Parents: Would you change your work schedule (if you could) to save your kid from the school bully?

When I was a kid (about 7 years old), my mother used to drop me off at my school at about 7:30am every weekday. The school bully arrived by limo at around the same time or earlier. The staff, janitor, and teachers (and most of the other kids) arrived at around 8:00 AM. That allowed the bully to pick on me for a while first thing every school morning.

If you've read my Featured story here, , you know that my abusive crazy mother was not very protective of me. So when I begged her to let me go to school a half hour later she answered, "NOOO!!! I will NOT allow you to make me late for work!!!". Maybe I should mention that my mother was the director of a large cooperative nursery school. In other words, SHE was the boss! She could've decided to arrive a few minutes later if she'd wanted to. I guess I could also mention that she was an acclaimed child development person that gave parenting seminars in which she urged gentle non-violent parenting to her hundreds of enthusiastic followers who mostly worshipped her.

So...would you change your schedule to help your kid avoid the school bully? Or do you think it's better to encourage your kid to keep fighting that bully?

SW-User

Having been through a similar situation when i was a kid i would definitely do my best to prevent it as a parent. Forcing a child to deal with a person who is physically bigger and stronger that they can't possibly stand up to doesn't make them a better person. Bullies are never the same size and weight or else they wouldn't be bullies, they'd just be adversaries who'd get as good as they gave out.

What bullying teaches kids is that the use of overwhelming force and/or intimidation is acceptable over the use of communication, understanding and compromise. How many people have been in abusive relationships where they've felt being bullied was an acceptable way to be treated? Where do relationship bullies learn these skills? As a society we shouldn't be enabling them, we need to send schoolyard bullies a message that this kind of behaviour is socially unacceptable and won't be tolerated. They need to learn this before they take it into to relationships and work places. Modern work places don't accept it. They have anti-bullying legislation, OH&S laws and then anyone being harassed can sue the bully or the work place if they haven't attempted to deal with it. If it's not acceptable for adults then it's not acceptable for anyone.

justberniegirl · F

I agree that it is not good to shelter kids, because sooner or later they are going to have to deal with bullies. But at the same time, I don't agree with engaging a bully at their level, it says their behaviour is acceptable. It sounds like your mother knew how to deal with people, but didn't teach you, I am outraged on your behave! I would have waited for that kid to come to school and approached him/her and say, "I don't know what your problem is, but hurting my kid isn't going to fix this. You better stop now or you are not going to like the consequences!" But what do I know? My educational background is in computers and Journalism.

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

If you read my Featured story here under my Profile you will see that my mother was one of my bullies.