Bullying

I have been reading a lot lately about children in schools bullying other children.  All parents at some  point , sort of fear that their child could be the victim of this terrible act of hatred. I know I have had this fear with my oldest son Ethan ever since he started school. I think because the media fill my head with terrible stories, that were true stories of children ostracizing others. Which is not cool at all,  unfortunately bully leads to very terrible outcomes. Example: A child getting bullied so much decides he does not want to take it anymore , and ends up killing others because of the years of torment someone inflicted on him/her. Very scary indeed to think that your child may be a victim of this act. Mine and a lot of other parents questions are what to do if you think something like this is going on. where do you turn when your child is to scared to even get on the school bus? First you must always pay close attention to how you child is acting, does the child seem different, depressed or had low self-esteem. Does your child lash out in anger for no reason, was your child an outgoing kid and now they seem introverted. All these things need to be taking very seriously because if they are not being bullied it could be something else that needs to be addressed immediately. I am going to share with you a personal story about my eldest son Ethan.

My son Ethan is now eleven years old and quite large for his age. He started the fifth grade last year and he seemed okay at first when the school year started. As time went on I started to noticed, this kid who used to be very out going, all of a sudden shutdown. I immediately threw up a red flag, something was just not right. He was the type of kid who loved to talk to anybody and everybody. So I went to the school to find out what the problem could be. They really didn’t seem to interested and basically brushed me off. Me being me, I wrote a letter to the superintendent of our school system and complained. With all these commercials about anti bullying and websites about “stop the bullying in schools”, seemed to me like my son’s school did not get the memo. In turn this woke up some people in my community and all of a sudden everyone wanted to help find out what was wrong with Ethan. ( I bet they did, after thinking about losing their jobs).  All year I had been trying to set up an appointment to meet with his teachers and I kept getting the cold shoulder. Magically I started receiving phone calls that I had never gotten returned, about having a parent teacher conference. So instead of  replying back I drove over to the school myself before Ethan got on the bus. I went straight to the principal’s office and started to explain everything to her. Being that I had been ignored all year by the teachers and had already went to the superintendent. I explained to the principal that I would like for her to attend this meeting with me and have my son there with all his teachers so that we could get to the bottom of this. She agreed that would be the best thing to do.

We all sat down and tried to talk with him to figure out what was going on. He had stop paying attention in class, stopped bringing home homework, and was barely talking to anyone. So we all decided that we would set him up with a psychiatrist and see if she could find out what was wrong because he wouldn’t tell any of us anything. So yet again weeks go by and I hear nothing from this doctor, I was starting to get angry. It was so unbelievable as to why everyone was slacking off so much when obviously this kid need some help. Needless to say he never saw the woman and I had to end up making an appointment with an outside resource. Unfortunately because Ethan did not complete work in class and hardly ever turned in homework, because he hid it or exclaimed he left it. They made me sign a paper for him to repeat the fifth grade. So here we go again another year and now all of a sudden the doctor the school set Ethan up with now wants a meeting. I am like are you freaking kidding me, he has a doctor already don’t worry about it. I was upset at this point but decided since we still never got to the root of the problem to go ahead and let him see her too. He is having his issue slowly worked out, since he has seen these two doctors his grades have drastically changed for the better. She did find out that he did have an issue with a particular student, that picked on him here and there. So, they have it handled now for the most part (the boy has since stopped picking on Ethan). The strange part is the student they were talking about was a boy who Ethan always claimed to be his best friend.

The moral of this story is parents, if you see your child struggling, changing in a way that doesn’t seem right to you, please do not let it go. I could have given up several times and said you know what this is just too hard, I don’t feel like dealing with the school. Oh because the teachers ignored me, then nothing must be wrong with my child. Excuse my language but Hell no! Do not ever let someone make you think that you don’t have the right to help your child. Just because they don’t care doesn’t mean that the tree branch stops there. Do what ever you gotta do to get the issue resolved, there is always someone higher up that is more than willing to help you and your child immediately, not later but right now. The kids our future we need to get others informed so that bullying even the smallest amount can stop in our schools. My son is now an advocate for bullying speak up and he has his own page on Facebook for kids on bullying. He now understands that people can not treat you badly and it’s not OK, just because you want to be friends with the person. I am so proud of my boy and he looks out for others who may be in trouble. Please do not give up speak out, thank you for reading friends, until next time

Sincerely,

The sleepless Mommie