My eldest had a tough week last week. Without going into detail, she had two separate incidences where she was bullied. I was shocked to realise that bullying is happening in our school, in our small town, to my child! It is here, it is everywhere!
I don’t want to get into the whole argument of who did what and who said what, but there were a couple of themes that presented themselves to me last week. As a mother, I just want to take this moment to write them down.
Bullying is like cancer – it does not discriminate!
- Privilege: It makes absolutely No Difference if you are a wealthy individual living your privileged life, or a life where you are barely getting by. Bullying is there, it is everywhere. It does not matter!
- Geography: It doesn’t matter if you live in America, Great Britain, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand or anywhere else in the world! It does not matter.
- Schooling: It makes absolutely no difference what type of school your children go to. None! Public, private, boarding, gifted, rural, inner-city, Catholic, Muslim, atheist. It does not matter.
There will always be someone out there who feels they need to assert some kind of dominance over others. A bully.
It is not always obvious!
Bullying takes many forms. Whilst most people see bullying in it’s physical form whereby one child might try to choke another (one example), there is also the mental form of bullying which is often unseen, Mental bullying can often go by unnoticed by those who aren’t directly involved, for example when one child calls the other child ‘fat (another example). One of the biggest forms of bullying now, however, is cyber-bullying. Fortunately mine are still too young, but this is personally terrifying for me!
Some might say that the unseen scars of mental and emotional bullying are far worse than those affected by physical violence. Surely if you are a victim of physical bullying you will have mental and emotional scarring too? That’s just my point of view.
The ‘blame game’!
Can we cut our teachers some slack!?! Teachers cannot possibly know everything that goes on at school. It’s impossible. Whether that teacher has 20 children in their class, or 35 or even more, it is impossible for that one teacher to be aware of everything that is happening to each and every child, all the time.
Deal with it!
If we are to support our children who have found the courage to tell us what is happening, then it is our duty to back them up all the way! All. The. Way. Whilst I agree that some maturity and restraint are required, if we don’t deal with it we are effectively allowing it to happen.
No, I don’t think it’s right for a parent to confront the child in the first instance, but I do think that the parents should address the issue, either with the school or whichever institution this might be happening in. If it’s happening out of school then we as parents should directly confront the other child’s parents.
As a mother, I want to know, and I need to know! I want someone to come and tell me if my child is causing their child harm in any form. If I don’t know how will I deal with it? How will I fix it? How can I teach her that bullying someone is wrong. Making them feel bad about themselves is wrong!
So what did I do?
Firstly, I informed the school of what had happened and made sure that they heard me. I don’t expect them to have seen or heard what happened, However, if I don’t make them hear my concerns, speak for my child and show them that I believe in my child, they would most likely put me in the ‘over-protective’ mommy box and shrugged me off. That’s not where I wanted this to go.
I also spoke to some of the parents involved. Between us we all managed to behave like adults and view the incidents as parents. We all want to understand exactly what happened, and hear all the sides and we all managed to be mature and supportive of each other as well as having our own daughter’s back.
I have to say that I am proud of all of us for this too. This is proof that it doesn’t have to be a bad confrontation and I am very glad that we took this approach.
Teachable Moment
Never one to miss an opportunity, on Saturday I sat down with my daughter and I looked her in the eye. I made sure she was listening to me and I used the one-on-one time with her in that moment to have one of the first ‘grown-up’ conversations I’ve had to have with her.
I’m going to write this next part from my heart so you can ‘hear’ what I actually said, forgive me if it is a bit rambled and excuse the colloquial use of English. Our conversation went something like this:
My girl, what did you learn this week about the way you were treated? Was it nice to be made to feel like you were?
No mommy, it made me feel sad.
Okay, so do you see why mommy always tells you to be kind to other people? If you felt sad because of what was done to you and said to you this week, that feeling that you had, the way those girls made you feel, that’s not nice is it?
No mommy.
So I want you to remember that feeling. I want you to remember how their actions and words made you feel. That feeling is not a feeling you ever want someone else to feel is it? Because it’s not nice to feel like that.
Yes mommy. It’s not kind.
Okay. So those are the lessons we learnt from what happened to you this week, and those are the reasons why we must always be kind to others, so that they don’t feel like you felt. Do you understand what I’m telling you?
Yes mommy.
Did I Do It Right?
Now I don’t profess to have all the answers. I don’t. In my personal opinion, bullying is a cycle. No child is born wanting to make another feel inferior. Bullying is something that is taught or modeled whether at home, at school, or it could even be behaviour demonstrated by someone who your impressionable angel feels is a role-model. That in itself is very scary – I don’t mean to make jokes, but have you watched Peppa Pig recently?
As adults it is so important that we are open and mindful of what is happening to our children. For me one of the hardest things I discovered this week is that my daughter did not want to tell me or her teacher what had happened for fear of ‘getting into trouble’. It took every bit of parenting restraint I had in me to not freak out when she said that to me.
I Had To Adult – Hard!
My gut reaction was to explode … think Pink from her VMA speech
“Can I kick a six year-old’s ass?”
That was me! But, that is not the way to get your sad and broken child to tell you anything. You don’t need a psychology degree to figure that one out.
Instead I had to be calm, I had to encourage her to talk to me. I had to listen to her and I had to reassure her that she can always tell me when something isn’t right, no matter what it is.
Like I said, I don’t have all the answers, but I really believe that it is our parental duty to help our children and to collectively break this cycle and stop this endemic poison in our society from getting worse.
We have to teach them. Us. The parents. At the end of the day it is our responsibility to make sure that they turn into decent human beings.
Bullying is not okay. If we don’t stop bullies now, the cycle continues.
Today is Wednesday 17 October – if you want to see an example of a bully and what happens when bullies are not confronted and are allowed to get away with their behaviour, just see the headlines on the major news channels across the international community – Harvey Weinstein. Need I say more!?
Bullying is everywhere!
You are absolutely right… Thank you for this post! I really love it and it is great, how did you deal with it! <3
Thank you. It wasn’t easy, especially for someone like me who hates confrontation, but when it comes to my kids, I will do anything.
I can imagine! My boy is still little and I cannot imagine yet, what is going to happen… However, your post is inspiring and I am constantly thinking, how to teach him right things… And other things are schools and parents. Last week we attended playing group for kids up to 5 years and there was a boy who was mean to every single kid there and his mum just did not care at all! He pushed my crawling little one twice really badly. Firstly, I tried to nicely told him that he cannot do that, that my boy is too small and he started to yell and scream at me. I was shocked! I do not like confrontation as well, but this time… I went straight to talk to his mum. What a disappointment of her reaction.. “He is a kid so he can do whatever he wants. There is no need to teach him that. And you better not bullying my son.”
That is disgusting. No wonder he is a bully, with his parent not setting boundaries she is doing him an injustice in the long run as he will never learn what is wrong and what is right. Well done you though. At least you tried.
Thank you! It is disgusting, you are so right. I felt really disappointed and thought that she would need as well that kick you were talking about!
This post is exactly what I have been going through with my son but it’s been happening for 3 years and different children . The bullies always seemed to be getting away with it . Only one parent has apologised to us but avoids me now because I stood up for my son and in the process her daughter got into trouble . Until my son feels comfortable to stand up for himself I will be there and I will go to the ends of the earth to protect him . One thing that I have noticed is that some of bullies are also going through bullying either at home or somewhere else . The first boy who bullied him was being bullied by his mom luckily the school stepped in and that boy has reformed which I am so happy about . The one thing I would like schools to do more of though is give counselling to those kids who are being bullied because it’s always the bullies getting counselling .
I’m sorry to hear that Carly. It is unacceptable, but just like you, I will be there for my girls to help them through it. One of the other parents I spoke to said the exact same thing, that the kids who do the bullying are also being bullied. It is a cycle. They are mimicking behaviour that they are witness too.
Also agree that the schools should offer counselling to the victims. How else will we break the cycle?
Love it! Perfectly said! Good job on keeping your cool! x
I so hope that your eldest little girl is ok now…. distressed to hear of her being bullied. Very good article
Love this article. We have just dealt with bullying this year with our oldest. It’s not an easy situation. So glad that you guys got everything worked out and that your daughter is okay.
Thank so much. Hope your eldest is okay too.
Oh, I’m so sorry your little one had to experience this. And you handled it in such a calm, wise, and discerning way. These “teachable moments” become milestones, don’t they? And I’m thankful the other parents stayed calm as well, but that is probably because you set the tone of respect.
I practice pediatrics and always ask children during their exams if they are picked on at school. Most say yes. Some parents are shocked to hear it. Many, because they simply never asked their child about it. Most children suffer in silence. Parents might think about being a little more proactive in digging around about this problem. It is pervasive.
Bullying does happen everywhere. Some schools are not good at following through and protecting students when they do speak up. I’m glad that was not your experience.
This is a fabulous article! Thank you for raising awareness and sharing this. A lot of wisdom here.
–Tess Cox, PA-C, MHSC
Thank you for your kind words. It’s heartening to know that a professional thinks I’m at least trying to deal with it the right way!
The funny part about bullying is sometimes it can come even from a best friend, a sister or a parent and so the cycle continues. Thank you for this, I am also tired of dealing with more than just my already hard to raise ‘good’ kids in this tough world.
?
so sorry to hear this hope iam sure with ur love and support ur daughter will be fine xx
Thanks. I’m not going to sit back and take it.
My daughter was (is, hopefully was) going through the same thing with her classmates. It takes a lot of patience and calm to sit through what she had to say and not say. I spoke with her continuously then encouraging her etc and also with the teachers; they did a session on “bullying in schools”, amongst other things. However, over the summer a particular child (leader of group) was at a summer program and their program happen to come by an event my child was at and I witness it first-hand how the child behaves and what my child had to endure. My daughter pass by her and said hi; I heard her say to another child, “oh that girl goes to my school, I’ll just ignore her and if she looks over here I’ll just turn my back.” (There were other things that I cannot mention, I had to remove myself). Not alone was she doing it she was pulling someone else in the behavior. I teach my children treat others as you would want to be treated. If you are going to call someone a name ask yourself would I want someone to call me that?
I think the schools need to school the parents! These kids need to learn from their parents. If the parents don’t know then they need to be taught too!
Yesss! I’m a teacher, cut me some slack, I have 29 kids in my class and I’m receiving on tomorrow. I try my best to discuss bullying. Yesterday we had a bullying presentation, which helps, however kids will continue to try and exert power over another. It’s just something that needs to be repeated. Thanks for sharing ?
I just don’t get why they do it. I really don’t. At what point will they realise that there is ALWAYS someone better at you than what you think you are today. So that means you’re not better than anyone.
[…] post from last week was about my eldest dealing with a bullying issue. Actually, I’m going to rephrase that. We dealt with it, my husband and I dealt with it […]
I remember one time when my daughter was young how she was bullied by an older boy at school. It came to a head when she finally came home one day with a soccor ball sized bruise on her kidney are where he had thrown a rather large chunk of ice at her. I had already spoken with the school etc. and had had enough and finally called and confronted this boy’s father, which I regretted. Although he understood the magnitude of what had occured and assured the boy would leave her alone, which he did, my worse fear came true when the boy came to school bruised the day after my phone call. It became clear to me that this boy was bullied and beaten by his father and from that point forward I kept this in mind for future events. Any way… great post!
That is so scary but unfortunately a reality. You can just never tell …
Having a child in this generation is beyond scary. Kids have evolved with the technology and they have migrated to “internet bullying”. It’s probably the most heinous because it can be seen by all their peers, strangers across the world, parents, etc. it’s horrible. Sharing embarrassing pictures, spreading rumors, mean and nasty comments that just spread and spread. It’s something that as parents we have to toughen our child’s skin and sometimes it’s tough because you have to explain to them the evils of bullying while affirming their worth.
Communication is always best. I have dealt with bullying all my life. It was hard when my own children had to experience it. My oldest son deals with it often.