I have read this article and saw a feature on CNN about this kid. It is a story about the horrors of bullying. This kid has been a target for a few years with his bullies (yes, plural is intentional here) even putting up a MySpace page devoted to the "cause". This seems really extreme. <
What would I do if I were Billy Wolfe's mom (that will not land me in jail)?
Though there were suggestions all over blogsphere that the mom should just pull the kid out of school, which I admit would be my course of action, there is an implicit defeat in that move. What would she then be communicating to her son? What is the message she's sending to administration and teachers who don't seem to want to do anything?
What would you do?
In Billy's case, his mom filed a lawsuit against the creators of the MySpace page.
3 comments:
I read this article yesterday and I actually felt the rage that Billy's mom must have felt during her son's ordeal. Kids can be so mean and this is the kind of stuff that make kids go Colombine. At first, it sounded like the whole bullying thing started when he told on his classmate for the prank call. But then it continued and different people beat him up for no reason at all (or the same reason). And also, why were they prank calling him in the first place? He was going to be picked on regardless.
Then I began to worry about my own - will he be lucky enough to avoid this kind of treatment when he goes to school? Where do I want to send him to school so that this kind of thing happens less often...private versus public school? A school where he's the darkest kid in the class or the lightest kid? All joking aside, I don't know what I would do. My first impulse would be to go down to the school and wring each bully in the neck and then give the parents a swift kick in the butt for not intervening. But the Chinese in me would probably just move out of the district and avoid any conflict too.
there's never a easy choice when it comes to our kids. Private is no better than public.
Is it almost ridiculous that we almost want our kids to "blend" in so that they won't become targets? Blend instead of stand out.
Welcome to parenting where internal conflict seems to be the norm.
I started reading the same article but couldn't finish because I was at work. But I couldn't believe what I was reading - such organized bullying, endorsed by kids, parents, teachers and the school. If this happens to my kids, God forbid, I would build a legal case from the day the teacher or principal of the school give me any response other than stopping the bullying immediately. I guess that's the lawyer in me. I will also file complaints at every level of the school system, and start organizing parents with kids being bullied. I will also take my kids out of the school so they don't get anymore psychological damage, and be able to continue learning and growing like other kids. Meanwhile, they will learn that the fight doesn't have to end just because mommy took them out of the school. Justice means a lot to me and I will certainly never want my kids to feel powerless when they have been victimized. It's a lot of work but I think the process of fighting injustice (bullying in this case) builds character and gives them the confidence to face other obstacles for their rest of their life.
Post a Comment