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For many years we have been on this campaign to stop bullying in schools. I have been bullied and I have possibly been a bully …we all have seen it and we all have experienced it . In my day you were bullied and you cried and moved on with life. Life is not that simple now . In my teen years you may have gotten a letter sent around school talking about you . and then after school there may or may not be a few phone calls that were made. Pretty soon your entire school was made to know about your misfortune or whatever they were talking about at the moment. Pretty soon it was old news and your life wasn’t over anymore , you cried your last tear and life got better. Now news moves much much faster. NOW things are much different. First there is a text, then there is a picture and then there is a tweet , a status update that includes the picture and then screen shots of text messages . Not just your group of friends know what is going on anymore . It is not just your little school of 2500 students that knows what’s going on …its the entire world that knows . So now people aren’t just crying they are beginning to kill themselves because they cannot handle to pressure of the talk . And most parents talk about this with their children and we pray that our children are not the bully or the one being bullied . But what happens when you yourself are the bully .
If anyone knows me , you know that I had a horrible time in school . I was a tender soul. And because I didn’t take life so seriously most thought that I was being stuck up . In reality I was probably not even paying attention to what was even going on in the room. Needless to say I was bullied daily . I was threatened a lot for the clothes I wore to how my hair was combed and a lot of other things that I cannot control . It was a horrible existence . When I finally left high school I had no plans to keep in touch with anyone . I really left feeling like I had no real friends and it was a chapter for me to close. I didn’t want to kill myself. I didn’t wanna become anti social, I still talked and laughed with people but after about 6 years of consistent bullying I was emotionally drained. I took a year off of school and went to college at night . After that year I started it back over during my sophomore year of college. By that time I was emotionally ready to handle all of the things that came with being around girls all day . I learned how to handle life and face adversity all at the same time . It took a long time though 🙂
I never thought that when I was 35 years old walking down the hallway with my children that I would still see the same things happening with adults. And I am not sure that they realize that they are behaving as such . I honestly think that they take their roles as parents too seriously . I have worked with children for over 20 years and I can tell you that most of the time it is not the children. 100 % of the time if there is any problems its is because of parents. And I understand now that I am a parent but even before I was a parent and were working with children I understood why some parents were just so tough to work with and some were so easy going .
Last year I had an encounter at school. I was helping out with some children and when it was over we were waiting on the children to go home and to take some to aftercare. Two children in particular were being very unruly . I have children and I know how to ignore. One of the parents who was with me corrected the child and we all moved forward. There was nothing horrible said , there was nothing that she said that should not have been said . But something between that one moment and the time we got to the game that night something had happened. Something pretty big had happened. I was just standing there and all of a sudden I heard whispers and funny looks while walking through the crowd. I ignored them all , why because after high school nothing mattered to me .
I managed to almost get through the night before I finally realized or was told what was going on . I was baffled . I also was surprised when only a few people stepped up to acknowledge my character. Pretty soon they had pinpointed why they were mad . But for a few days there was just talk . And funny looks , cold shoulders . So much so that one of the parents had selected not to return her child to school because she was so hurt . It was understood. One person started a rumor. One person made everyone change their views on ONE PERSON.
We never corrected things . We just moved forward . In my mind I still felt some sort of way about the situation , I mean we were dealing with children 1st and 2nd grade…I digress. The funny thing about children is that if you were mean or disrespectful to children they won’t run and hug you when they see you . Without fail all of these babies greeted me with hugs and love. Not so much for their parents but I let that go .
As an adult learning to pick and choose battles, become more intentional about relationships. Grow our minds up from that middle school girl who wants everyone to hate one person and love you. Grow your mind from thinking everyone doesn’t have your best interest at heart. Stop being malicious and fill your heart with understand and compassion . See both sides of things and get over the small stuff… Basically
Tesha
