The Daily Grind of a Work @ Home Mom...

Teach your children well: on Bullying

A few weeks ago I posted about an incident that happened to my daughter, in her first grade classroom. After a good talking to, the girls involved forgot all about her, and according to Alex, they moved on to their next victims - each other! Yep - the "mean girls" are now targeting each other.

Long live teenagers grade-school kids.

Last week in Vancouver, a 15-year-old girl committed suicide by hanging after suffering at the hands of online and schoolyard bullies. Amanda Todd made the mistake of engaging in high-stakes web-chatting and gave in to peer pressure (she showed her boobs online - classic unformed prefrontal cortex mistake), watched as the pic overtook her friends, her school, her town, herSELF - until all that was left was a shell of an otherwise adorable teenager who was, in fact, bullied TO DEATH.

Yesterday I was perusing Facebook when I came across a "friend"'s status update which read - "When did anti-bullying become the new Darfur?"

I paused.

This person has no children. Maybe if he had a child, he would understand how deeply we feel for our childrens' well-being and even without kids, any person with heart gets the concept of what it might feel like to be a target. We discuss health and fitness TO DEATH, but kids becoming the center of what can become a life or death situiation (on the extreme side), or just being apprehensive about going to school or whatever, should be backburnered?

Comments ensued. Some, like mine, were of the "because it's happening everywhere and it's a huge issue in schools. Kids today are not like they were when we were kids." Others were "How is bullying any different now than when we were kids?"

SERIOUSLY?

Uhhh, have you heard about this new trend called computers? Smartphones? Social media? Webcams?

SERIOUSLY?

For the most part I just accept ignorance in a very Forrest Gump'ish kind of way - people are like a box of chocolates you never know what yer gonna get but then I think SERIOUSLY? Not when ignorance in adults is what precipitates ignorance in children and truth be told, we all know education is a huge piece of getting a handle on, well almost any issue.

So here it is - according to this website, when it comes to verbal bullying, school bullying is most prevalent with 77 percent of all students being bullied verbally in some way or another including mental bullying or even verbal abuse. These types of bullying can also include spreading rumors, yelling obscenities or other derogatory terms based on an individual's race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Out of the 77 percent of those bullied, 14 percent have a severe or bad reaction to the abuse, according to recent school bullying statistics. These numbers make up the students that experience poor self-esteem, depression, anxiety about going to school and even suicidal thoughts (bullycide) as a result of being bullied by their peers.

Imagine when this shit goes viral and a kid has peers posting on Facebook, Twitter, whatever-else-you-can-post-on, talking trash and just completely destroying a kid? Imagine if it were you? Imagine if it were your kid?

One of the comments on the facebook status included, "bullying is very bad, no question, but I think it's important at home and at school to raise kids to have thicker skin. It's a tough world."

Truth. But that's like saying if you wear a bullet-proof vest every day, you won't suffer from a gun-shot wound. We can arm our kids all we want, but abuse - in any form - is gonna hurt and for kids and teenagers, for whom perception is everything, it's going to hurt A LOT.

So what can we do? We can do as the poster says and toughen up our kids. But not all kids are built to be tough. We can tell them what I told my kid when the mean girls targeted her for a hot minute - those girls are mad at themselves, not at you. Worst thing you can do is walk away because then the mean, angry people lose their audience. But once we reach the "bullying" level, it's a whole different ballgame. Social media, webcams in bedrooms and our "always-on" society has opened us up and made our children more vulnerable than ever.

Check out the video below for ideas on what to teach our kids, because it truly says it better than I ever could:

 

Mean Girls

And I don't mean the movie.

Every night, I walk through the door at around 6:15 and my little girls run to greet me. Before I have my shoes off, they're often telling me tales from the day; what got painted, who was absent from school, and can we have a playdate with so-and-so on Wednesday?

Last night, my first grader's story was a little different.

"Ava and Alicia were mean to me at lunch. They told me my sandwich smells," she said.

"Well, what were they eating for lunch?," I asked before I could process what she was actually telling me.

"Turkey sandwiches." Hmm... Exactly what Alex had taken that day as well.

Then, it hit me. My gentle, sweet, (typically) good natured 6-year-old was having her first encounter with "mean girls" except these little girls don't know who they're dealing with. And I don't mean Alex.

This being a first for me as a mother, I wasn't sure exactly how to deal with it. I told my delicious girl that if someone is not nice to her, that she should get up and tell them bah-bye. Move to another seat. Talk to someone else. Take away the mean girls' power.

Fine, I might've muttered under my breath that they're messing with the wrong kid cuz I'll kick their asses Mommy-style because this morning, upon opening her eyes and listening to me tell her how I emailed her teacher about the incident, my little girl asked if I was going to come to school and kick asses.

Oops.

At drop-off this morning, she pointed out one of the little terrorists to me. The girl, weighing in at no more than 50 pounds complete with unbrushed hair and no parent with her at drop-off, was seated next to us as we waited for the first grade door to open signaling the beginning of the day.

I couldn't help it.

"Are you Ava?" I asked the child. I wished her mom or dad had been there. I was frothing at the mouth to tattle on her.

"Yup," she said.

"I'm Alex's mom," I told her, very succinctly, making very direct eye-contact. What I wanted to say next was "and I've got my eye on you, ya little shit." But I held back. And after an intense stare-down (which I easily won and yes I know she's 6), the mini mean girl knew I meant business.

I kissed Alex goodbye and felt confident that I'd armed her with the (appropriate) tools to defend herself should the mean girls start with her. That didn't stop me from checking my watch at noon and worrying about how lunch was going.

At precisely 2:25, I checked in. Lunch was fine, she said. She had no problems and had fun with a friend. I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd been thinking about my little girl all day.

Bullying abounds but you never think it'll be your kid. While this was (hopefully) an isolated incident, it really got me thinking - how much control do parents have when their kids suffer at the hand of another kid? The teacher said she'd talk to the kids involved - which did not happen today. I have parents phone numbers, do I call them if it happens again? What's the protocol for this?

I'm not the kind of person who backs down. If you know me then you know that I don't take much shit and I'm not afraid to stand my ground. While I hope my children grow up with a little less steel than I, I have every intention of teaching them to stand-up for themselves and not let anyone push them around, ever.

How would you handle a situation like this?