As I shared with you in a previous blog, I also know what it's like to be bullied.  I know how it feels to believe there is no light at the end of the tunnel.  That no one cares.  I know what it's like to feel the shame.  I know what it's like to be so embarrassed about it that you don't want to talk about it to anyone.  I know what it's like to feel that the only way out is to
commit suicide.

I also know what it's like to hide what's going on.  I know what it's like to pretend that everything is fine because you just want to feel better, even for a little while.  I know what it's like to feel that  no one can do anything about it.  I know what it's like to believe that if you did tell someone, your life will get worse.

How do you know if one of your kids is at this point?  If you already have a good relationship with your child, they may try to make sure they look fine to you on the surface because they don't want you to feel bad.  If they are a teenager, they also want to feel more grown up and that they can handle it themselves.  Chances are they already believe you can't do anything and that's why they haven't spoken to you about it.   If you have a close connection with your child, you most likely already know something is up, but you don't know what it is.

Having been there myself, here are some suggestions on what to do to get your child to open up to you:

•  Don't wait it out to see if it'll pass!  If it is serious, there is no time to lose.

•  Have a talk about bullying and share what you know you could do to stop it.  Maybe you have your own story that they may be open to hearing about.

•  Don't automatically assume the worst because it may not be something serious, but they are just too embarrassed to talk about it.  Also realize that if something isn't right, and they aren't talking to you about it, they feel like whatever is bothering them is a big deal.  Take it seriously!

•  Spend more time with your child.  Plan some fun time together immediately, and don't take no for an answer.  The more you can do this, the quicker your child may open up to you.  Phones are OFF LIMITS for both of you during these times!  Your child needs undivided attention and zero interruptions.

•  Be persistent but gentle.  Just because your child hasn't opened up about what is bothering them, doesn't mean they won't.  Keep at it!

•  Get help!  Enlist your friends, relatives and trusted professionals to help you.

Photo by Eddie~S


With all of the much needed attention to school bullying, there are a lot of people stepping forward to tell their stories.  So in the spirit of the movement, I will tell you mine.  I too was bullied, but not in the way that you probably assume.

Jr. High for me was tough, as it is for a lot of kids.  I was picked on a bit.  My supposed best friend would ignore me in the hallways as if she was too embarrassed to let anyone know she was friends with me, but would want to hang out with me on the weekends.  And even though I was picked on, it was nothing in comparison to what I had been experiencing at home.  By the time I was 13, I had experienced intense bullying not from my peers, but from people that were supposed to be family.

For me, it started when I was very little.  My older sister was my first tormentor.  She would rip all of the heads, arms and legs off of my dolls and throw them all over the yard.  You could argue that it's just normal sibling stuff but it didn't stop with my dolls.  At her worst, my sister would torment me to tears.  Her favorite thing to do to me was take a big handful of spit and wipe it all over my face.  She thought it was hilarious that it made me gag and would laugh relentlessly about it.

Unfortunately my being bullied didn't stop there.  Instead, it got exponentially worse.  Only a few short months after my dad was granted custody of us, when I was only 7, his new wife was my new tormentor.  It started with her belittling my own mother and making us believe my mother was mentally ill to the point where we were afraid to even mention her name.  Then she transferred her anger issues directly to each of us kids.  She would verbally rip us apart, call us names and eventually made us truly believe there was something wrong with us.  That we were unlovable.  She made us feel like we didn't deserve to be alive.  Every single day I would dread getting on the school bus to come home.  Every single night at the dinner table was a lecture session that usually ended up with her yelling at us.  I would dread Saturdays even more because all I had to look forward to was an entire day of abuse.

The abusiveness wasn't just verbal and mental, but often physical as well.  There were many days throughout elementary school and junior high where I couldn't brush my hair because my scalp burned so badly.   She would use my hair to pull me around the room so she could hit me.  And somehow she knew how to inflict just enough pain to usually never leave a mark on exposed skin.  But I will tell you, there were days that I had bruises on my upper arms and back that matched the outlines of her fingers.  Ironically, I was seeing the school counselor, along with my other peers who had just had parents that divorced, but the abuse was never discovered.  I was too afraid to talk about it and the counselor never even asked.

The last time she laid a hand on me was just before my father died.  I was 17 and I woke up to her fists pounding on me at 2 a.m.  She then threw me as hard as she could against the wall next to the bed.  My shoulder hasn't been the same since.  The next several years the outward abuse turned into sociopathic abuse.  It was so bad that my coworkers at the preschool she owned told me that I really needed to get away from her because of the lies that she was telling about me were so bad.  They were too embarrassed for me to even tell me what they were.

I finally got away from the abuse and have a life that is completely 180 degrees from that life of negativity, shame and pain.  I hope my story will make someone think about a situation close enough to intervene before it turns tragic.  In my case, I am happy to say there was no tragedy.  But I will tell you that the screaming and crying coming from my house as a kid was so loud you could hear it 3 to 4 houses down the road.  In my average, normal suburban neighborhood, not ONE of my neighbors ever called the police!

I tell you about this not to make anyone feel sorry for me.  I tell you this to point out that after surviving all of that, when I look at the school bullying situation, I can't help but think that these kids that are inflicting pain on others had to have learned it somewhere.  In my case, it just isn't in my personality to take any of what was done to me and inflict that on someone else.  What about these bullies though?  Even if they weren't bullied themselves at home in one way or another, where else are they picking up the nastiness from?  Are they picking it up from seeing their parents, friends or relatives bully others?  It is obvious that in each of the tragic cases that have been in the news lately, the behaviors of these kids have gone completely unchecked.  Where were these kids' parents?  I don't believe there is any excuse good enough for these cases to have escalated to the points they did.  The schools can only do so much.  It's the parents that need to be held accountable, along with their kids.

      I believe that the majority of people want the same thing.  They want to be able to live their lives with the freedom to be able to reach their full potential as human beings.  They want to be able to spend their time doing the things that are the most important to them, even if at times they don’t realize what that is.  When it comes to politics and religion, people often end up spending so much time and energy defending their position, and opposition, that they don’t realize that there is a lot of common ground between them.  They absolutely refuse to see any!

     There are fundamental differences between people and it’s a shame when people aren’t allowed to live their life without being judged or worse, ridiculed.  If you just take a political example, I have friends that have adamantly chosen sides to the point where their “side” can do no wrong.  They finger point as their political party dictates, often without even realizing they are doing it, and it ends up being hypocritical.  (And I am talking on BOTH sides here!)

     To me, politics and religion continually separate and divide people by making one person’s opinions – and I say that word very loosely – more important than anyone else’s.  Most of the time, the sharing of these opinions turns into an “I’m right and you are wrong fight” and feelings get hurt.  I think the reason for this is either that they are afraid that they HAVE been sold a political or religious load of you know what, or because they are so afraid that what they hold dear is going to be challenged that they go on the offensive.  And now I see a new trend of supposedly enlightened people who are clearly on one of the “sides,” claiming they aren’t but still attacking the other. 

     I believe that if you are truly happy, you aren’t going to waste your time with useless bickering.  And you certainly aren’t going to convert anyone who doesn’t want to be converted.  Why do people waste their time and energy?  If they would stop for a moment and find some common ground maybe we would have some political advancement and religious understanding.  So here’s to REAL hope…

      Am I the only one that is turned off by the phrase “teaching tolerance”?  Doesn’t that phrase suggest that you tolerate something you disagree with or think is wrong?  The word acceptance, when it’s used in the context of accepting differences between people, isn’t much better.  The word acceptance means that you can’t change it, as if you had a right to feel like you should in the first place.  It also means that you believe something should be different than how it is, so you have to just accept that it can’t be the way you want it. 

      Is there ever a case where we need to teach tolerance or acceptance?  Maybe… I lived in the South for over a decade and I can say that when it came to some of my religious neighbors, I had to learn to tolerate.  I personally don’t care what a person chooses to believe or not believe but when they openly judge you for not being on the spiritual path they are on, and in front of your kids, which really pushes a button with me, then that was definitely a case where I had to learn to appreciate their passion and try to teach my kids the same.

      I don’t think we should teach our kids to tolerate being treated badly.  Nor should we teach them to negatively judge someone’s life path or choices as things they have to accept, as if that person’s choices have anything to do with them.  Instead, I choose to educate my kids about the differences among people.  I teach them the simple lessons of love as opposed to hate.  I also teach them that even the people that do bad things need compassion because there is always a reason that someone does something bad and that they didn’t, or couldn’t, seek the help they needed when they should have.  In doing so, I hope that they can appreciate uniqueness in not only others but in themselves as well.