trix0r
I write a column for a local weekly paper on family issues. When I asked across my social media network what parents wanted to read, bullying and cyber-bullying kept coming up.
As a parent I really get this – it’s hard to see a child bullied and even harder to do anything effective about it.
Often schools, in England at least, end up making the parent feel that their child – the victim – should change their behavior or it’s a case of ‘six of one, half a dozen of the other’. It’s always felt like that’s an easy get-out for some schools.
I’ve now heard that twice about one of my children when I’ve challenged the behavior of one particular child.
But these difficulties are nothing new. I was bullied in my first year of secondary school by two older girls who lived in my street.
The school did nothing at all. In the end, when I did finally tell my mum, she confronted both girls to their faces in front of their families.
She was like a raging bull – but it stopped.
Now though children face something which can make life much worse – the fact that bullying can come into the home and breach the one sanctuary which should be sacrosanct.
And it’s very powerful.
One of my children, now a teenager, had had a problem a few years ago with a group of girls at school.
It went on for some time and I eventually went to see their teacher in anger. As I was waiting, two of these girls were outside the classroom and I told them straight why I was there.
Later I was hauled in front of the head teacher and told I’d lost my temper with children – parents had complained about me – and the three girls were very distressed.
I had to apologize to keep the peace. It wasn’t true, this tale. I know this as I’d got there early and no other parents were around. I never shouted I just didn’t whisper. And three girls weren’t there, I only spoke to two.
But I couldn’t prove it.
I tell this part of the story because it’s relevant.
In the end, I advised my child to find new friends and she did. Time passed, she went to secondary school and made up with these girls although the friendship was never as close. They did not go to the same school but kept in touch over the internet.
Then one of these girls started being unkind to my child online, through instant messaging. In a chain of messages between a group, she would criticize my child, correcting her over writing words in text speech and just being needling and trying to belittle her.
My child showed me all of this and I dismissed it- telling her to ignore it. This happened over a period of weeks.
My child got more and more distressed and I lost patience telling her it wasn’t important and she could just block her. It took me a long time to realize that when you are teenager, these seemingly piffling things can have a big effect.
Teenagers worry that – if someone is saying horrible things about you even if you’ve blocked them – that their friends are going to be influenced by that.
What if they don’t like her anymore?
What if they believe that this girl is right?
What if they don’t want to be friendly with her anymore?
One day this type of critical comment became something else – I’d said to my child that if she felt that it was escalating to let me know straight away. The F word appeared in the context of this criticism.
I knew the time had come to act. I did it straightaway. I sent a message in return telling this person to leave my child alone or I would be around to see her parents that night. She knew, because of her experience some years before, that I meant it. And I did.
And I would have done it without hesitation. Once again, I wanted her to know, without any doubt, that if she bullied my child, she bullied me.
The messages stopped.
About a year later she apologised to my child and asked if she could be friendly again over the internet. My child asked my permission. I said it was her choice but to be wary – one has to consider this ‘once a bully always a bully?’
Fiona is a mom of three, and step mom of one but also a professional journalist and TV person, having worked in the industry since 1989. She writes articles for local publications and is an experienced producer and director in regional and national television. You can find out more about her by visiting Mums In Media.
