A Question

Harrison likes to go to The Friend magazine online. Sundays are a good day for that. He found the sweetest video, the true story about Heber J. Grant called, "The Coat." He watched that many, many times and told his siblings, "You have to see this...it will capture your heart." He is a sensitive, perceptive soul. Sometimes he masks that, or it gets misinterpreted. For homework he had the assignment: "Write about yourself." He wrote:

I am a bully. I am sensitive. I get mad easily. I am a friend to Tommy. (I had to encourage him to say something positive.)

That made me sad. Who calls himself that? I would never label him a bully, and yet he labeled himself. There has been bullying behavior, by him and by everyone else in the house. That's true. When he's in the throes of "a situation" and the behavior is most definitely unacceptable it seems that he doesn't care what anyone thinks. Obviously he does. I know he hates to feel out of control and yet he lets loose with wild abandon. Or is that only how it appears? He pushes and pushes away, yells to be left alone. Deep down I think he's really saying, "No matter how I act, will you still love me?" Why is that so easy for me to forget?

He does well at school for the most part. But as Cameron said once, "We hold it in at school but when we get home we can't do it anymore."

So my question is: What can I do? I need to do more to help him see himself for who he is: a smart, nice, sensitive, loving, interesting, worthwhile and valuable boy who is a real light in our lives. Life would not be complete without our Harrison.

I think it's harder being a kid than I give him credit for.