Bully be gone!

Did you know that one little taste of a Easter Lily will kill a cat. That something so beautiful can be so deadly is pretty amazing.

I've been watching the news and peoples comments on my facebook home page and the hot topic of the week is bullying. To each parent (or at least good parent) our child is just as beautiful and wonderful as this lily. Most likely more. We have great hopes and dreams for them and we want the world to love them and accept them as we do. So when our children enter school and bullies show up we are very unprepared. How could any child not like my wonderful child? How could any child be so absolutely mean? My son has suffered from bullying since he was in first grade. I don't think it was until 4th grade that my eyes were really opened to how mean children were being to him. Imagine having your child tell you in first grade that they are going to get off the bus and walk home instead of going into the school. Then having to actually hold them at the bus stop and push them on the bus each morning because they really don't want to go to school. I'm not sure that these incidents were caused by bullying but I now wonder. When my son came home from school he would tell me nothing about school. But I did know that no one played with him at recess. It should have been a fist clue.

Fourth grade was the worst year, but it was also the year we as a family took a stand. We went to the school and worked with the counselor. We told our son if some one is mean you have the right to defend yourself. I remember losing a lot of weight and hating even sending my son to school. But he survived and I believe he is stronger for it. He now has friends, he loves going to school, and I believe he has his own way to coping when someone picks on him. He has ended up in the principals office for standing up for himself, but that is what teaches the other kids to leave him alone.

I wish I could protect my children, and I wish all children had parents that would teach them to be kind so that we did not have to deal with bullying. My heart goes out to anyone who is dealing with these issues. They are not easy to deal with, and there are no easy answers.