Don't just talk to your kids - listen...

Being a mum of girls is so lovely. You welcome these precious little darlings into your world. You dress them up like a living, breathing little dolly. You smother them in love and attention, put their hair in pretty little pig tails, buy them shoes with bows and and encourage their femininity and grace. Then they start to grow up. They make friends. And enemies. Over and over again. You wipe their tears when they aren't invited to a party and coax their sadness away with a little treat or cuddle. You tell them, 'it's ok, mummy loves you so much' and it's enough. You are still their world, their core.

Then they go to school. All of a sudden they are there, defenceless and unarmed, their protective cloak sitting at home wondering how they are going. Those first few months are hard. You think of them constantly, what are they doing? Are they warm enough? Too warm? Are they having fun? Do they have friends? Was the glad wrap on their sandwich too tight, did they remember to go to the toilet before the bell.

Pretty soon these thoughts become fewer and far between. You always think of them, but the worry lessens. The anxiety dulls. They come home with chatter of this and that, what Sally had in her lunch, what story Mrs Brown read to them that day. You are comforted at the idleness of their little lives.

Years go by and the worry begins to creep back in. Brought about by a troubled look here, a mumbled comment there. I am lucky enough that my daughters are very willing to talk to me. I have always encouraged them to talk to me about everything. High school, and even primary school is very vivid in my memory and I can remember how tough it can be, and that you always need an ally.

I pride myself on being a very fair person. If my daughters come home with tales of unfairness at school. I will always ask how they may have contributed to the situation and can spot a lie a mile away. I remember high school, but I also remember trying to bullshit my mum. A lot. She never fell for it. We know this stuff. And we need to be aware that sometimes our kids behave differently when we are not around. They say things we would never dream they would say, they do things that we have implicitly told them not to. To assume that they aren't arseholes when our back is turned is naive.

Having said that, when i find my daughters in tears over some injustice at school, no matter how big or small, I won't lie, I want to cut a bitch. I want blood, a lynch mob, a public flogging.

Then I calm down. I shake it off, have a deep breath, a hundred ciggies and regroup. I look deep into those beautiful big blue eyes and I tell them I'm here. No matter what. We talk through every inch of the problem, even though I'm dying inside as Offspring is on and my cuppa is going cold. These conversations ALWAYS cut into my 'me' time. You know when you just sat down, got your recliner just at the right angle and switched on your favourite show? And a little voice floats down the hallway, 'muuuummm, can I talk to you?' I jump up and do a crazy ninja frustration dance, do a furious face at my husband, and then walk down the gallery, doing my best Mary Poppins impression - 'of course my darling, what's wrong?'.

See, because this shit is real. It's MASSIVE to them. To us it's missing some of our favourite show. That's SMALL. Having someone tell you that they aren't your BFF any more and you've been replaced, that HURTS. Someone telling you your lunch stinks, that HURTS. Being teased cos someone saw your undies on the monkey bars, well that's just a whole new level of hell. It's easy for us to dismiss these things as childhood crap. Because we've done it. We've been there. We know they are going to get through it because we did, but at this very moment in their lives, it's a really big deal.

I've had to catch myself many times when giving advice. The advice you may give an adult friend/sister/acquaintance is different to how you need to talk to your kids. I want to say 'you tell that little bitch to f*ck off. You tell her if she doesn't leave you alone I'm gunna come down there myself'. That is absolutely ridiculous. It's immature (albeit satisfying) and not one bit helpful. It doesn't teach them how to resolve conflict, to become resilient.

Resilience is a term that is thrown around a lot at school. I think it's great. But exactly how do you teach it? How do you preach it? Telling them to 'toughen up' or 'get over it' doesn't work. It doesn't help them feel safe when they are feeling victimised. It doesn't help them when they feel their world is falling apart because they haven't yet travelled the path well worn. They haven't yet seen enough action and consequence to realise that sometimes you do have to shrug things off, no matter how hard it might be. Especially when you have daughters like mine with a strong sense of social justice. They want consequences. They want to see their tormentors punished, and they see ignoring it as the 'bully' getting away with it.

I know this doesn't just apply to girls, it's boys too, but I can only personally speak from experience with my girls as my son has not yet reached that point in his life. He's still enjoying pissing on the floor, throwing cars around the room and drawing on every available surface with a crayon at a 3 foot height. Lucky him.

I recently watched a movie called 'A Girl Like Her'. It was about bullying at a high school that drove a young girl to attempt suicide. It was an eye opening, terrifying glimpse into what can happen to our kids. It left me full of fear. Of sadness and anger. But my biggest question was, 'why didn't she tell anyone what was going on?' Why did she feel that she had to hide away, that SHE was the one that was supposed to feel shame.

I'm not really sure what the point of this blog is. I don't really know why I wrote it or what I want out of it. I just know that I need to keep listening. To every word. To hear the triggers of bullying and the thinly veiled cries for help. I want to hear the low points, just as much as I want to hear the high points.

I want to be their person. Forever.