Of bullies and bullying

The other night, when I and my wife arrived home, we found Clare, our eldest daughter, already asleep. We learned from our second child that her Ate had not yet taken her dinner so wifey woke her up to eat. When Clare was roused from her sleep, I overheard her mother's high-pitched voice like she was scolding her. Clare was crying and telling my wife that she would not want to go to school the following day because she could no longer take some of her classmates overbearing attitude towards her. We were trying to get the details from her but to no avail. All she was saying was that she has been so good to her classmates  to the point of being an utu-uto to them but they still seemed to go up against her for reasons she could not fathom.

Clare has been sharing with us about her classmates' seemingly crab mentality.  They may be trying to pull her down because she does not join them in their mischievous activities. Since she is not one of them, they have been making her feel that she's an outcast. Of course, they are not that mean to her all throughout. Sometimes, they are very considerate to her, especially when they need her to help them in school assignments or activities. User-friendly you would say? You can say that again!

Of course, we always take side with our daughter because we know that she is a good child and a good classmate. But, we also try to be impartial and give her classmates the benefit of the doubt. We sometimes play the evil's advocate so we can see the other side of the story. Never would we tolerate any of our daughter's wrongdoings if ever they commit any. And Clare knows that very well.

While we dismissed the incident that Clare was telling us as an ordinary case of bullying, we felt we could not let it pass without doing anything about it because for all we know it might already be a serious case. Wifey told her that she would go to her school to inform her adviser about it but Clare vehemently resisted for fear that this might blow out of proportion. I told her that I would post a shout in facebook to warn her classmates and reiterated to her that I was not asking her permission but just informing her so she would not be surprised when she reads it.

Still, she was taken by surprise because the following afternoon she was called to the Office of the Prefect of Discipline and was asked to make an incident report. Apparently, the school official whom I emailed (this I did not tell Clare nor my wife beforehand) acted upon my request to resolve the issue immediately before I decide to file a formal complaint against Clare's classmates if they would not stop from bullying her.

The classmates concerned have also been called to the Office of the Prefect of Discipline. Of  course, Clare and her other classmates could only guess what took place there. I felt happy about it knowing that the school authorities do not take for granted the parents' concerns or complaints. But then, I was also saddened by the comment of Clare's adviser that the incident can only be regarded as bullying if somebody has been hurt physically. Ano raw? Must there always be the element of  physical injury before something mischievous can be considered as a form of bullying?

What is a bully anyway? The online Free Dictionary defines it as a person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people. Definitely, my daughter, lanky that she is, is not a small person because she is one of the tallest among her classmates. She may seem tough at the outside but she's weak on the inside. Her snobbish facade is just a defense mechanism and her classmates know it that's why they know they can always overpower her.

Another definition states that a bully is one who hurts, persecutes, or intimidates weaker people. While it mentions about the element of hurting one another, it is not the only criterion that makes one a bully. Just a mere show of intimidation qualifies one to be a bully.

Well, I understand my daughter's adviser because she doesn't have her own children yet. When the time comes that she will have a family of her own and bears children, I do not want her kids to be bullied by anybody because I am against it myself. I just hope that by that time, her own perception of bullying would have already been changed.  If it doesn't, so be it. As far as I'm concerned, I will never take anybody's bullying any of my kids sitting down. And this should serve as a stern warning to those who will try.