Today a family in Illinois is grieving the loss of a 10-year-old daughter. The young girl took her own life in response to pain that no one listened to. Why?
She was bullied.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Ashlynn Conner, a fifth-grader, had been teased by other kids who called her "fat" and "ugly" and after a recent haircut, "a boy". Ashlynn was found by her 14-year-old sister just half an hour after family members had overheard Ashlynn talking about the bullying on the phone with a friend.
I can't understand this. My mind just can't wrap itself around the fact that, even though Ashlynn and her parents made school authorities aware of what was going on, those same authorities failed her. Have failed others. Will fail again. Bullying happened when I was a kid in the 70's, it happened before then, it's happening now.
And it won't stop until those adults charged with the responsibility of keeping our children safe, wherever they are, ditch the "kids are kids" excuse and start taking action. It's not just a scratch on the playground - kids are dying out there and it's up to the grownups to take a stand to protect them. Kids look to us adults as protectors and role models. When we fail them, they feel as though they have few options and certainly no recourse.
Take a stand. Listen to the kids, their parents, their families. And then do something.
Please.
Some I know is trying to deal with bullying/harassment with her daughter. A boy at school took her phone, renamed all the folders to sexually explicit things, and then sent out sexual texts from it. The school just gave him two days of in school suspension and that's it. No apologies, nothing. On top of that, now the girl is sorry for coming forward, because the boy is telling everyone that it's all her fault he got in trouble.
ReplyDeleteThe parents are pushing the issue with the school, but still, it's awful to see the lack of action on the school's part. The whole "Boys will be boys" attitude.
No, "Boys who are allowed to do that will be boys who grow into men that do that, and maybe even worse."
Ugh - school was torture for me.
ReplyDeleteI blame parents mostly - the parents of the bullies. I know I had to have relayed the story to you about the woman who was mad at the teacher because she was always calling her in because her daughter was a bully. Making fun of overweight kids and kids that didn't dress in expensive clothes. And the mother actually said she wasn't going to punish her daughter because her daughter was right - the girl was fat and they work hard to buy expensive clothes and there are a bunch of lowlife's in her class and it's ok for her daughter to say those things to other kids.
This was in 2nd grade......... Obviously this was a home-taught bully.