Bully Problems

I think that every mother wants their child to have friends and  be liked by their peers. I have never really worried about Drew in this area. He has always been very confident and friendly.
Well this year Drew started coming home from school complaining about a certain kid that wasn't being very nice to him at school. I kept encouraging Drew to try to be as friendly as possible and not to give this kid the angry reaction he was looking for. I told him that he needed to tell the teacher if this child ever hurt him. Well, Drew insisted that he had been telling the teacher and that she didn't do anything. I emailed the teacher and asked if she could sort of keep an eye on the situation and see what was going on there because I know that it is not uncommon for Drew to make up stories, but this seemed genuine. His teacher agreed that she would let me know if she noticed anything.
Well I never really heard much from her and assumed that things were okay, but I started to notice that Drew wasn't acting quite as happy when he came home from school, and that is so not like him. My sister mentioned that she had heard Drew complain about this child almost every time she picked him up from school.
Well, pretty much I sort of got emotional. What in the world is going on? Drew is the coolest kid and I couldn't see why anyone would want to be mean to him! I was going to get to the bottom of this! I was ready to wreak some havoc concerning this!! Drew is too cool of a kid to have someone bring him down like that!
School had just gotten out and I was on my way to give blood. I told Lamon, "I want to go and talk to his teacher right now."
So I went in and ran into the principal who was in the front office. I knew it was bad when I didn't get one word out  before the tears started coming. So much for wreaking havoc. Oh boy . . . I love my emotional self. I tearfully told him, "I've got a problem with a bully." He was really nice, and told me that there was a no bullying policy at the school and to go talk to the teacher first about it and then to come to him if it wasn't resolved. So I made it back to the teachers classroom and was a little nervous. I walked in and she was in the middle of conversing with another mother. I waited for a minute and then she stopped and asked me if she could help me.
Well  I knew I wasn't going to get it out without crying so I just let it all out. "Drew is having a really hard time with 'unnamed child'" I explained to her that he was coming home everyday telling me about mean things that this child had said or done. The other mother standing there said,"Should I go?" to which Drew's teacher nodded yes.
I went on to tell her about what Drew had been telling me, and about what I had been noticing. I was crying the whole time. Then I asked, "Is his mom even involved in his schooling at all? Does she know what is going on?"
 Drew's teacher then sort of laughed to herself and said, "Oh yes . . . .she is very involved!" Then she explained that the woman who she had been talking to when I came in was this boy's mother and that after listening to me crying about her son was probably out crying now herself. She was a single mother of four kids who's father had abandoned them. The boy had taken it really hard and was very angry. This boy who had been picking on Drew had been picking on a lot of kids. He had lost all of his recess privileges because he had been hurting kids on the playground and actually they had hired and adult to shadow him 24/7. I suddenly had a lot of compassion for this mother and for this mean little bully who was picking on my son. Drew's teacher promised to send daily emails to keep me informed and we had a really nice conversation. I told her that I was glad to understand their side of the story but that if it continued I would want to remove Drew from the class and it would have nothing to do with her . . . to which she completely understood and agreed with.
I came home and talked to Drew a little bit. Drew is such a sweet kid. Even though this kid was mean to him there were times when Drew would say, "I think I know why he's being mean. I think his Dad died . . ." or something like that. Drew really has a kind heart and hates to see people sad. So it helped Drew when I explained to him that this boy had had a hard life.  It is still absolutely not right for him to hurt Drew and I told him that he should stick up for himself and tell the teacher when something happens. But I also said that maybe Drew could be courageous and be kind to him. I talked about Jesus and how he was able to be kind to the people who were hurting him even as he was dying on the cross. I reminded him about how Jesus hung on the cross and asked Heavenly Father to forgive the very people who were killing Him. Perhaps Drew could follow Christ's example and be loving and forgiving too.
Well, the next day Drew seemed to be back to his happy self. I asked him, "How were things with "Unnamed"? He told me, "Mom! I think I figured it out! I just need to be nice!" He then told me about how he had told this boy how great he did at a project they were doing in class. I was really proud of Drew. Drew even brought home an apology written by the child.

Things have seemed to be a lot better. There are still some days that this boy does something mean or annoying, but Drew is doing a lot better handling it.
It is so hard to watch my child go through hard things. In some ways I wish I could shield my kids from hard things. And in some cases I should. There is no reason for bullying and I feel an obligation to protect my child. But I know that lessons can be learned in hard situations. I know that I can come closer to God as I try to receive answers to help my children. Hard things seem to be perfect opportunities to teach principles like forgiveness and love; and I can help my children come closer to God as we both rely on Him and His teachings to help us get through life. But boy is it hard! I don't want to mess up! I want my children to thrive and by happy. The teacher has promised to send daily emails keeping me informed. As a mother I do feel like I need to protect my child if there is an abusive situation. And I will if the bullying continues, but I hope that I don't have to take Drew out of the class. I hope that the child will have a change of heart and find a way to cope with his anger and not take it out on his peers. It has been almost a month since this happened, and there have been no other incidents. In fact Drew has even tried to play with this boy at recess a few times. I am so proud of Drew for the great kid that he is and I just love his guts.
I like to keep things positive on my blog. I don't like to focus on negative things. But I just felt like this was something important that has been happening in our family and maybe it could turn into something positive. We will see. I hope so. I hope for the best, and so far things are going pretty well. We keep "unnamed" child and his family in our prayers.