Keep Your Children Smiling and Ready to Go to School – The Nightmare of Bullying – Report it Anonymously

I love to see my daughter smiling and ready for school, and I aim to keep it this way. It hurts my heart to drop her at school realizing that she’ll face another day of torments from the hands of a bully.

 

Many students and their parents fail to report bullying because they fear retaliation. Parents become emotional and of course want to protect their children, and most will do so “at the drop of a hat,” but children (at least mine does) will often say, “Hey wait, Mom. If you come to school and report any of this, it will only get worse. Let me try to handle it on my own.” Well, this all sounds good and of course we want our children to have the courage and problem solving skills to report incidences of bullying, but I strongly believe that when it has gotten to the point of mentioning it to a parent, it has to be the time for parental intervention. If not, perhaps the child is just asking for ideals in which to move forward in hopes for an end to the dilemma (nightmare).

 

Sounds sad, doesn’t it? At this point, who in the world would barge up to the school and lose all faith in the world of their child? As for myself, I’ve contemplated barging straight to the school while having the attitude that I’d dare someone to touch, or say any mean sarcastic word to her ever again once I “said my peace.” But, the truth is, and our children realize it first hand, if we did try to protect them from bullies  — whether peer bullies or teacher bullies (sadly reporting), our children are exactly right – the “war is on.” This reporting issue may just backfire on them.  More than I’d like to admit, peer bullies who are not directly handled and “called-out” with backing from their supportive parents (parents of the bully), or school officials, continue to bully in sneaky manipulative ways, and teacher bullies use the “power of the pen” and isolation to further torment children leaving them with guilty feelings of “Why in the world did I ever bother to tell my parents?”

 

With this in mind, there still has to be ways to intervene and “come to the rescue” of our children saving them from these tyrants. I’d like to stop here and offer a few tools that I hope will work for students and parents in these horrible situations.

Tools to Help Report Incidents of Bullying

Anonymously – create  a form on line asking key questions so that school officials can arrange to be in certain areas on campuses to investigate
Privately – one-on one behind closed doors
Parental Intervention – some children may be so “fed up” that they are able to go to their parents and have their parents intervene without a problem
Buddy Reporting – perhaps a buddy won’t mind going to an adult for their friend who is being bullied

I’m sure that you have other tools that you can add to this list. If so, please feel free.  Bullying has to end one way or another.

 

Video of Poems – The Bully-ee (victim) & The Bully (perpetrator)

http://youtu.be/TXnOn9JjxHo