A Weapon Against Bullying

Photo credit : Livebullyfree

My daughter was a victim of bullying. When she was in the first grade of elementary school, in almost every afternoon when I came home from work, she would tell me about how her friend bullied her. It was not physical bullying, like my kid was beaten or something, but was enough to drive me crazy. This little girl friend of her, just call her Little Miss Meany, often asked for my daughter’s money, asked my daughter to buy her food, or asked her to give an answer during the tests. And what really got my nerve was when this girl did a "conspiracy" with another student, just call her Little Miss ‘D’, to frame my girl. They hid one of their friend’s shoes then told the teacher that my girl did it. Were they little criminals or what?

I spoke to the teacher about this, and it was responded by the promise like “Oh, all right, we’re gonna pay more attention to them”. But did anything happen? No. I then intended to talk to this girl or her parents, but after taking some time pondering, it occurred to me that the problem of bullying cannot always be solved by parents but rather by the kids themselves. If I can solve the problem by talking to Little Miss Meany or her parents, there is no guarantee that no other kids will bully my daughter again, and again. Do I have to talk to each of them? It would be like a never ending job.

So, this is what I eventually decided to do: I equipped my children with a weapon, the LOVE weapon. I spoke to my daughter as much as I could, that “We love you very much. You are very precious, too precious to be bullied. We will do anything to protect you, but sometimes you have to stand up and speak out for yourself. Nobody can hurt you if you don’t let them”. I repeated this thing over and over like some magic spells. It is not that we never showed our love and affection before, but I wanted to make sure that she knew how worthwhile she was.

And it apparently worked. Slowly, Little Miss Meany stopped bullying my daughter. Everyday I talked with my daughter to make some kind of evaluation, and she told me that anytime that girl threatened her by saying something like “If you don’t give me money, I will tell other friends not to play with you” or “If you don’t give me the answer I will tell D’s mother to arrest you. She is a police officer”, or other threats that can actually send me laughter in a good mood, my daughter just walked away and ignored her completely. Or if this Little Miss Meany was so persistent with what she wanted, my daughter would speak up and confront her cause she realized that she was too precious to be bullied. Her self esteem was apparently boosted by my magic spells. :)

Now they are in the third grade and I am happy for them becoming good friends. When my kid was sick and absent from school, this Little Miss Meany (who is not so mean anymore) even called her to ask if she was okay and let her know about the homework from the teacher. Good girl.

I don’t know how other parents handle the bullying issue when it happens to their kids. But so far in my case, I find that boosting the self esteem of our kids by showing them that they are dearly loved can be an absolute weapon against bullying of any kind.