The Fallout

Bullying.  One of the public schools dirty little secrets.  They’ll tell you to your face they're against it.  ”We have a zero tolerance policy.”   They’ll plaster poster boards and banners all over the walls of the school hall ways.  But when it comes to your child being in the cross-hairs…..well, personally, there’s not enough they can do short of snubbing out the little snot faced perpetrator.   A few weeks ago my husband came to me after brushing the girls teeth for bed, he said dd told him that two girls came into my dd bathroom stall and wouldn’t let her leave.  We’re talking about 5 year olds here!  When I asked her about it later she told me it really happened and when I asked how they got into her stall, she told me they had crawled under the door.  That’s when it hit home for me, I knew that instant she wasn’t lying or just telling me a sensational story.  I reminded her that telling something this serious was like calling 911, once we ring the bell, there’s no point of return.  She again assured me that this incident really happened and so I proceeded to call the school principal to spill my guts and frustration.   The principal told me how sorry she was that this had happened, that she would get the other two girls and question them but told me she’d never seen kids confess so not to hold out much hope.  This is not the first time these two little girls names have come up with my dd.  I’ve heard them before when dd comes home complaining of a bad day.  My girls don’t talk at school, they still don’t talk to one another or even to friends they might have made at school.  They have little laminated ‘help cards’ that are bunched together on a key ring that hangs from their belt loop.  They say, I’m hungry, I need help, I’m thirsty, bathroom etc.  This is how they communicate with people at school.  So even after the bathroom incident took place my dd never uttered a word to anyone or showed her “Someone is hurting me” card.  Which just broke my heart.  This child has such an anxiety of people and being in a social situation anyway and then to have two mean girls invade your privacy while you’re sitting on the toilet only to harass you and say mean things!!!!  I was livid.   The principal called me back hours later with a full report of what she could gather.  Of course it didn’t even resemble the story I got.  Those girls said my dd ‘needed help’ and they were assisting her.  When asked how did they know she needed help, there’s where the story got super sketchy.  I never did hear a convincing answer and was left to believe my dd.

This is not the first time the girls haven’t spoken up for themselves.  There was a time back in Nov or Dec of 2011 when one came home with a axillary temperature of 102.5!  Her eyes were glazed over and she was pale, cheeks flushed.  I called the school as soon as I laid my eyes on her and the teacher had the nerve to tell me she was fine when she had left the classroom for the ride home that day.  There’s no way on God’s green earth my child struck a fever that high in a short 10 minute ride home from school.  She had to have been sick for most of the afternoon and NO ONE of authority noticed.

SO here’s where I derail the whole system and homeschool them instead.   I arrived at the decision to take my daughters by the hand and lead them off the train tracks.  I’m not going to stand idly by and watch the train run them over.  I can’t in good conscious send them out into the world, the same world they’re so anxious about anyway just to “desensitize” them without my supervision.  Cognitive behavioral therapy happens at the Dr’s office when I’m in the room with them.  Until they can find their own voices, I will speak for them.  These two are my responsibility and gifts from God, I can’t entrust their safety and well being to policy and the experts advice.

So I believe God has been preparing me all along for this task.  It feels like I’ve finally rounded a corner, being a mom gives you a lot of reason to go above and beyond.  These two are so worth the effort.