It Starts on the Playground....

The boys opened their snacks and bottles of juice and tucked away by the entrance to the slides. It was a tight, small space and partially hidden by the wood around it so they could sit and giggle and laugh in private as they looked at their phones and yelled at the speaker to a friend. I knew my daughter needed to pass by them in order to go down her favorite slide and, as I predicted, she hesitated when she saw them as she prepared to go across the small bridge to where they sat. She turned around and went back toward my sister and my younger daughter who were about to climb onto the bridge. 

Watching her tiny shoulders slump, I felt a familiar pang. I remember seeing the older boys at my grammar school commandeer the venerable tire swing on the all-wooden (it was the 80’s!) playground at my school. They would whip that thing around so fast it’s a wonder that more kids didn’t get thrown off it and wind up in body casts. I was intimidated by them. They were tall-- relative to me-- and exuded a confidence that I--at the age of 8 or 9-- just didn’t. They never bullied me but they LOOKED like they could and the threat was enough to keep me at a safe distance. On the rare occasion they weren’t around you could get a ride on it and feel, just for a moment, like the King of St. Margaret Mary School.  

My sister saw her niece shrink away and, although I was seated on the bench a good distance away, I could tell what would happen next. 

“Hey, guys? Guys!”, my sister said from just across the wooden bridge. She’s tall, Amazon-like and afraid of NO ONE.

“Listen, my niece wants to use that slide you’re in front of. Could you let her go by?” she said. Turning to my daughter, she said, “Go ahead, honey. They’re going to let you go. Thanks guys!” She looked right at the boys as she finished her sentence. I know they got the idea. They moved right out of the way. I could hear her tell my daughter, “Don’t let anyone intimidate you. If you want something, just ask for it.”

I smiled. OF COURSE my sister would intervene. I might have just let it go and moved her to another part of the playground but not my sister. She was making a point and she was going to make it no matter what. Shrink to make others comfortable? Shrink so people won’t notice you? Nope. Auntie was teaching my girl an important lesson in assertiveness. She’s 3. The need to teach children --even at this young age-- to speak up for themselves is great. 

When it comes to girls, the prevailing message has often been to be passive and nice. Nice girls don’t speak up. Nice girls don’t make a scene. Well, that translates to, “don’t say ‘no’, don’t ask for a raise, etc.’. 

These passive girls can become passive women who wonder why they never seem to “get ahead”. They fall prey to bullies, both in their interpersonal and work relationships. 

Let me be clear. When I talk about kids and assertiveness, I’m not talking about allowing them to be disrespectful. I want to clarify that because some adults aren’t comfortable with kids asserting themselves. “Children should be seen and not heard” is a sentiment that still exists. 

We owe it to our kids to teach them to speak up. It could also affect them in the workplace. 

I’ll never forget, early on in my career, when I was negotiating one of my first contracts as a television reporter. My boss presented me with what he thought was fair. Reporting isn’t a lucrative career to begin with so what he offered was pretty low. I showed my uncle the contract and he contorted his face as he looked at it. “This is way too low! It’s ridiculous!” I told him that there was nothing I could do. I really didn’t feel like pressing my luck and risk angering my boss and maybe losing out on the opportunity. I didn’t want to be “pushy”. He took a pen and crossed out the numbers my boss wrote in and put in new ones. He told me, “Take this to your boss tomorrow. Don’t explain why the numbers are different except to say that you’re worth it!” 

The next day I handed my boss the contract with new numbers and his eyes got wide. He looked at me and asked, “What happened!?” I let a few seconds of uncomfortable silence go by until I couldn’t bear it anymore and I blurted out, “My Uncle Hector!” I don’t remember what happened next except that I got what I asked for. Hat tip to Hector!

Back to the playground. The boys moved without making a fuss. The girls got to use the slides and, I hope, they learned a valuable lesson. Assertiveness is a skill-- a muscle-- that must be worked on to achieve the best results. Start small and build up. Think of what’s on the other side of speaking up and go get it!