When my youngest child came to me with an issue last week, I felt his pain. Kids had made fun of him and he didn’t like it. Last time a child of mine had an issue like this my ex husband invested in a punching bag and boxing gloves and taught that child to fight. Having grown up in a non-violent mainly female household this made me very uncomfortable, and incidentally didn’t solve things for that child. The problem is, for this child it is intermittent and the school might see it as “saying mean things” rather than bullying which is regarded as ongoing systematic mean things everyday.

To me saying a mean thing is reportable. I thought I should report it. Then I heard another parent talking about some mean things that had been said to their child. I thought that she would be validated and that the friends would support her instead they pointed out that the perpetrator can actually be very nice but they had some quirks! Some quirks! My friend’s child had been in tears. My friend retreated, saying to the group,” I guess it’s good for my child’s resilience.” I then thought better of reporting the situation.

Mean things should not be tolerated or smoothed over, if someone is upset we need to support them. You see meanness resonates badly for me, bullying resonates badly for me. Until I moved to a rural school in early primary school I had never experienced bullying.  Once I had been there for a week, It was relentless, it started with me not wearing a uniform, being smart (apparently a girl in particular was meant to say to a compliment if something was good, “You reckon, it’s not really”) and speaking with a posh voice (My Mum is from NZ, so some of my vowel sounds were/are different; I say dance where lots of the kids said “dence”) apparently this was enough to be targeted, my art work on the display would be the only one defaced, I would be kicked and prodded, one memorable day a boy in my class pushed me against the shelter shed wall and as he did it seemed he was looking into me to see what was the most hurtful thing he could say,”Robbo you’re so ugly” he snarled as he held my neck and pushed my head against the boards. I never reported it, dobbers weren’t accepted, but it has stayed with me my whole life.

Mean words stick, it is a deliberate choice and action by the perpetrator to do and say those things, if someone has been affected by this, it should be reported and I don’t care if the child has called it bullying and it is just mean words! Words hurt! I shall be following up my child’s hurt and hope there will be something of closure.