I began this blog several months ago, in the hopes of opening a dialog that would help my children cope with bullies, and share strategies with others where my children and others might have a few more tools to surviving life in a sometimes cruel world.
At the time, the bullies involved in pushing at the lives of my own children were gleaning help from adults and they were increasing in the frequency and intensity of their bullying activities. Over the course of this school year, things got really bad. I don't mean crying on the drive home from school bad, I mean vomiting, sleepwalking, not sleeping for weeks and then the adults finishing my child off so that we were just trying to get through the year and my child was promising she could handle it and the school called in the sheriff bad.
But there wasn't much the sheriff could do, unless I press charges. And the bullies' cyber activity had been very carefully deleted from the cyber places right before the final set of proverbial knives were thrown. So pressing charges would take significant work. But I still may, if it protects someone else.
Fortunately, my child had some great people in her life who closed ranks around her and have helped her through. I have set through numerous meetings with people in charge of the extracurricular activity these folks were a part of, and they helped a little, but not much beyond getting through the end of the year, and from the place where I look, I don't know if they have done anything to prevent this from happening to another youth. And I believe they would do it again, if given the chance. Maybe they are doing something, but they cannot tell me what it is. A real apology would be nice. And for something to correct the lies told where these folks worked to ruin my child's reputation.
So now, here I sit, with the family putting the pieces back together and trying to finish the school year strong. And I reflect on what I should have done before, what we did right to survive, what I ignored along the way to them hurting her so deeply, what I could share to help someone else walking in my shoes. So for the next several posts, I am going to try to share some of those things. I will go one at a time, so the posts aren't so long, and if you all have any tips to share, please do. While I moderate comments to keep things positive and avoid anyone personally attacking another, the more ideas and options, the more tools in the tool belt for parents and you.
Here is my first tip, something we did right: Don't let any one activity be all that your child is.
In other words, it is easy to get wrapped up in a favorite sport, like soccer, or activity like robotics or 4-H or the like. I am not, under any circumstances, saying that they should participate in a multitude of activities. We as parents must gently enforce a balance between, school, activities, and down time. But sometimes it is easy to let your child contine to expand further and furth in one activity, say multiple projects in 4H or multiple teams in one sport, and when the bullies show up, and start pushing things around, you are backed into living with those bullies or giving up that activity, becoming isolated from the friends there, and it gives those bullies WAY too much power.
While other folks made fun of us, told us we were holding our children back, my husband and I stood our ground at Football that our son could balance it with 4-H, and at 4-H that our children could play football, (basketball for our daughter, and this year she traded basketball for robotics and Science Olympiad.) In the end, it was the youth in one of those activities which closed ranks around our daughter and reminded her of what a great kid she was. When the bullies even went to that saving grace activity to hurt her reputation, and she teetered on the fence of falling apart again, one leader of that saving grace activity looked at her and said that they knew who she was for them, who she really was, and that was what mattered. Sometimes I wonder if that leader knew just how much that one statement meant.
This is getting harder than I had thought to be as nondescript asa possible about who her bullies were, but just don't worry about who they were. The important thing now is, what we learn from having gone through this. Having had my child's reputation publicly maligned by bullies, I have no desire to have folks pointing fingers here, just to learn and share strategies to survive and thrive as a community we can all be proud of. Anyhow, you get the idea. That variety of friendships and experiences helps your child learn who they really are, and whom they want to be in this world. So enough for now, I'll share another next time. Hold strong, hug tight, say I love you adnd mean it. Tlak to you soon.
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