Bullying is a severe problem in schools and kids aren’t always equipped to handle the situation. They might reach out to their parents or teachers for help, but sometimes the adults also feel helpless and don’t know what to do.
In this case, a worried mom decided to take matters into her own hands and contact the mother of her daughter’s bully. Things took a turn for the worse until the poster’s mother found a clever way to ensure that the bullying never happened again.
More info: Quora
Woman tells bully’s mom her daughter has permission to be violent and that she is okay with her kid getting kicked out of school for her actions, bullying stops immediately
Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
Woman’s 9th-grade daughter was being bullied, so she called the bully’s mother to talk but the other woman started taunting her and refused to listen to anything she said
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
The poster stood up to her, saying she’d given her daughter permission to be violent with the bully and that she didn’t care even if the girl got suspended for it
Image credits: Samantha Bustillos
When the 9th grader came home the next day, she was very happy and said that the bully didn’t even look at her and avoided her completely
Bullying is an extremely difficult problem to deal with. It’s estimated that nearly 1 in 5 students between the ages of 12-18 have been bullied and 160,000 teens have skipped school because of it. The poster’s daughter mentioned that her bully kept making fun of her and that even her friends had started to join in on the harassment. She struggled with the situation every day for 3 months until she finally broke and asked her mother for help.
The negative impact of bullying is that it can make the child feel incredibly insecure. They may constantly be on guard and feel tense all the time. Research also states that “it has a big mental and emotional impact—you feel unaccepted, isolated, angry, and withdrawn. You're always wondering how you can do better and how you can escape a bully's notice. You're also stunted because of the constant tension and because maybe you forego making certain friendships or miss out on taking certain chances that could actually help your development.”
The woman’s daughter had told her about the bully early on, and the poster used to talk to her about ways she could handle the situation. She wanted her daughter to learn how to work out these things on her own. But when the girl finally shared how difficult things were getting, the mother decided to contact the bully’s mom. It’s important for parents to listen and reassure their kids that they are right to come to them. The mother took the situation into her own hands, but she found out that the bully’s mother was completely unsympathetic.
Bored Panda reached out to Nicholas Rose, a UKCP-accredited psychotherapist and the author of Better Together, to understand why some parents don’t take action against their kids who bully others. He said: “it is natural for us to have difficult feelings when someone complains about someone we love. Fear and anxiety about what is going on can often lead to a defensive response.”
“Additionally, a parent might be annoyed by another parent complaining to them directly and finally, there are always parents who will respond in a hostile way in such a situation because they believe that to be the correct response. When it comes to protecting our own children we are straight into the fight, flight, and fright response,” he added.
Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)
When the woman realized that the poster’s mother was not taking the situation seriously, she decided to stand up to her. She told the other mom that she had given her 9th-grade daughter permission to retaliate and that she was completely fine if the girl was kicked out of school for her actions. She ended the call by telling the woman that if anything happened to her daughter, the bully, then she was the “guilty one” for not handling the situation. Luckily this was enough to completely stop the bullying.
When asked whether the poster should have done anything differently in the situation, Nicholas shared: “I think the mom’s own feelings about her child being bullied led to her forgetting that schools have a legal duty of care around bullying. I would have recommended that the mom first of all raise the bullying with the school. I suggest that this also models to their child how to handle conflict in a society that takes the rights and welfare of citizens into account.”
“Even when feelings are running high, it is important to think about how responsibility is shared and what is in place to help with such situations. Conflict requires careful handling to prevent damaging escalation and that is why schools have staff who hold responsibility and are trained in how to handle bullying,” he added. Experts also say that sometimes, when kids fight back, it can escalate the bullying and can even lead to the child getting injured.
The mother was lucky that her intervention helped her daughter escape from the bully. But this isn’t always the case, and experts say that it’s important for parents not to take matters into their own hands. Netizens were proud of the poster, and some shared their own experiences with bullies. Do you think the mom was right to threaten the bully’s mother? What would you have done if you were in her place?
Commenters applauded the mother for standing up for her daughter and some people shared their own experiences with uninvolved parents who let their kids behave terribly
Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
