Bullied!

So. Now I find out that my grand daughter has been bullied. I had no idea, of course. Otherwise I may have done something before now. She is a beautiful young girl and has developed quicker than her class mates, so I have an idea that that is or could be a cause. Junior high (especially) and high school can be brutal--those kids can be mean! They'll turn on friends--talk about them behind their backs, ostracize them and generally act like assholes. Joel-boy does not put up with bullies. Last time my oldest son was bullied was when he was in 4th or 5th grade and a boy on the bus punched his lunch box, bent the shit out of it and told him he was going to kick his ass when he got off the bus. He was afraid and did not get off the bus. I finally located him, found out what had happened and then of course, acted like I do when people fuck with my kids. This shit DOES NOT CONTINUE.

All the details don't matter, just that my GD is a loving, giving person and it drives me crazy when ANYBODY is bullied. My instant comment to her mom was-"fuck that --let's jerk out of there first thing Monday morning."
We're going to see a couple of other schools-and get this taken care of has become the bottom line. I detest anyone being humiliated in ANY way and I don't play around when it happens.

My daughter pointed out that this goes on a lot and that she'd have to get used to it and deal with it. True enough, but it's difficult to tell a young girl to "deal with it', when she's in the middle of it.

Frankly, it's probably a good thing that I'm finding out about this on a Saturday when school is out. As parents-grand parents---don't you just hate stuff like this when it occurs?

 

yeah, I know all about it......

 

Yes and it's heart breaking and something that happens a lot , I assume. I'm sorry you "know' about it. I'm not asking.

 

scratcho, you are a good grandfather..instinct is to want to kill...i know....

but unless you change thinking in people, it will continue.....and maybe not as obvious, though, to others or to prove.....so how can this stuff be stopped for real?

 

Her mom told me that she went to the school and talked to her so-called counselor. " oh, she's exaggerating", was the response. She held this in for a long time and didn't say anything because she didn't want anyone to "get in trouble." But that counselor just shined it on. So when you get answers like that--it's less than useless. Until counselors, teachers, principals get a program going---a serious program---I don't know.
Maybe it can't be. It's a confusing time for kids with hormones raging and everyone trying to find their place in the pecking order of their little closed society and it's easier to bring someone down to make themselves look more important.

I was a big kid-6'2" in 7th and 8th grades and I stopped bullying on numerous occasions, but that's a hell of a note that my size determined whether some kid was being picked on or not instead of being taught to treat others with respect. I'm sure that they were picked on anyway.------

I have always told my kids--never make fun of those less fortunate than you and take a stand against bullying. Where the fuck are the parents of these bullies?

 

" where are the parents of these bullies", I said. I also said it's a good thing I found out on a Saturday. I'm not going to school and slap some kids around--but I have 2 days in which to cool off before I talk to the parents, if it comes to that. Otherwise--another Montessori-type school where respect is taught might be the answer.

 

Yeah, you are right. Respect should begin at home. Where are these parents and what the hell is going on with that?

 

It's too bad and I hate it too but it's kind of a fact of life most of the time...or at least it seems so. I never allowed that stuff to really go on around me either. In fact, I'm pretty sure every fight I got into growing up was because I stepped in when some kid was getting pushed around. It was like...fine...you want to fight that bad? Why don't you pick on somebody who will fight back? I don't think I was ever bullied very much...not for very long anyway.

I remember when I was a kid (probably told this story before) and my brother and I were going to the "gifted" school. These kids kept bullying my brother...mostly when I wasn't around. Imagine that....bullies at the nerd school. How much of a bully can you possibly be when you go to that school? But, I digress. Anyway, I basically told him he was just going to have to fight back to make them stop. The next day, they started in on him again and he took his belt off and started swinging...buckle first. It was on the school bus and there was blood and some crying tough guys. He got expelled and they told my mom that she may as well take me out too. So we got kicked out of the gifted school because my brother got tired of being pushed around.

 

my mom stepped in with a baseball bat once in her hand once when a bunch of kids were running after me all the way home from school. They were going to beat me up, as usual. She saw from the window and came running out. She didn't doing anything....the gang all ran away when they saw her.
at the time I was embarrassed. i would have made it home all right.

 

(I put this in here a while back) My daughter was raised with my 2 boys and all that that entails. Soooo--when a boy pushed her face into a drinking fountain as she was drinking--she punched him immediately and knocked him down. Of course I was called in and she was threatened with dismissal. I told them she didn't need a teacher to slap the boys wrist--other incidents had preceded that one and noting was done. And she took care of it.

 

That's a shame. It's the bullies who should have been expelled. Using a belt buckle might be a little over the top, but hey, if you don't want to eat a little belt buckle, don't start shit in the first place.

 

There comes a time----------

 

I think that there has to be some kind of balance. On the one hand, the bullying can be quite harmful and have a long-term negative effect. On the other, if you tried to completely shelter her - e.g., homeschool- it might create more problems than it solves.

 

Agreed. I'm sure you know how it is though---as a grampa the first one wants to do is----just anything to shelter your kid or grand kid from it. It hurts that they hurt. It hurts bad.

 

I decided to write this in two posts so it isn't one long post....

When my oldest son was in about 4th grade, kids started picking on him. I had no idea why because he was such a gentle, upbeat, likable person. I talked to his teachers, school counselor and his child psychologist (who he was seeing for a while related to divorce and some other shit). His teacher and school counselor told me that a lot of times kids get bullied for almost no reason but they knew why my son was being picked on. It was because of the way he talked and the things he talked about. The teacher said he was "light years" ahead of some of those kids and they couldn't really grasp the things he wanted to say so it made them feel uncomfortable and...as a defense mechanism...they picked on him instead. She wasn't blaming him but at least we had an honest, first-hand opinion of what was really going on. I asked the psychologist about it and he said he wasn't surprised. He said if we gave my son an IQ test he would probably score at near-genius or genius for his age and that was actually part of his other issues. He understood so much but didn't have the emotional skills to handle everything he understood.

So that made sense to me and I knew I couldn't do much to make the kids stop bullying him. My approach then became to use his strengths. I told him that the reason they were bothering him is because he's smarter and picking on him actually makes them feel better about themselves. I wanted him to use his intelligence to kind of manipulate the situation to his advantage. If he was careful about what he says (don't say everything you think) and learned to put himself in the other persons position....he could change the encounter. This was also around the time he was really starting to get relatively good on guitar so I told him that one day that would work out to his advantage as well...so just keep playing.

He managed to gradually change things for himself at school and by the time he was in middle school...his local rock star image started to take hold and he was done being picked on. By the end of middle school, he already had a rep as a better guitar player (with a better band) than anyone in the high school and his high school years were pretty bully free and (as I now know) pussy-full. Talk about a turn-around. That was impressive. He went from a bullied little boy to a high school student surrounded by kids wearing his bands t-shirts, etc.

 

I can really relate to the music part. A guitar really focused my # 1 sons life just when he needed it. I've told my kids "everyone likes a musician" and they've taken it to heart. I recently got my grand daughter a guitar/amp and I found out this morning---that she's actually learning it now! I'm thrilled about it.

 

I'm not really one for violence but sometimes all it takes it one ass whooping and that person will never bully another soul.

 

That's awesome and totally true! But to be fair...on the other hand...raising a kid like him did present some different challenges in high school.

I recently had the pleasure of a short discussion with a good friend of his from high school. I said something like "I'm just going to guess that he had a little different high school experience than most kids do." We was like "Uummm...yeah". The kid (and his band mates) already had label interests/offers, a promoting firm and booking people, etc by the time he was done with 10th grade.

See? You listen to old dad....

 

What it comes down to usually is that the bullies want to bully someone, and they go for whoever is the easiest target.

 

I had it from two sources...the black neighborhood and the white kids...the blacks were after me for few years, as someone who walked me home from shcool in grade school called them the n word.....not my parents...someone else, so i paid for that, until i was fed up and took on the lead beater upper with them and plummeted her myself...and then we all became friends....

The whites were actually harder.....they hated me for lots of reasons......i did not fit in. I was taller...always the teacher's pet...they hated that. always getting A's...they hated that.....etc.....they were all lilttle girls and boys and I was already grown up so I did not fit in too well....so that is why i switched high schools in the middle after so many years.

Scratcho, i hope this all gets resolved for your grand daughter's happiness....