I reverted back to my seven year old self again this past week and boy was it ever tough. I took to twitter to speak about the fact that my daughter was being bullied by another little girl in her school. Normally I’m not one to get overly emotional but this upset me to no end. Perhaps it’s the fact that my daughter and I share a remarkable relationship. I had her just days after I turned eighteen and for the first four years it was just the two of us, we’ve been through many tough times and she’s always been the reason for my existence. So now as she ventures through her elementary school years I try my very hardest to let her experience the things a normal child would. That is of course until she came into contact with this little girl.

Now the background of the story is simple, my daughter became friends with a little girl who’s now her bff ( little does she know that throughout her school years those three little words will probably come up about a hundred times.) The bully became upset because they spend a lot of time together both during school hours and at home because we the parents are also friends. Since then the little girl decided to take it upon herself to say where the girls can sit, what they can do etc.

Now my daughter’s not one to complain, she’s a tough, independent little girl ( and I’m so proud) so the minute she came home and said something I knew it had to be bothering her. We had a talk about how she can handle the situation and I wrote a note to her teacher briefing her on any concerns I had. Now the next morning is when things really got interesting. I dropped my daughter and her friend to the bus stop as I do every morning as they were about to board the bus the bully pushed them apart and proceeded to place herself in between them. I can’t remember the last time I have felt rage like that. It’s one thing to be bossy but quite another to put your hands on someone.

I had some people ( mostly males) say that I was over reacting by going to the principal etc. Most mothers agreed with me that action had to be taken to put a stop to it immediately. Here are my thoughts though: in a society where kids are committing suicide because they’re being bullied or taking up weapons and shooting up their classmates we as parents should have a zero tolerance for bullying. I was bullied in grade two and my parents left it in the hands of the teachers until one day I was sitting on the portable steps when the bully pushed me off the portable. The end result was a fractured rib although it could have been much worse and that was almost twenty years ago. Since then the severity of the issue has increased dramatically.

So I pose the question to you. How long do you wait before you get involved when it comes to kids and conflicts?

xoxo

Elle