NO BULLIES ALLOWED

I just saw a news story about a mother who got on a bus and confronted the kid who had been bullying her daughter. Seems she kept poking him in the forehead while she warned him to leave her child alone.

She has been brought up on some kind of charges.

This is not the way to handle a bullying situation, but there is a part of me that wants to applaud her. After all, don't most of us as parents WANT to attack the person who has attacked our child?

My kids have never been bullied, thank God.

We did have an incident on the school bus once that made me fear we were in for some bullying, though.

When The Princess was in the 6th grade and The Smart One was in 8th, she came in after school crying, and he came in stomping mad. Seems an older boy had been teasing her and even her brother was mad about it. I listened to the story and then called the bus driver. I did not want to raise a big stink but I truly wanted to prevent a bullying situation from starting. So I told her what had happened and asked her to keep her eyes and ears open because this is how bullying started. She was very understanding and eager to help.

In the mean time, 3 of The Smart One's friends came over and were all hanging out in his room. After speaking with our daughter for a while and helping her feel better, I went into his room to talk to him. "Do you know anything about this kid?" I asked. And all the boys chimed in with little tidbits "He's a freshman." "He's a big fat loser..." "He's always picking on somebody..." "He quits everything he starts..." And then as I was leaving his room The Smart One said the sweetest thing to me. He swept his finger around the room, indicating his friends, all of whom were wrestlers and/or football players; and said "Mom, do me and the guys need to take care of something?" And his buddies chimed in with "Yeah, we could totally do that."

And the crazy fierce mother in me wanted to scream "YES! I want you to TAKE. HIM. DOWN!! I want you to use every move you've learned on the wrestling mats and the football field to teach him a lesson! I want you to let him know that NOBODY. NO. BODY. makes your little sister cry......Except you!"

But I didn't.

I simply said "Oh, that's really nice, guys. But, we can't handle it that way. We have to take the high road."

But wasn't that sweet of them to offer?

And the princess? I had told her I would drive her to school from now on if she wanted to avoid the Big Fat Loser. But the next morning, she got up and marched right down to the bus stop and climbed on as usual. And there were no more problems after that.

My kids.....My heroes.