Everyday Nightmare

Bullied Kids Need Heroes

He has only come to one day of school so far, and we are almost at the end of the first month of the year. Phone calls to the boy's home are answered by a frazzled mother who says weakly that her son does not want to go to school and refuses to leave the house in the mornings. Paddy is an only child, he is overweight, does not enjoy sports, wears glasses and has only recently moved to the area. Attending a new school is a frightening prospect; but even worse is when it is a secondary school where you know absolutely no-one. Paddy has not got the desire nor the will-power to make his first week in school a part of history. Bullied in primary school, he can only imagine that secondary school will be ten times worse.

Today I learnt of another child, another boy. His mother is distraught. She has already kept him back a year. He simply refuses to go into first year: 'This morning, he came into the kitchen, hand on throat. Still in his pyjamas at ten to nine. 'I think I have a bit of a sore throat..' I just hadn't the heart to force him.' This boy was also bullied severely in primary school, being unfortunate enough not to fit in to any clique in the classroom or the year. His mum is not only upset however – she is angry. 'I'm sick and tired of teachers just not 'seeing it'', she fumes. 'My boy comes home, pale-faced, silent, never anything exciting to tell me about his day. 'We monitor the corridors continually' his teachers say. But he is bullied. It's the little things – he was picked for the school team last year, but every match, when he was out on the pitch, never once was that ball passed to him. And he never is asked to a friend's house at the weekend. He has no friends.' She stops, broken-hearted. It hurts so much when it is your own child and there seems to be nothing you can do to help.

These are only two example that I have heard of in recent days. It would be ridiculous to think that these are isolated instances, unique only to one part of the country, There are children all over Ireland struggling with every new morning, every new possibility of their worst nightmare coming true.

What can we do? The mother's criticism of teachers is unfortunately true in many cases. Wrapped up in our own lives, we often refuse to see the blunt reality staring at us on the corridors and in our classrooms. We know the lonely children, wandering aimlessly up and down the corridors at break-times, we do hear the veiled comments and the faint sniggers of laughter and most of the time, sadly to say, we refuse to recognize and refuse to act. Somewhere along the way the teaching profession has lost its heart and a vocation has become simply an occupation. Staffroom conventionalities have made the best of us afraid to speak out; pride often makes the most alert of us unable to reach out and change an hour, a day, a life.

And so parents need to rise up and force change. Firstly be attuned to your child's feelings and then refuse to send your child into a situation where they feel unloved, unwanted, rejected. Your duty is to make sure your child feels special and needed. Speak out about the bullying, let the world know that you will not accept the abuse of man by fellow man. Ignore the bemused glances, the whispered words, the blank responses. If necessary take your child out of school and educate him/her yourself. Complaints from parents do have an effect in the staffroom and on school management, especially if we know that the parent really does mean business.  As teachers, we badly need more parents and guardians to let us know what is happening to their child in school and how they feel about it. This is the only way that much-needed change will occur.

I heard the end of the story too. The broken-hearted mother spoke of her sister's son, now 29, living in Cork. He lives alone in a small room and has no friends. He was bullied in school just like her boy. He no longer lives, he just exists.

Every bullied child who experiences their worst nightmare coming true every day needs a special hero. Be your child's outspoken, vocal, active, determined...special hero.