In Richmond, CA, the father of a 9-year old autistic student assaulted an 11 year old student who had been bullying the 9-year old. The two students rode the bus together. After having enough of the bullying, ‘Dad’ boarded the school bus, snatched the kid up by the hair, tossed him around and threatened to do the same to other students watching if they bullied his child. This was an extreme reaction to most, but I’m sure others can relate to the feelings of anger.
Imagine your child comes home stating they are the victim of a bully. Witness the scared and defeated look on their face. Because they do not like confrontation, they try avoiding/ignoring but the name calling persists. Kids are cruelly creative with insults so you get the idea. Then the verbal abuse becomes physical. And if there’s an audience, the bully now has to keep pushing for show. Things just get worse for the victim at this point, and this is what we want to avoid.
Even without the addition of being physically abused, the verbal and emotional damage of being bullied is just as harmful. As parents, we are vulnerable to feelings of not being able to watch and protect our children every second of the day. So I can empathize with the father’s feelings of hurt, anger and rage. In the back of my mind I have considered the ‘discipline’ of a child not my own. But knowing the legal repercussions of my actions, I dismissed the thought. This is just proof that we all have our limits and this was it for this father.
My own child was bullied and verbally sexually harassed because she rejected the advances of a young man who thought it was appropriate to spread a malicious rumor about her that resulted in total strangers at school screaming vulgarities at her daily. She ‘took it’ for 6 months before telling an adult from fear of being bullied even more. But the breakdown that followed was an emotional overflow of frustration where she admitted that she was angry enough to commit acts of violence if it continued. I was fortunate enough to get involved before that happened. But I had to take a moment and curtail my own anger until I was calm or maybe I would be the story everyone is reading about ‘Mom of bullied student goes ballistic’.
How would you react as the parent of the victim or as the parent of the bully? We are living in a generation where ‘Stick and Stones still break bones and Names can push us Over the Edge’.
Priscilla Alford