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Mother struggles to help daughter cope with bullying

As Sandra watched her 12-year-old daughter, once a bubbly, happy child who embraced life and all it had to offer

As Sandra watched her 12-year-old daughter, once a bubbly, happy child who embraced life and all it had to offer, turn into a silent shadow of her former self, her heart ached.

Sandra, with a mother’s intuition, knew all was not right in her daughter’s life. She just had no idea how wrong things really were.

“Her behavior changed. She used to be excited about school. She loved to learn and was always asking questions. Suddenly that stopped and she became withdrawn. She didn’t want to go out. She isolated herself.”

As parents, Sandra and her husband did everything they could think of to coax their daughter out her shell and restore her zest for living. But, in spite of their efforts, nothing changed.

One day Shelley flat out refused to go to school despite her mother’s repeated efforts at cajoling her into doing so.

Finally, with tears streaming down her face, between sobs, she told her mom she couldn’t go to school because it was like living out a nightmare day after day.

Shelley was being bulled. She was being a bullied by a boy who used to be her friend, but had, in a vicious attack of words, turned on her, reducing her childhood innocence and natural joy of life to rubble.

He called her sexually explicit names and told her he wished she were dead. He found countless opportunities to keep up the name-calling and encouraged his friends to do the same. Before long, life for Mandy became a living hell.

Despite her mother’s intuition that had told her something was not quite right in her daughter’s life, Sandra was shocked at how far the bullying had gone.

“How do you feel when your 13-year-old daughter tells you she’d rather die than go back to school. She said she would rather be punched every day rather than try and deal with the verbal abuse she was subjected to day after day.”

After hearing her daughter’s account of what was going on in her life, Sandra decided to take action immediately. She let Shelley stay home from school that day, and went directly to the principal’s office herself to tell him in no uncertain terms why she had allowed her daughter that privilege.

Surprisingly, she received no support from the principal or her child’s teacher.

“He (the principal) told me kids will be kids and not to take it too seriously.”

Mandy’s teacher took it upon herself to force the bully and his victim to become friends. They were told to sit together in classes and to buddy up for class projects.

The experiment proved to be even more devastating for Mandy as the bully took advantage of the situation to heap more verbal assault on her.

When Sandra saw her daughter’s downward spiral of withdrawal and depression continue, she demanded a meeting with herself and her husband and the boy’s parents and the school principal and Shelley’s teacher. Once again, she received no support.

“How do you know your daughter’s not lying,” the boy’s father told them. “Boys will be boys,” Shelley’s teacher said, with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Meanwhile, Sandra, who had put her daughter on her own private suicide watch by sleeping in the same room with her, took one last desperate measure.

She went to the school board.

She was told the matter would be dealt with, but not given any details as to how or when.

Far from accepting that vague answer as final, Sandra and her husband decided to take matters into their own hands. They had always taught their children compassion and to turn the other cheek rather than fight back, but this time they decided, perhaps, retaliation might be in order.

“My husband and I sat down with her and told her everyone has a little ‘freak’ inside of them. Sometimes you just have to let that ‘freak’ out.”

The next day, Shelley decided to let her ‘freak’ out.

The bullying, the taunting and the name-calling had begun again, the same way it did every day. Only this time, Shelley had had enough.

“She punched him so hard he fell out of his seat and lay on the floor crying,” recalled Sandra.

This time it was Shelley who was called down the office for starting a fight. When her parents arrived, Shelley was crying and the bully was holding a wet cloth to his bruised mouth.

Things seemed to quiet down after that.

“The bullying didn’t stop but the bully became more covert because he knew people were watching. It didn’t fix anything but it sent a message (to the bully) that not everybody’s scared of you.”

As word got out, Sandra and her husband were approached by others who mentioned the same boy had bullied their children. His reputation as a hometown hockey star began to waver.

The story does have a happy ending, not because the bullying stopped at that school, but because Sandra and her family moved away. And when Shelley began the year at a new school, a family liaison worker was there to help cushion the bumps and ease the pain of the past, restoring the girl’s confidence and self-esteem.

But the bullying had left its mark on the whole family.

“It was a terrible situation to be in,” said Sandra. “We felt so helpless, so alienated.”

Sandra, now a grandmother, advises any parent who suspects their child is being bullied to intervene as soon as they think there is a problem.

“It may not seem like a big deal to you but it is to them. Take it seriously and be actively involved.”

With cyber bullying now rearing its ugly head, Sandra fears for her grandchildren.

“Bullies are mental terrorists. They took my daughter’s hope,” she said. “They made her think life wasn’t worth living and suicide was the only way out.”

Students who are experiencing bullying need to talk to a trusted adult such as their teacher, their parents or the family/school liaison worker. Adults may contact Neighborhood Place at 403-843-4304 or Victim Services at the RCMP office at 403-2224.

The Bully Movie will be held April 25 at the Rimbey Community Centre at 6:30 p.m. Children under 16 years of age must be accompanied by an adult as the movie contains disturbing material.