Beating Bullies...

Raise your glass.png

“When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sand paper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit, but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless.” –Chris Colfer

Today was one of those days that I think many parents, especially previous rebels themselves DREAD! - It was "parent teacher meeting" day and for those of us that were less than well-behaved at school ourselves, I think we are somewhat knee jerked back to those moments of reprimand lol... It was actually quite comical to have this discussion with other "now responsible parents" today haha... hell, I mean I did so horribly one year in primary school, and was so petrified to face my father the morning after he had attended the PTM that I left for my walk to school at 5.30am - long before he woke up! lol...

The PTM this term was a little different to others because Jude's school has adopted a project based learning approach to education to inspire and teach topics of relevance in today's society as well as to start equipping them with the tools they need in order to make something of themselves in this world, such as working toward long term goals, functioning well in teams, problem solving, researching content etc.So there were no reports issued - each parent and child met with each respective teacher to breakdown and discuss the term passed, the achievements, the misses and a plan for the way forward. - WHY was education not this forward thinking in my time lol... Text book education is dying a swift death and the sooner this is realised by ALL, the better off all our kids will be!

I have shared this with some of you, but Jude had a total emotional rollercoaster ride in 2018 (Grade 3) and sadly, I only found out what was going on on September that year. From grade 1 through to the beginning of grade 3, I was told that he was very popular among his peers - he was a happy little boy who participated in pretty much everything he could...soccer, cricket, science club, karate, coding etc. At the beginning of grade 3 things began to change.

A little boy that would often declare how much he loved his school started to shy away. Our morning trips to school became quieter as he sat staring out the passenger window. He dropped each and every one of his extra murals eventually, expressing that he had no interest in them anymore. I used to have to park and go drag him off the soccer astro at the end of the day but this too changed and every single day I arrived to collect him, I would find him sitting right next to the security at the entrance gate. This situation got worse as the months went on, his school marks were borderline fails and our morning trips to school had become tear filled.

I honestly could not take it anymore because no matter how many times I asked him - he said nothing! I was eventually called in because HE was in trouble for "name calling". This raised a very red flag for me because Jude is NOT an ugly child unless provoked. That Friday night I sat down with him and we started to chat. We chatted for a good two hours about all sorts of stuff and EVENTUALLY it came out that he was being bullied by the new boy, who had at the beginning been great friends with him and his best friend but for whatever reason the dynamic had changed - Jude's best friend since Gr1 suddenly wanted nothing to do with him and to add to it, they were now bullying him.

As a mother, I felt like the biggest fool for not seeing this sooner, but the reality is, as parents... we often don't and it is not because we don't care it is simply because there is so much going on that we don't always pay the necessary attention to very vital signs.

In Jude's case, I approached the principal and teacher straight away and the matter was tackled head on. The bullies and Jude "had it out" in front of the teachers and they openly admitted to doing what they had been accused of and apologised. It stopped after that and it has mended itself to a point where Jude now plays with them both again.... to be honest I think he plays with them because he misses his best friend and simply tolerates the bully, but either way - the dynamic has settled into something a lot healthier.

At the beginning of this year I was SO weary of what lay ahead and was also greatly concerned about the impact all of this had on his school work... but I am so happy to say that this year has been a complete 180 for him! At the end of the second term his teacher asked me how I felt about his marks and I said I was really pleased because they were a great improvement compared to where he had been the year prior. She seemed a little surprised, but then I later discovered that she was not aware of what Jude had gone through. I said then that I was happy to see such an improvement and that I believed it would continue to get better granted the social situation no longer hindered his emotional and mental state.

Today was a GREAT day for me as a mom! Meeting with his teachers to discover that he very nearly reached A's in all his subjects was such music to my ears!!!! I really could have cried with joy right there!

It is SO hard as parents when you see this absolutely perfect little person in front of you unraveling and you don't know WHY!!! It was the most heartbreaking year I have ever had and I hope that Jude NEVER has to go through anything like that again! He is such a beautiful little soul... no, let me rephrase that because he is not a little soul... he is a very, VERY LARGE soul! One which has so much love, passion, compassion, enthusiasm and vibrancy and he deserves to reach the heights he has the natural ability to!

Why am I writing and sharing this? - because I know I am not alone and I hope that parents will wake up to the reality that faces our kids in the 21st century! They face SO much more than we did and we need to be there for them. People "joke" about bullying, passing flippant remarks about how kids these days need to toughen up - the world is a very different place and this one very pivotal fact needs to be acknowledged, because it is the LACK of this one very attention which is turning the world into what we see on the news today...

I am ever sorry that my 8 year old son had his spirit broken to the point it was, but on the fipside of that coin - we have BOTH learnt from it, overcome it and have moved on to much more positive places... I wish the same for any others that travel that road.