Bullying finally being taken seriously

I’m reading an article in the Times & Transcript this morning about how the school district is supposed to look into ways to curb the “bullying” that goes on in the schools and school playground. It may be 20 years too late, but at least this generation may get some help… Read on.

For anyone who doesn’t know, when I first moved to New Brunswick way back in 1985, I was very small for my age. In fact, the first day of school, grade 7, the teacher in the classroom insisted that I was in the wrong room and tried to direct me to the kindergarten class. This would start a long two years of constant teasing, bullying, picked on, and fights.

As a young kid, it was pretty damn hard. There were days in Grade 8 where I would come home balling my head off because I had been picked on so bad. I was thrown in garbage cans, hung on coat racks, pushed and shoved around, called names, and everything else you can imagine. I even had the crap beaten out of me (head smashed against the curb on the road) just because I was small.

It made life incredibly difficult for me as a kid and whenever my mom would talk to teachers or parents about it, it was always the same, “Oh kids will be kids. That’s just the way it is”. No one thought it was a big deal, but in fact it can, and is a big deal.

I may be a grown adult now, but to this very day, I still feel the sting from way back when. When someone makes fun of me or jokes about something about me, I can laugh it off and make fun of them in return, but there’s always this tiny little part of me that doesn’t deal well with excessive amounts of that because of how I was treated as a kid. My past has stuck with me and probably always will. Thankfully I’m old enough and mature enough to laugh and shrug things off but some of these kids can’t do that.

I was fortunate enough to have a good family and friends around me that always accepted me as me and never thought any different. Once high school hit and I “found” myself, it was never really a problem ever again.

I hear stories about kids who have killed themselves because of bullying and although I would never have gone that far, I feel their pain and I know why they feel like there’s no out. I really hope that these things we see on TV and in the news about reducing bullying and doing something about it are legit because it is a serious problem and not just some juvenile game that the older generations seem to think is ok. It’s not fun being afraid to walk to school because you know someone might beat you up because you’re a little different. It sucks when you constantly get harassed because maybe you’re smaller, or taller, or fatter than other kids. Here’s to hoping that the schools actually DO something about.

So there, I’ve had my say.