Bullied: Have you been there?

As a parent of a homeschooled child, bullying has managed to stay at the edge of my personal experience. Knowing that next year my daughter will be entering high school I knew this book was an important one to read. The author of this book had a young girl who experienced some bullying and thus began Mrs. Goldmans quest into this subject.

We have a massive problem in our society today with the internet offering anonymity so it’s easy for people to say things that they wouldn’t have the nerve to face to face.  In addition to the cloak of invisibility that the internet provides, it also creates a permanent place for these taunts. It creates a situation that there is often no reprieve from.

As I read through this book, I was reminded of my own bullying experience. It was a time of my life that hadn’t crossed my mind in a few decades but reading Carrie Goldman’s words brought it back. When I thought about that time, I could feel the emotion that was still being stored because of those events. I took the time to process this with some EFT and was easily able to reduce the charge.

My Story

Here’s a quick snippet of my own personal story. I moved to a new city and new school in the middle of third grade. I was a chubby kid and as many of you will remember from your own childhoods, weight certainly makes for an easy target.  I was taunted and teased and often followed home from school by what felt like the entire class of kids. As a latch key kid, that was a scary scenario.

My mom did what she thought was best and ended up marching me over to the ring leader’s houses to talk to their parents.  In her mind these parents would be reasonable, intelligent people who wouldn’t want their kids to be bullying others. I’m sure you can imagine that did not make the situation any better.  In fact things only got worse for the remainder of that year.

I was lucky

I can’t recall what happened that summer that shifted things. Maybe I lost weight, maybe we had some other new kids, or maybe the ring leader moved away.  All I know is that the following year I was no longer being bullied.

I know I was one of the lucky kids. It was a short period of time and my parents tried to help me.  It was a time when there was no bullying regulations or support of any kind and kids were still getting the strap at school.  Times have changed.

Back to the Book

Reading through this book by Carrie Goldman I am struck by so many of the points she makes. One of the pieces that really surprised me were the mental health stats regarding not only those who were bullied but also those who did the bullying.  The damage from this sort of experience runs deep for all those involved – not just the victim.  Stats have shown that a repeat bully by age 8 has a 1 in 4 chance of having a criminal record by age 26. We need to get to these kids early before these patterns become entrenched within them.

Working America

35% of working Americans have reported that they have experienced being bullied at work (stats from 2010).  This is not just a problem that we find in the school yard. Each one of us deserves to live a bully free life.

Grab Your copy of the Book Here

Mental Health

An analysis of school shootings over the past 30 years has shown that the attackers had a history of suicidal thoughts, or suicide attempts and 61% had a history of serious depression. In addition, over 2/3 of the attackers were victimized prior to the school shootings.  We need to get in front of this issue as a society and not continue to allow this matter to spiral out of control.

Real Friends

The last piece I wanted to leave you with in regards to this book are a few words surrounding friends.  This struck me intensely as I read these words. This is from a kids book entitled Confessions of a Former Bully:

Good Friends appreciate and like you for who you are – Bad friends put you down to build themselves up

Good friends accept that you get to choose your own friends  – Bad friends tell you who you can be friends with

Good friends make you feel welcome in their group or activity – Bad friends won’t let you join their group or activity

Good Friends have good things to say about you to their friends – Bad friends gossip, spread rumours, send hurtful emails or text messages about you

Good friends use humor in a harmless way – Bad friends hide behind the words just kidding or no offense

Good friends make you accepted and safe – Bad friends make you feel unaccepted and unsafe

I think this really sums things up for me.  I know there have been many times when I haven’t followed the good friends rules as much as I would like to but I love that life always gives me opportunities to be better each and every day.