A lot of you have been asking how Raquel's bullying got started.
We switched school districts in 2010. As I will discuss in the first chapter of the book, I felt, as a mother it needed to be done.
Raquel started 7th grade at a new middle school. The middle school held 6th - 8th. The district we were previously in, middleschool was 7th and 8th.
Raquel is a quiet, loyal, caring, and a great person. she has always been that way. Its hard for her to make friends. She has had a lot of medical issues from 2009-2010 that she was still dealing with. She was missing a lot of school.
When she missed school, this girl (who we will call Diana) told everyone that the reason she was missing school was because she was sleeping around. (Clearly not the reason)
Because of this, boys would come up to her in the hallway and put their arms around her and say things like "my parents are not going to be home tonight" etc.
This was only the beginning
Did her quiet caring nature make her a target?
I will go more into details as I write the book. I think Raquel will be posting regarding it too.
Please, share this blog with your friends and family, lets get the word out and try and help one person to stop being bullied.
any questions, or comments can also be directed to: connieandraquel@gmail.com
:)
In what way if any is your school district helping to resolve this issue? Also, what type of parents are you dealing with? Children are a product of their environment as we all know. Also is your blog in any way protected from the "bullies" at school?
ReplyDeleteThe school district that we dealt with did nothing to protect my daughter. I complained each time my daughter mentioned something. It started with cyberbullying. I complained three seperate times. We were always told they were taking care of it. The bully we found out from the police dept, went UNPUNISHED. The parents when brought in for questioning, said they knew nothing of the incident. They could either be lying, or really didnt know. When the detective talked with the school, they said they no longer had my daughters file, sicne I pulled her out and homeschooled her the rest of 7th grade, they destroyed the file. They remember my complaints, but that is it. She is no longer at the school in question. So I do not think that they will see it.
ReplyDeleteI truly believe that bullying wont ever stop. I also believe that until parents are held responsible for their childrens action in school, you will have a hard time controlling bullying. If my child was a "bully" and it cost me time and money, by loosing work and court cost I would be more likely to keep an eye on the situation. Being a mother I've noticed a trend with the bullying. The bullies are products of bullies. A child does not wake up one day and decide they are going to be a bully. It's the parent that ignites something in the child, sparking the "bully". No parent wants their child to be bullied, so make your child the bully right? WRONG! Also, the title of bullying as been stretched to far. Kids will be kids and they will fight and argue. Girls will always be mean, we know this. Three girls will always be a crowd, we know this. It has always been like this and it's never going to change. For years people have been "keeping up with the Jones" and it's the same with kids. Some things will just always be. In a perfect world we would all get along, but we know that's not reality. Our childhood experiences shape us into the adults that we are today. Bullying doesn't stop once you become an adult, we just learn how to handle it. Children need to learn how to handle situations such as mean comments, he said she said and I'm not your friend anymore type situations. If we shelter our children for every little hurtful comment or actions they will be lost in the real world. It's so important that these children learn to handle life instead of backing away and hiding. I am in no way saying that it's right to bully or everyone needs to be bullied. What I'm saying is that we live an learn. When we grow up we remember what it felt like to have our feelings hurt, or how we felt when did this or that, we need that. It reminds us as adults how to treat other and how to raise our children. No child ever needs to feel unloved, mistreated or abused. Social media has become a very easy way to bully and be bullied. An easy solutions to that is NO FACEBOOK! Until you can learn to handle a bully situation you don't need to add outlets for them. If you choose to let a bullied child have a facebook account, it needs to be monitered heavily. When we were children the bullying stopped when we went home for the day. Not anymore, as soon as you log into facebook it starts! Text messages are also another way for bullies to do what they do. Eliminate these kinds of things and you will cut down on the non sense.I didn't say you would eliminate it, but you will give your child a break from what he or she may be dealing with in school. My daughter has a facebook account with 78 friends from school, none of which are allowed to comment on her page. Why? Because I said so! I'm sure she hears mean things at school just like every other kid, but I can prevent it at home and I will! Kids are not as smart as they think they are and we should always be 10 steps ahead of them. Just remember what it was like when you were her age and it should help the both of you to learn and deal with things today, that's what I do :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for your imput. There is so much more to the story, tooo much to try and explain the whole situation on a blog. Yes, Raquel's bullying started on FB, moved to real life and spiraled out of control. It is a main reason why we decided to write a book about it. This blog, is a way for people to become aware of the long term effects of bullying. Our story is going to be told in dual perspective. I (mom) will write a chapter, then Raquel will write, so people can see both of our points of view. Thanks for your imput! I hope you continue to follow the blog and read the story when its finished!
ReplyDeleteI'm very anxious to read more, good luck!
ReplyDelete