When my youngest child was chronically bullied at her elementary school. It was very difficult to get the bullies to leave her alone. In this blog I share my daughters story and what I went through and what we are still going through. We parents have a lot of work to do to turn the tide of pain away from our children. So many of our children are suffering in silence at the hands of their bullies and we don't even know it.
How has your child been bullied? What did you do? What did the school do? In our case, the first time my daughter was bullied in the 4th grade at our new school, the principal sided with the group of bullies!
Having learned from that painful experience, the second time around in 5th grade, we went to the teacher. That worked better, but even then, the bullies kept on bullying her. Why? Because until they were threatened with suspension (Consequence), they were free to harass my child all they wanted.
As a result of our experiences over the years with combatting bullying at school, I have read a lot of books and watched countless newscasts of violence in our schools. What I have found is that we parents have got to take action now. How many more school shootings will it take?
Our children are crying out in pain, but the adults around them are not listening. Because they are not being taken seriously, children are now acting out in pain. The ones who are pulling the trigger are not the bullies who originated of the violence. The ones pulling the triggers are the victims of years of relentless bullying (read violence) at our schools that the responsible adults around them could have stopped. If the adults had put a stop to the torment, countless tragedies could have been prevented.
It is not too late. The tide can be turned, but we have to join forces, educate ourselves, re-define bullying, educate our schools, educate our children, demand severe consequences for bullying, and above all, communicate with our kids. The message must be clear.
BULLYING (IN ALL ITS FORMS) WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!
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