Bullying: School, texting & cyber harassment is emotional assault
Feb 11, 2010
from Michelle Renee's entry on The Huffington Post:
Bullying has become increasingly common in schools throughout the United States and studies have found signs of an apparent connection between bullying, being bullied and suicide. When the bullying moves to the Internet, the trauma to the victim is astronomically escalated. It is full-blown emotional assault.
This issue hit home when my daughter was in 7th grade. Although she survived the intense school and cyber bullying she endured for several weeks at the hands of those that used to be her "friends", the wounds were deep and the signs were there. When she began wearing dark clothes all the time and her grades started slipping, her mood becoming dark and sad without any apparent reason - at least not due to anything at home - I knew something was up.
....It was then that I took more serious action.
- Removed her from the school and enrolled her in another without notice
- Printed all the threats out and approached her old school, police and parents of bullies with proof of their threats, horrible name calling, sexual comments, and plans to "trick her and bring her down"
- Stayed involved by talking about her feelings in an open environment with drives along the beach, picnics at parks - places where she eventually really opened up to me
- Wrote down, and repeated, appropriate, self-loving responses she needed to use when confronted with possible future bullying
- Began checking her accounts regularly (and still do) by having all access codes for all accounts
It took some time, therapy, alternative healing techniques such as yoga and meditation to help her reconstruct her self-identity into the stronger than ever, boundary setting, self-loving girl she has become. She finally understands that bullies are not the strong ones and that they are more likely to get into trouble with narcotics and law enforcement. I explained that they are hiding behind pretending to be tough and underneath all that bullying is a person with issues far greater than we know....
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