Skunk Helmet
The first helmet wasn't strong enough. So he built a better one.
Milo was a smart, sensitive nine-year-old dealing with two boys at school who had made it their habit to tease him and call him names. This wasn’t full-fledged bullying, but his mother felt it was better to deal with it before it got out of hand.
In our first session, eyes closed, Milo built himself a filter helmet. Designed to shield him from any bad words said to him. He left my practice feeling equipped.
Two weeks later I saw him for the follow-up. His helmet hadn’t held up. One of the boys had said he was dumb in the corridor, and it had gone straight through.
We went back to work. And this time Milo got creative.
He redesigned the filter helmet from scratch. Added extra layers of protection. New colors. New features. And then, to top it all off, he decided it needed a special deterrent.
A skunk.
Living inside the helmet, with its own bed and its own stuffed animal.
He laughed out loud several times describing what happened when the skunk’s smell activated.
The two boys turned and ran.
We can’t make bullies kinder. But a nine-year-old who has spent an hour building an internal fortress — complete with a skunk — carries himself differently going into that corridor.
And a child who carries himself differently is no longer an easy target.
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