Stick & Stones May Break Your Bones, But Names Will Never Hurt Me

I walked along side my son as we entered the school.  As we entered the doors, two girls were approaching us.  As they approached us, I heard one to the girls say pretty loudly, "loser"!  I asked my son if he knew the girls.  He said yes, they don't like me. 

My knee jerk gut reaction to this comment had my mother bear instincts ignited & in full swing in my head.  I wanted to put those girls in their place, talk to them, give them a piece of my mind, take them down a notch, give them a parental kindness lecture.... I'm sure you get the picture.  I did not act on any of those thoughts - thank goodness.  See, my intention, for many years, has been to acknowledge my feelings, be loving in my words and actions, and act on my commitments. 

I was saddened over the unkindness towards my son and was concerned how these types of unkind acts could impact his self worth, confidence, and future success in life.  My son, from the outside, looks typical, and on the inside he is wired very uniquely.  He has Asperger's Syndrome, which is a high functioning form of Autism.  (This is not the medical definition.)  Most of his Asperger traits show up in the social/relational area. 

After that incident, I realized I did not know how to coach my son on how to handle bullying, teasing, and random acts of unkindness.  I did not want to teach him to retaliate with violence or become a victim of others cruelty.  I could recall memories from my childhood of kids chanting sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me.  From my own personal experience, I can say this method does not work very well, because words can and do hurt. 

That desire to support my son and teach him life skills meant that I had to learn the skills so that I could teach him.  That desire has lead me on a journey that has not only changed my life, created a passion, & helped me prepare him for life.

One of the first thing I learned and taught him was the trash can technique.  We can choose what we take into our hearts and what we don't.  To do this, I illustrated with a piece of garbage.  Would you pick up the piece of garbage and eat it?  He said NO Mom, that's gross!  I asked him what do you do with garbage.  He said, throw it out in the trash can. I said great!  We can do the same thing when people say unkind, mean words or tease us.  We can throw out their words in our trash can.  So, I showed him how he can have a personal trash can with him every day. 

I learned two types of trash cans techniques to teach him.  One size I used when he was younger and one size when he was older.  The first one is where you take your hand and put it on your hip, creating a hole.  The hole is your trash can.  Take your free hand and pretend to catch the unkind words and throw them in your trash can.  Then, take your hand and put it on your heart and say quietly to yourself (or out loud) something you like about yourself.  This is take and replace. Take the garbage and put it where it belongs and replace it with something good in your heart. 

As he got older, I modified the trash can to be is hand clenched into a fist, with his thumb on top.  The thumb on top was the trash can lid.  We can take the unkind words & actions, stuff them in our hand trash can, put the lid on it, and chuck them over our shoulder.  Then replace the unkind words by saying something nice to ourselves. 

This technique has supported both he and I.  I hope this trash can technique supports you too!