My son drew a graphic, violent picture of kids that bully him at school

[Tall4321]

My 10-year old son is a straight-A student, goes to church, and has never had an issue in his life. Lately some girls at school have been picking on him. He mentioned it a few times and I told him that they probably like him. He was a mess before and after school the other day, and it finally dawned on me it had something to do with the situation at school. His ipad is linked with mine and I found a picture on my phone that he had drawn on his ipad of the two girls. He drew a separate picture of each girl being shot, with blood around them. He wrote "F*%K" and the name of the girls on the drawing. In the picture, no one is holding the gun, it's just in the air.

This is SO out of character for him. He's never cussed around me, and he's never even held a gun. We don't own one. He does play a lot of video games, but we do our best to keep them to the E10 rating. Some of those I will admit are a bit violent. This is the first time we've ever really had to deal with kids picking on him. There was another boy in class that was rude to him quite a few times, but he handled it well and just ignored the boy. For some reason these girls have just wreaked havoc in his life.

I have no problem taking away games, TV, etc. But, it just came out of left field because he is the nicest boy and I've never seen this out of him. Other than pester his younger brother, he would never hurt anyone.

We talked about it and he said he was very angry at the girls. I told his teacher about the girls and she said she would watch the situation at school.

My main question - is this normal for a boy to draw a picture like this when angry? I've seen plenty of other pictures he has drawn, but never anything like this at all.

[Tall4321]

Thank you for your post. I will take those steps and talk with him about more acceptable methods of self expression and conflict resolution.

I appreciate your comments. Thank you!

[MarkLakewood3367]

I don't think it is uncommon for kids and adults to experience violent thoughts when angry.  Having these thoughts and carrying them out are two separate issues.  Since your son has no history of violent behavior, I think that it was very appropriate for you to process this situation with him.  I would go one step further and work with him in exploring alternative and more acceptable methods of self expression and conflict resolution such as:

"What are some other and more effective ways to express your feelings?"
"What are some appropriate ways to resolve peer conflicts?"