Getting mindful with Tara Norman
My Daughter Is Being Bullied
When your child is being bullied you feel like your insides are being pulled out. The heartbreak, helplessness and inability to comfort your child at the scene can be more unbearable for the parent than the child going through it.
These feelings are all too familiar for Maria, a 36-year-old Guatemalan woman. Maria came to the United States so that her nine-year-old daughter Carmen could receive treatment for the physical deformities she was born with - cleft-palate and ectrodactyly sometimes referred to as “lobster claw.”
A couple of days after Carmen started school, she went to the nurse complaining of a stomach ache. The school nurse called Maria, who works as a housekeeper three bus rides from where Carmen attends school, to pick her up. The next day, Carmen again visited the nurse with the same complaints and asked if she could speak with her mother on the phone.
Maria learned that her daughter was being bullied by a few of the girls in her class. She was being called, “ugly, deformed, disgusting,” and was physically pushed off the lunch table at school. Carmen told her mother she wanted to die and that she would kill herself if her mother made her go back to school.
What should a parent like Maria do?
Get it out there. Insist on a meeting with the principal and your child’s teacher. Listen to what they have to say but remember, you know your child best. Don’t let them minimize the situation.
Strategize. Give your child strategies to use in case the situation resurfaces. Role-playing and hypothetical scenarios give your child a script and empowers him/her.
Educate. Educate the class about people who are different. Ask the students if they have anybody in their family with a disability.
Connect.Befriend one of the bully’s mothers and make plans for the four of you to get together (discuss the idea with your child first).
Resources
Websites:
www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/index.asp
www.kzoo.edu/psych/stop_bullying/resources/
Curriculum:
www.bullyfrog.com/school_curriculum
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