AJ is Always Juggling

My Squidoo lens Bullying at Primary School has been my top performing lens almost since it was first published. And this week I was thrilled to receive an email from a Student asking permission to use Sparky’s Poem in an AntiBullying Document she is producing for Teachers to use.

Although it is great to see how popular the lens is, I always feel so sad when I think about what our daughter went through for such a long time. Writing the lens was therapy and it helps us to know that our experience is helping others.

However, what upsets me the most is that in a lot of cases, the Bullies are using “learned behaviour”. Many children who bully are themselves bullied at home. So in a way, although Bullying at School makes disturbing reading, I believe my other lens Does Bullying Run in Families? is even more heartbreaking.

Home should be the safest environment for any child – but sadly in some cases it is not. We had evidence that the girl who was bullying our daughter was herself being bullied by her own mother. People had seen the way she spoke to the child and she had a reputation for being verbally agressive and difficult to deal with. Yet, no one would listen to me when I raised the issue at my daughter’s school. All I got was awkward silences.

Not only did the school fail my daughter but they failed the bully as well.