I don't know where to begin, this isn't easy. One of my fav reads is a blog written by velvetsacks. She wrote a blog the other day about a program called challenge day. In my life I am all too familiar with programs designed to help our youth deal with bullying. Velvet's blog resurrected feelings and memories for me, ones I really choose not to revisit. As I look back , it started for my daughters in 4th grade, it was subtle.....but the bullying, relational aggression, whatever you want to call it was beginning to rear it's ugly head. It began to manifest itself into their lack of sleeping, appetite, confidence, in a nut shell, they began to feel worthless. I, as a mom, felt as if I was struggling to save my daughters from a rare, incurable, and fatal disease. Two of those previous descriptions, rare and incurable are far from the truth, fatal it CAN be. We struggled for the next two years, 6th grade came along, and I actually felt as if my daughters spirits had been broken. One week during 6th grade, it was becoming extremely intense in our home, and I literally felt myself choking on my heart. I decided to leave work at lunch to drop in on my daughters school. I arrived about 5 minutes into their lunch. When I entered the cafeteria through the side door, the only part of my body that saw, felt, and listened was my heart, the heart of a mother, the heart of a human being that has felt this in her life as a child, and at times as an adult. As I panned the room I noticed NO ONE was aware of what was happening, but me, the givers and the receivers. My girls happened to be the receivers that day, again. Now let me tell you, they don't have the "thick skin" that I have, and they may never have. Their sensitivity is a gift, and they shouldn't HAVE to change, it's who they are. That day, the looks I saw darting back and forth across that cafeteria were enough to frighten me, even I felt intimidated. Girls are silent daunters. My girls were sitting alone, right where those "other" girls wanted them. As I looked at my daughters faces, I could see it took every shred of power within them to keep from crying, until they spotted me. I backed off until after lunch, because I think I wanted to kill someone. I went to the principles office and told him I was taking the girls out of school for the rest of the day, and that we had plans.

When my daughters and I moved to this community, I was going through a divorce, we all were going through our own difficult times. But without a doubt, I knew we were the bastards of the community. The school I chose to send them to was a small Christian school. The background of their fellow students went back 3 to 4 generations. We were for the most part happy with our move, and we did love the school. After 6th grade, I for the most part had gotten fed up with the atmosphere there. The cruelty had been fostered by some of the teachers if you can believe it. When they reached 7th grade I went to a parent teacher conference and begged the teacher to do something about these issues, I had already spent 3 years online researching bullying, and you couldn't tell me it wasn't real. I purchased the teacher books on the subject, brought her information on where to look for help, contacted a Judge in a neighboring town who writes material on the subject. I had given this teacher an arsenal, and all she could say to me was,"Sandy, I DON'T have time for this". I felt like someone knocked the wind out of me. I told her that she was loosing productive time in class with all of this bullying going on, I mean what child can concentrate in class thinking "who is whispering about me, who is making fun of me, and why didn't I get an invitation to that party?" The Judge I obtained the material from, KNEW how important it was that these issues be addressed, because many of the youth he encountered in court had been the victims of such cruelty, they just chose to handle it with drugs, knifes, guns. I did continue to pursue the issue with the principle, pastor, anyone who would listen, and finally they implemented a program, but it wasn't strong enough, they didn't make it known that they are zero tolerance. And it was hard for them to admit they had a problem.

When 8th grade rolled around, we chose to home school. The teacher that told me she didn't have time for this, sat down on her porch and cried when I told her the girls wouldn't be returning, she also told me she didn't want to deal with it, because it brought back too many painful memories for her. She figured she survived, so will her students. This torture that happens in schools stays with us for a life time, some of us are able to put it on it's proper shelf in our minds, for others it never goes away, and causes us to bully others the rest of our lives. We all carry pain of some sort in our lives, most of us handle it fairly well, but for children and teenagers who can't handle it, they use drugs, kill fellow students, or commit suicide. EVERY student deserves to be respected for who they are, they deserve to attend school without fear, they deserve to feel accepted and loved. Diversity training is a place to start.


High school is now here, and talk about preconceived notions...my girls think all of the pretty girls have perfect lives, and have suffered no pain. WRONG!! I told my daughters, you all share the trauma of pain, no one is exempt from life, so don't think for a moment you don't have anything in common with the wealthy, or pretty, or popular girls, and also those on the opposite end of the economic scale, because you do, we have all been hurt. While driving one of my daughters home from a football game a month ago, her friend happened to hitch a ride with us, she, as my daughter put it, is one of the most popular girls in 9th grade, cute as can be, her parents have a showcase home, and drive beautiful new vehicles. I was listening to them talk about scary movies and the girl said to my daughter, "I get scared really easy, I can't watch those movies". My daughter asked why, and the girl told her it's because she had been raped as a child, in the dark, by a man her family trusted. My daughter told her she was so sorry. I asked the girl if he is still in prison, she said no, so I then asked his name (so I could check this out for myself), I went on Michigans sex offender web site, and sure enough I saw his face and what he did time for, he now lives in a lovely home in my neighboring community. My daughter learned first hand a valuable lesson that evening, don't judge people. She kept saying to me after we dropped that girl off, "mom, I would have never guessed that could have happened to her" I could actually see my daughters mind and heart grow as she thought about what she just heard. I reminded her why we all deserve acceptance and love, no matter where we come from. This Challenge Day workshop is a program I will look into further, I wish it would be a part of the curriculum. I don't think the day is far off where that will happen, because we won't have a choice, I don't see that we have one right now.