It seems like such a nothing statement, unless you or someone you love has been through it. Our happy son became a basket case in less than 36 hours, and I'm not sure as an adult if I would have gotten through similar treatment any better.
I posted the story of what happened as a comment in another diary, and as a result of suggestions, I'm posting the comment as a diary.
As a teacher, I knew to take what was happening deadly seriously, and his Dad and I got it stopped, immediately.
Follow over the fold for the situation and what we did to get it stopped. If our experience helps even one child, I will be very happy.
UPDATE: A National Anti-bullying Day is being sponsored by various groups in conjunction with Cartoon Network on October 20th. You can go here for materials for your school to use.
A group of boys started to tease another boy. Out of fear of being bullied himself, the boy deflected the groups' focus to my son. My son had simply been someone else standing nearby. He nonetheless became the target of what I can only describe as the boys becoming almost like a swarm that inflicted with him with taunts and ugliness for over an hour. He came home nearly hysterical.
Unbelievably, it not only carried over into school the next day, but also spread well beyond the initial boys and through a good potion of his school the next day. It must have been transmitted via technology since there is no way it could have spread person to person the way it did. (One more reason why I seriously question why young teens have to have cell phones.)
Note: We are dull, fuddy-duddy parents who don't have text messaging on our phones, and our son does not have unlimited access to a cell phone and doesn't even have a social networking account. Having seen how many kids have gotten themselves in trouble having access to technology before they have the maturity to use it wisely, we've been slow about introducing external access technology with our son. So, fortunately, his tormentors had no access to him outside of direct contact.
It was a Friday, so the weekend provided a respite. Still, our son had a horrible time sleeping due to the nightmares which woke him up. When I heard him say, "Mom, I wish I could just die," we bundled him up in his sleeping bag and bedded him down in the family room. His dad and I took turns sleeping and watching over him.
Monday, the principal in the school and the resource officer called a student body meeting and laid out how ridiculous and cruel the situation was. Students were told that if one cruel word or anything more happened that charges would be filed and the situation sorted out in court -- not just the front office.
My son got a few apologies, but most kids just hung their heads when they walked past him. We're waiting to see if this is indeed over, but we feel reasonably sure that it is.
How did this get dealt with so quickly and forcefully?
My son had a couple of things going for him in the situation -- Mom and Dad.
First, I'm a teacher in the school and I immediately sent an email documenting the initial event, including students' names, since it had occurred on school grounds.
Secondly, my husband sent an email saying he'd be in the office first thing in the morning to discuss what had happened and what was going to be done to protect his son. When it continued happening through the day, my husband went back into school and asked to go with our son through the halls and sit in class with him in order to ensure he'd be safe. That was just about the end of the day, so our son was allowed to leave early without it affecting his perfect attendance record.
That weekend, when he had nightmares and made the comment about wanting to die, his father documented the situation in another email and posted that in the middle of the night.
Monday morning, the administration took quick and dramatic action.
Even as brief as this situation was, it was horrific for our son. I am sure it was the worst experience in his young life. We have a good school and administration -- and to my knowledge, nothing like this has happened before. We have an anti-bullying law in our state, so the administration had that tool at their disposal.
But, I can't stress enough the need to act quickly if something like this happens to a child of yours. Parents must step in and not just "ask" the school to act.
- Create a paper trail!! Email is perfect for this with the time and date stamps. (It can also be forwarded UP the district hierarchy or to a local newspaper.)
- Don't use euphemisms like: some kids were picking on ... Use the bully's exact words and deeds in the email no matter how stupid and ugly they are -- this is no time to allow polite sensibilities to water down the ugliness. Bullies rely on the victim and their family being too embarassed to bring their full nastiness to light.
- DETAILS matter. Think of it like you are writing up a police report -- you are -- harrassment like what our son went through is a crime. Note exact times, durations, and places, if at all possible. Most schools have camera systems and this will allow the administration to pull the tapes. This is evidence you want them to collect.
- Include the bullies' names. Name the individuals engaging in harrassment or assault against your child. Ask your child who else was just standing around. You want witness names, too. List ALL the children's names who were involved or even just nearby that your child can remember. They may initially support the bully out of fear for themselves, but they will usually break and tell the truth once they realize the administration and resource officer is on their side to hold the bully accountable.
- If an incident happened in math class, then include the math teacher in the email address. Teacher's licences can be taken away if they do not act to protect children. By making a teacher aware that something happened in their class, you will have another ally looking for the administration to take action. PS Don't blame the teacher for not catching a whispered nastiness in their class. It only takes a moment for a kid to be mean and no teacher I know runs a 100% silent, unless-given-permission, class room now-a-days. The teachers will be on your side. You just want them aware and working with you.
- Copy all of your child's other teachers with a request that they alert you right away if they any see a change in grades or behaviors. This will put all of your child's other teachers on the alert, and they will be observing the halls with more aware eyes and ears. In addition, they will indeed be watching your child for negative signs which is crucial since children in despair often show signs like falling grades and acting out. Also, most teachers will also cut your child some slack and provide your child with additional support. (And no, the vast majority of teachers are NOT rotten, inept creeps -- no matter what the rethug corporatist anti-teachers-union folks say. They are instead, dedicated, caring professionals who loathe bullying.)
- Do not keep the suffering your child is going through private. Detail it specifically, right after you are done comforting your child, at whatever time occurs. For example, we detailed the nightmares and that our son said that he wanted to die. Add any and all of that to the paper trail by email. By documenting the effects on your child to the administration, it will not only touch their natural sympathies, but also add to what they will tacitly recognize as being documentation that could be used in a lawsuit or actions against them with a licensing board IF they do not use the information to go after the bullying, instead. PS Once again, we fully expected that our good administration would respond to the situation with appropriate outrage and sympathy for our son. However, from recent newspaper reports it would seem that some administrations maybe more motivated by not wanting to make waves, so the implied threat of a legal tsunami is not a bad thing. Make sure you copy the counseling staff on this email with a request that they get back with you on how best to support your child through the emotional fallout from the trauma.
- Go into the school. Do NOT ask for an appointment. Go. The administration will meet with a parent who is sitting in the front lobby and clearly has no plans on leaving, especially since you have already emailed them about the situation. Frame the situation as being: "I'm here to work with you to make the school safe for my child NOW." Assume you are both on the same side to protect your child; that you are both fighting the good fight against bullying in the school. And still, take notes during the meeting, and summarize the meeting using those notes by email as soon as you leave. Set a time for a follow-up meeting later that day or the next day.
- End all emails with a request for a response from each person on the address list.
- If action is not happening fast enough (as in immediately), ask to accompany your child in school until it is completely dealt with. Yeah, it may be a little embarassing for your kid, but the larger message of a parent having to be there gets across to the other kids... it's kind of a worlds colliding thing.
Believe me, no kid gets teased for having their father love them too much, and kids know that a Dad taking time out from work to shadow their kid in school is a BIG deal. The kids know bullying is not a fair fight and a parent having to be there puts a glaring light on that fact. Our son initially protested having Dad there, but after he thought about it a few minutes, it actually made him chuckle a little thinking about the bullies expressions as his Dad, "a real man," looked them in the eye. Frankly, that was the first time we'd seen him not in tears or close to them.
We have a good administration that was on top of this right away, but we also had a well documented paper trail going and two parent visits into the school within the first 24 hours. We documented the dreadful effects it was having on our son, and his Dad was quite serious and more than willing to take vacation/ personal time off to be in the school, going to classes with him if need be. And, if it's a boy getting bullied, I do recommend having Dad take the lead on that.
If action had not been taken, my husband planned on forwarding all emails to the entire school board and calling the Superintendent to notify him that he and our lawyer would be waiting outside his office door, Monday. We were also fully prepared to insist that our son be given alternative classwork and sent to do his work in the library or to his Robotics coach's room until the administration made the school safe for him.
Now, I know that some may say that not all parents could do this, but I wonder about that. We saw this as being every bit as much a threat to the health and well being of our son as a disease or injury. Having him suffer one more minute from it was simply not an option.
Parents who create detailed, specific paper trails and go to the school in person do get action. A child should not and can not handle this alone! They are up against a mob that is intent on emotionally torturing them.
We were every bit as committed to making this "social scourge" end for our son as we would have been had he come down with something like an attack of appendisitus or other physical malady. From the training I have received as a teacher about bullying and teen suicide prevention, bullying is every bit as serious as a serious disease or injury. Parents must and should take swift, decisive action with a, "It stops NOW," attitude backed up by what the administration will immediately recognize as a paper trail.
Bullying of this sort is a soul withering experience for a teenager. Their peer group is so important to them, and when their social world becomes hell, they can impulsively seek to end the pain by ending their lives. Even if they don't kill themselves quickly, they can seek to dull the pain with drugs or alcohol. Bullying can begin a negative spiral for a teen where the bullying experience can actually be weeks or even months in the past, but the fallout of it can still be seriously affecting the teen. The world they are forced to face each day -- school -- is no longer safe; instead it is a fearful place they are forced to endure everyday. If no action is taken to help them heal (Too many think that if the bullying itself stops, all is well, again.) then the blow to their self-esteem, the living in constant fear that it could happen again, the possible dabbling with drugs or alcohol to dull the pain ... well, sadly even after they have been removed from the immediate environment, it can be too late. The child may have slipped into a depression that tragically ends in suicide.
When I hear about kids going through a bullying situation for weeks or months on end, I can well understand their despair. Even as an adult, I know that I couldn't hold up against that sort of thing from co-workers and none of us would!
Lastly, we know that our son will need time to process this and grieve. His school had been a completely safe place for him - a second home, really. It will take time for this to be the case, again, if it ever can be. We're also aware that even though he "knows" that this was not his fault, or due to anything about him, that his self-esteem took a blow. He keeps wishing he'd overrode our pacifist approach to life and just gone after the ring leader with his fists. (To tell you the truth, this may have indeed been better for him. But saying that, I can't imagine being in a work situation where I'd even have to be thinking such a thing.)
He has a few hobbies, so we went out and bought him things that relate to those hobbies. He's been able to throw himself into these to reconnect with himself and do things he's proud of himself for. Also, through this, he still managed to go to his job which demonstrated a lot of character on his part, and we told him how impressed and proud we were of him for it. We've also done a lot of hugging, and we're going away for an overnight trip to a nearby park, today. Nature is healing, and connecting with the larger beauty and wonder of the world is not a bad thing.
We'll be continuing to watch over him, and we know we have his teachers and school administration watching too.
I guess my biggest message is to take bullying VERY seriously, and to take quick, specific, documented action to make it stop immediately. It is NOT just one of those things kids do and go through - ho hum. And, one of the key mitigating factors for helping teens cope is having a strong family connection and parents who take action to help circumvent a fallout, situational depression.
If anyone else has any suggestions for how to deal with this scourge, I'd be very interested in hearing ideas.