The Boys Who Kick Frankie

Here are the things that are true about my oldest son: He wears leg braces, every day, to school, due to toe walking and scoliosis. His two best friends are girls and his favorite color is pink. He is on the Chess Team, and is remarkably excited about getting a book on ways to check mate opponents. He is incredibly polite, so polite that he will say “thank you” to adults for saying “thank you” to him. He has been a vegetarian since he was born, and he adamantly refuses to eat meat, while trying hard not to judge meat-eaters. And finally, he is his teacher’s pet. (She has told me that she has two favorites in her class, and Frankie is one of them.)

He is a remarkably good kid. I often feel so shocked that he is mine, that somehow we must be doing something right to have a child as kind, sweet, and loving as he is. (I feel that way about both my kids, but this post happens to be about Frankie...) Frankie hates to see anything get hurt, and awhile back, at recess, he defended a colony of ants from getting stomped on by a couple of boys. But, that is when the trouble began.

For the past couple of weeks, a group of three boys has been chasing, kicking, hitting, trapping, and harassing Frankie every day at break. They have been doing the same thing to his two friends, and even trapped Frankie in the boys’ bathroom. Frankie came home with a scratched up arm from being caught and thrown down, and a week ago, he had a nightmare. After he woke up terrified, he told me that one of the boys from school was trying to kill him in his dreams.

We are addressing the situation with his teachers and other parents, and I feel assured that things will get better. In fact, the past two days have been good. But this is not the first time this has happened to Frankie. It is not even the second. It is the third.

In pre-school, he was pushed, trapped, and hit by two older boys, and came home from school with a black eye, after a kid hit him in the face with a stick. Two years later, at a different school, he would hide from a group of kids every day at recess. But, the kids still got to him, and one day, he came home with a black eye, after a boy pushed him down and kicked him in the face. He was five. And so now, at age seven, it feels like an old drill. Kids are picking on Frankie. He is getting hit, kicked, pushed. Time to do something. Again.

There are six kids involved in this current situation, and between the six of them, there are six different countries represented. Because our kids go to an international school, the kids who are fighting come from different cultures and represent three continents. So, why is it the same here as it was in East Lansing? Why does Frankie get picked on wherever we go?

We are pacifists, and Frankie does not hit back. He does not kick back. He does not fight. But it is hard, so hard, to trust God in this situation, to trust God with Frankie’s life. How do we protect him, cherish the unique, peaceful, artistic, polite, sensitive kid that he is, knowing that others will not cherish that in him? 

We work for peace with justice, for hope and health for all people, but we also want it for our kids. We want them to know that they are cherished, beloved, sacred children of God. And I don’t want anyone, ever, to make Frankie feel any less worthy of kindness, grace, and love.

So, please pray for us, that Frankie will know that he is beloved and cherished, and pray for the other children, too, that they might all walk in the ways of peace and love. And please pray for wisdom for us, as well, that we might guide Frankie through this in the best way possible. Thanks so much!