biblical principle (regardless of whether your religious or not). treating others with respect is necessary for a healthy home, school and community!
So, with this being Eczema Awareness Week, I make the point that behind the eczema is a person with real feelings and real emotions. treat people the way YOU would like to be treated!
Have you experienced any sort of ridicule or bullying due to eczema?? I would love to hear your story or comments
Sonya x