My Eldest Son, Harry, who has just turned three experienced his first minor incident of bullying today. Because he is three and I am his mother, I did what any self-respecting mother would do and stepped in to stop the situation. When he is older, I won’t be there for him in the same way: a mother can’t fight her son’s battles forever. When he is older, if he is being bullied, I may not even know about it.
When I was twelve I was seriously bullied at school.
I haven’t told many people about it as it smacks of a sort of weakling thing to say, even to me as a victim of bullying. “I was bullied.” “There was something so wrong with me that other pupils at my school couldn’t be nice to me.” “I must have been less of a person that others felt able to pick on me.”
Since leaving that school (I was transferred before the end of the first academic year was up), I have not had a problem with being bullied. To this day, I still don’t know why I was a target. I suspect it was because I was a bit of a naive, shy girl who had come from a rather protective junior school to a progressive school where most other pupils were street-wise before their years.
I was subject to prolonged psychological torment.
I had a small group of good friends but even they couldn’t protect me from the majority of it. Because it was a boarding school, I could never really get away from it. No wonder I never wanted to go back after exeats and holidays. This was when music became everything to me. The music practice rooms would offer some sort of solace and listening to music offered a psychological escape.
But I don’t think I was the only one suffering. A writer for a Sunday broadsheet from time to time chronicles her torment at the same school. She has written how she was held down while some of the pupils cut off her long hair. If it hadn’t been so awful I would have almost rejoiced in our shared misery. One boy hanged himself, I think in a toilet stall, shortly after I left and a live-in teacher committed suicide in the year I was there, although I am absolutely not saying that either of their deaths were related specifically to their experiences at the school.
To my knowledge bullying is rife in many English schools, independent schools included. One of the reasons that ChildLine has been so inundated with calls over the years is that people just haven’t been aware of or acknowledging the problem of bullying.
I caught ‘flu in my second term at the school and had to go to the sanatorium. I left my Physics notes and pencil case outside the dining hall in my semi-delirious fever. When I went to retrieve them ten days later my pencil case was missing. At chapel, I saw a classmate with my pencilcase. When he gave it to me, it was missing my valuable ink pen. I could see he had it in his hand, but he denied that it was mine. I never got it back. I don’t know really why I am including this story as it is more an example of stealing rather than bullying, except that the situation kind of sums up the powerlessness I felt, how no-one was there for me and how badly I felt about myself as a result of the bullying. I brushed this and every other situation under the carpet. But as a victim of bullying I also brushed a part of me under the carpet each time as well.
I wonder how I will teach my children to avoid being bullied.
Isn’t it a sad indictement of today’s schooling and a sad legacy of my own school experiences that I feel the need to teach my children such a thing?
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1. We have to teach our children that it is never okay to abuse or be abused in any measure.
2. We must make them feel so good about themselves that they too believe they are not deserving of abuse, even if we don’t believe it
about ourselves.
3. We must teach them that they can stand up for the rights of others without putting themselves in harms way.
And we must do these things in a world that is intolerant of differences, where violence is woven into the fabric its society.
Piece of cake.
I read this with immense sadness that someone so young should have been subjected to what was clearly a dreadful experience. I hope that your love of music has gone some way to compensating for the bullying you encountered at school.
I’ve been reading for a while and would like to say that you write beautifully, clearly from the heart and it always makes me want to come back and read more. You have a gift that your bad times at school can’t take from you, or perhaps you have developed your voice as a result of your experiences. Either way, your blog is a joy to read.
I was bullied at school as well, Because I was quiet and shy. It went on for a few years but I got through it, I even got on well with my bully in later life (although unfortunately she was shot last year)
I think thats all we can do is make sure our children can talk to us and tell us anything. It is hard though because like your instinct was to protect your three year old I doubt it changes as they get any older.
P.S.
My son’s friend’s mother just called me and told me that the kids were teasing my son (who had ADHD) in music class yesterday because he couldn’t get the song correct. He was crying. The class got into trouble. He never told me about it. Now I have to gather my heart that is in pieces off the floor.
I am ashamed to say that I was a bully at school. I had no idea of the misery I probably caused until my own daughter was a victim when she was in primary school.
What’s the school? (so I can make sure I never send my children there)
I’m so sorry for the bullying you experienced as a child. I was very chubby and shy as a child, which resulted in me being the easy target all through grade school and middle school – high school I started sticking up for myself more and it stopped pretty quickly.
To think that my kids will have to endure any of what I went through makes me sick to my stomach. I wish I could protect them forever, but I guess the best thing we can do for them is to teach them how to stand up for themselves – because as you said, we can’t always be there.
I was more teased; I was called four eyes and freckle face. In high school the kid whose locker was next to mine would call me a really mean name (and I had the same locker for all four years).
What parents need to know today: bullying is happening through email and especially when children instant message each other.
I was a teacher for a decade. If I saw bullying or teasing, I stopped it. The problem is, most students will NOT tell teachers or their parents what is going on… Did YOU tell anyone that this was going on?
Sorry to hear you had such a bad time at school. You will probably find that your son is not bullied at all.
I was not bullied at school but a friend of mine was. She was so badly affected by it that she ran away. She never came back and we heard that she had to be educated at home in the end. I’m glad you didn’t have to stay at your school either. I know some people end up being bullied for years.