Spin Doctor

“Mom, this big kid at school keeps pushing me.”

“What?” I am surprised and worried. “When is it happening?”

“Usually at recess but sometimes in school too.”

“What are you doing when it happens?” I ask.

“Usually just standing around with my friends,” he says.

“Does he say anything to you?” I ask.

“No, he just shoves me in my shoulder and walks past,” he replies a little tearful now.

We sit down together to talk more about the circumstances.  Is my son being bullied? Should we call the school? Should I be worried about his safety? Then we consider another possibility.

“If you’re just standing there, and it doesn’t seem like he wants to hurt you, do you think it’s possible that pushing you is just his way of trying to get your attention?” I ask.  “Do you think he might just want you to include him as one of your friends, and has a different way of showing it?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” my son says thinking it through.

At 11 years old words aren’t always at the top of the list for ways boys get their point across.

Unfortunately, once they do start using them, it isn’t always easier to communicate.

 All my life working in the public eye I have wrestled with how to manage the feedback I get.  It is an inevitable part of the job and not hard to reason why so many feel compelled to sound off with their thoughts since the talking heads are right there in the living room as though a surrogate part of the family and pounding out an email takes so little time and somehow relieves some pent up tension.

But the question for me, is how to manage the message when frequently the intent is not constructive, and the message isn’t that they want to be friends. 

Over time, you grow thicker skin.  But every now and then something can wiggle it’s way under there and fester just enough to make you second guess, to challenge your confidence, to sucker punch your self esteem, or as I like to think of it, to give you a chance to test your will power.

Often times it is the bizarre and random comments that get stuck in my head, not because I think they are true, but because they seem so odd I can’t help myself, I get sucked in, a moth to a light, banging my head over something so ridiculous yet irresistibly captivating.

The latest is this; an angry complaint that this column always focuses only on good news.

Yes, guilty as charged, read the other sections of the paper.  Walk away without another thought, right?

No, instead I actually spend hours trying to think through how to focus on bad news. 

There are many options after all, murders, sports doping, political disagreements, health problems, financial stress.

Each topic negatively impacts lives around the world every day.  Just not mine.

I don’t choose to ignore the negative stories of the day.  I choose not to allow them to make me a negative person. For me, the real lesson in all of this is the kind of spin you choose to put on your life and those living with you and around you.  You have a decision to make every day.  You can see the world as a dark place and choose to be bitter and angry.  Or you can choose to see the brighter side, to look for the good in people, to live a thankful life of purpose that pleases you and believe that is good enough in spite of criticism to the contrary.

That is the path I choose.  Those are the conversations I have with my boys.

That is the spirit in which I sent my son back to school the following day just to see what would happen if he looked at his pushy challenger differently.

“Guess what happened at school today?” he offered, hopping into the back seat after school.

“What?”

“When that kid pushed me, I just pushed him back the same way and said hey what’s up.”

“What did he do?” I asked.

“He just smiled at me and said ‘nothing much’ and walked on by,” my son said grinning.

“Guess you have another friend, huh?” I said.

“Yep.”