Last night while catching up with an old friend, we began talking about our kids and the things we see them going through. While seeing them achieve things that make them feel good and smiling, makes us smile and feel good as a parent. There's always a flip side. My friends daughter started high school this year and is now being bullied by a small group of girls. I can feel my friends pain. I've experienced my Mr8 go through the same things. Oh god, it was heartbreaking. You do all the right things and report it to the teachers, the school. You speak with other parents, and we all sit down with our kids to talk to them about bullying and supporting your friends. Unfortunately, it doesn't make it go away.
Our school has a very strong anti-bullying policy, the problem is bullies will keep bullying because they are the ones that walk away pain free and unpunished. In the meantime its our kids, the victims, that go through a roller coaster of emotions, pain and misery because of what has been said to them. Apples really don't fall far from the tree and it does make you think of the bullies own environment for them to think its OK and continue on with it even though they are taught otherwise at school.
For months on end, my son would be in tears before even getting dressed for school. I had every excuse given to me as to why he didn't want to go that day. It was hard and heartbreaking. You feel like you're leading them to the slaughter because attending school is far more important than some bad mannered child. You as the parent go through every possible thought during the school day. My son has a lot of great friends, but being young and impressionable, do they think their friend is still really cool after hearing the words some mean spirited kid has said? Do they still want to play with him when someone else thinks otherwise? Just the pain of thinking that your child is spending playtime sitting on their own watching everyone else laughing and having fun, leaves more pain in your heart than anything you could imagine. Luckily my son has a great support group at school but yet he did have a few days like that. He would either go to the library and spend the lunch break in the chaplain's room playing games with some other kids. I spent many a nights crying into my pillow after my son had gone to sleep because it would just break me down. My family would have to be my only vulnerability.
No matter how many times things were reported, these things just kept happening. I can't be there at school to stop every bad thing that happens. We teach our kids right from wrong, how to be strong and stand up for yourself & friends. Yet, with one action from another, all that can be torn down and replaced with misery, no confidence, anxiety. I ended up having to take it into my own hands and I called our school to inform them Mr8 would be leaving, it was then we were asked to come to a meeting with our principal. All of what had been going on had already been notified to the staff, but yet you still have to go through it all again. So after many meetings and agreements being made, my son felt OK enough to go to school. (There were days where I would have to keep him home because he was just too scared to go.)
Its now approximately 4 months since that, my son is improving. He suffers from anxiety, has little to no self confidence or self esteem and even some depression. No child should ever have to suffer from all that. It's been a long and hard road, it still is. We are slowly getting through it all. We still have hard days, especially when he has an anxiety attack. As a parent, it breaks you down so much that you need to work through it too. It's hard on all fronts, it doesn't just affect one person. We try to protect our kids from everything, unfortunately, it's just not possible. It still hurts me at times, that we had to experience such a hard time of it. We still have days when Mr8 doesn't want to go, but we work though it. No matter how minor or major the bullying is, its still bullying and it's not OK. The bully themselves, yes they got spoken to and is not allowed to go near the areas the younger children play. My son's particular bully was from the older grades. It always seems the victims are the ones dealt the hardest blow.
My friend and I had quite the emotional time last night, she knows she has all our support and strength behind her. We are on this journey together with our kids, together they will grow stronger.
