Welcome to my very first newsletter
I will write about a specific topic in each newsletter and include a previously written article. The topic this month is “Bullying.”
This is an age when we are escort bayan mersin tying to stop bullying in our schools. This is a positive direction that society is pushing. There are few things more painful than seeing your child or someone you care for feeling hurt and fearful because of bullying.
The Question/Answer article below is one I wrote for the Lansing State Journal. It will hopefully be helpful to you or someone you love. Any feedback on the article or the topic would be appreciated.
Question
“I recently heard my ten-year old daughter talking about how mean they are to a girl that rides the bus with them to school. They call her four eyes because of her thick glasses and call her weird and ugly. They seem proud of themselves. I went in and said I could not believe what they are doing. The two girls were sent home and I really gave it to my daughter. She tried to defend herself but then quit and cried after I said how horrible it was to do what she did. I called the mothers of the girls I sent home. They are friends of mine and agree completely with me. I called the home of the girl and apologized to the mother on my part and had my daughter apologize to her daughter. The mother thanked me. I feel I did the right thing. My husband said I overacted and should have let them work it out. What do you think?
Answer
I think you did the right thing to firmly let your daughter know her behavior was horrible and totally unacceptable to you. That she initially tried to defend herself shows the need for a strong approach to educate her on appropriate behavior. You need to explain to your daughter why bullying is terrible and unacceptable. Try to have your daughter understand how bad she would feel if treated the same. You can do this in a firm and loving manner.
That your daughter had help from two of her friends makes the treatment even worse and pure bullying. In the case of the mother of the girl, in today’s world it was a risk to call her without knowing what reaction she might have. This was not a problem with the girls with your daughter because their mothers are your friends. To call the principal for some direction would have been a better idea. You would have gotten the same results with minimal risk. It would still be a good idea for you to call the principal to explain what happened and make sure this bullying does not happen again.
I would disagree with your husband. While it is a part of good parenting to not over involve ourselves in every relationship problem our children have, it does not relate to this situation. Your daughter must learn that bullying is totally inappropriate. Good parenting requires that it be extinguished immediately before it ends up as an ingrained type of behavior that would be much harder to change.
If this type of behavior continues, you will need to set up definite consequences. Hopefully, your firm and decisive action will not make this necessary. In this case, the tears of your daughter probably had a cleansing quality effect on her.