Day 2

I went in this morning to talk with the Assistant Principle, who I don't think quite understands the nature of bullies as his solution was to have my Son tell the teacher immediately when the kid says something. I tried to point out in an email last night to him that if he did that the other children, who right now are letting him alone, may start targeting him as a snitch. He also had sort of an attitude about me sending him an email on it. Making statements like, "Unfortunately, I find out about the problems from you--a day or so after the fact." and " does not communicate to me that he is having a problem. Is he telling the teacher(s) in charge?" .

The tone of his email started to seem like accusations that my Son was not doing his job. His job, meaning the Assistant Principal. The funniest part is all of my emails have been kind and calm. I let them know I fully appreciate all they have done so far and how well they have tried to keep this other child from harming mine and then I simply fill them in on what had happened that day. His emails are so defensive, I guess he is just too used to being yelled at by parents to see when one isn't accusing him. However, I never let my children get away with making accusations to try to take the focus off of themselves if there was ever a problem yet here I am being forced to deal with someone who never learned that lesson... or so I thought.

This morning I walked into the school with my son and didn't even make it in the doorway when I was greeted by the Principal. She was standing there for a while waiting for me and my son to enter. The assistant Principal had forwarded the emails and she has taken over. She pulled us aside and adamantly told my son that she did not want him immediately tattling because she agreed with me that it would bring more trouble. She had alerted his teachers of the new protocol she is putting in place so they are aware and if an issue arises, such as he is given a message from that boy that he is going to beat my son up he is to stay in his seat when the bell rings and wait for all the students to leave. Then he is to go up and tell the teacher what happened. If he feels threatened at all when it is time to leave the school he is to go into the office,not out to the bus ring, and she will have an assistant walk him to my car. She let him know the importance of reporting the issues so that they had a paper trail on exactly what this child is doing or they are powerless.

It turns out she had to watch her brother get beat down by a bunch of bullies simply because he was smart. It's good to see some people will stand up and say NO MORE!

Origins of Bullies

Writing this based on events taking place right now with my son. He is smaller than almost everyone in his class but usually has a good sense of humor even when faced with hatred. He laughs most things off and lets the rest roll off his back.

The other week he was forced to defend himself when attacked by another student because he decided that after two weeks of giving up his seat to this kid he was not going to do it anymore. He told the kid no and the kid yanked the seat from under him and he shoved my son. My son, completely unaware he was now in a fight, was attempting to push the kid away so he wouldn't get hit by him. The kid thought my son shoved him so he shoved him again, this time to the ground. On the way down my son hit his face on the chair and came back up with his arms in the defensive position he learned in tae kwan do but was also shouting a**hole out of pain.

The students and the teacher thought my son was fighting back, to which I advised him not to set them straight, let them think he was hoping this would stop the kid from going after him. That isn't how these children act though. This kid has now taken it upon himself to harass my son. I advised him to ignore the kid but it is now interfering with his studies as most of his school day is spent trying to avoid the kid or getting death stares from him in the one class they do share. He is trying to get my son to meet him after school, so now my son is afraid to even leave school.

I have a meeting with the assistant principle tomorrow, already though the emails are not very fruitful. He is already acting like my son was in the wrong for not telling a teacher right away. Like my son said, he has a few friends right now but if he starts acting like a snitch and telling the teacher immediately he will lose those friends too. Not to mention the fact that kids like that tend to be very observant. They watch to see when no teacher is looking and make their move. This kid wanted to meet my son in the bus circle after school, hoping to fight in the middle of the kids. This shows a few things about this boy's character and his intentions. 1. He wants the beating to be public, inflict as much embarrassment as possible. 2. He does not care if he is caught, he knows he will be but is hoping the bus circle affords him enough time to hurt my son before the teachers intervene. 3. He does not care about consequences. He does not care what happens to him, his only focus is to hurt my son.

All three of these things make him severely dangerous. Where are his parents? Do they know what is going on? Do they care? As much strength as it takes my son to listen to me and constantly ignore his taunts I have to think it takes just as much strength for this kid to continue harassing him... who is telling him to do so? Is someone in his life saying things like " Don't let this kid make you look like a fool" or "Teach this kid who is the toughest M***** F***** in the school!" Are they his peers? Siblings? or worse yet... Parents?

I have heard so many theories of the Origins of a bully, everything from "they are hurting on the inside, we need to find how to reach them and change them" to "bad parenting" to "gang influence" .... Yet everyone skirts the issue that sometimes it is deeper. Psychopaths and sociopaths don't just wake up one morning and decide to be that way. Maybe we should be paying more attention to their actions while they are children and instead of saying "boys will be boys" actually taking the damned time to look at the behavior and make sure they are not tell tale signs of future issues before they lash out and hurt someone else and all we have left to do is look back on their childhood and say "I can't believe someone didn't stop that kid, he was always bullying and causing fights, someone should have done something before someone got hurt!"

We are that someone! TIME TO DO SOMETHING!!!!