Bullying

Last summer or fall The Young and the Restless did a storyline on bullying. It was handled pretty good in my opinion.

With the different levels of social media, bullying is much different from when I was a teenager. Back then if we had an issue with someone he might have spread rumors, but it didn’t go as far as it does now. We might have even gotten in a fist fight, but it wouldn’t go viral and it wouldn’t involve a gang beating.

Our daughter was bullied in middle school. The girl bullied our daughter because she lost her brother – our son.

It was difficult enough for our family to deal with the loss of our precious son. He was only six days old when he died, due to premature birth. To have a student at school bullying our daughter over this confused us.

Lexi wanted to beat the girl up and in all honesty, I understood. BUT I told her it wasn’t the way to handle things. Lexi threatened every day to follow her off school grounds and beat her up. It never happened.

I tried to get the school involved but they didn’t want to. I had print outs of the online bullying to show them it was taking place. They didn’t feel it was a school issue, even though it was happening IN SCHOOL too. This is something I still don’t understand.

The bullying stopped for a bit and when it resumed I’d had enough. Our family was trying to handle their own grief. We didn’t need outside forces adding to it. At my wits end I hunted down the girl’s mother and called her. Maybe this woman would talk some sense into her daughter.

Her mother immediately went on the defense when I called her. I expected it. What mother wouldn’t want to protect their child? What shocked me the most was I learned that this family had a son with CP, Cerebral Palsy. Their son was born prematurely.

My heart was breaking on so many levels. Why is this child torturing my daughter over her brother’s death if she knows what it’s like to have a brother born prematurely? I’ll be honest, I have a few assumptions, but they’re not facts so I won’t speak of them. All I know is it still breaks my heart.

When we explained the situation to our daughter SHE looked at the girl differently and found a way to ignore her. Lexi felt sorry for the girl.

We had Lexi see a therapist to deal with her grief and thankfully she’s recovered. The best part is once they reached high school the girl was never in any of her classes.

Our bullying situation ended on a happy note, but not all will. Please if you know your child is being bullied or bullying…do something. Don’t count on the school to handle it, because they may not. Get involved. You could save a life.