School can either be the time of your life or an experience you hope to never relive. For me, school brings back memories of bonding with classmates and discovering new things.
Sadly, not everyone gets to enjoy this carefree existence. Bullying is seriously the worst thing that someone can experience at any age and with the rise of social media, children who are singled out for bullying have it worse than ever.
Recently, a heartbroken mom shed light on just how serious the situation is when she wrote a harrowing Facebook post about her 12-year-old daughter.
As a parent there’s nothing you want more than to see your child safe and happy. When we send our children to school, we expect that they will receive an education in a environment that takes care of their best interests.
When a child is the target of school yard bullies, we expect that teachers and other authorities will step in and protect the victims.
Sadly, this isn’t always the case, as we can see from this heart-wrenching Facebook post from mom Leigh Davey.
Threatened with harassment
“In this age of social media, children think it’s ok to send hateful messages (to me also along with their parents who won’t take responsibility) without consequences,” writes Leigh in her post, which has since been shared over 90,000 times.
“I’ve defended our daughter, approached parents and pleaded with them to talk with their children and ask them to stop. I’ve even approached the children themselves, but been threatened by parents with harassment.”
Every child is entitled to an education
Leigh describes how she’s tried everything in her power to get authorities to deal with the bullying, but teachers and the local education authority just shrugs their shoulders.
“The WA department of education don’t expel children from schools for bullying as they say. ‘Every child is entitled to an education.’ What about our child’s entitlement?
The WA department of education also told me. ‘You should teach your child how to be resilient against bullies.’ Yes, they said that.”
Even when there are consequences, Leigh explains that they are nowhere near in proportion to how serious the bullying was.
“Our girl has had a video taken of her sitting at her desk at school, legs slightly open, with a lovely caption about the smell. Repercussions? The girl who posted the video lost her playtime.”
Parents don’t take responsibility
The effects of this relentless abuse have been devastating to Leigh’s twelve year old daughter.
“She’s been sent home numerous times after self harming at school. She’s not allowed a pencil sharpener as she takes the blade out and cuts herself. Last week we spent over 5 hours in A&E with psychiatrists, doctors and nurses, because our girl had a plan to commit suicide.”
The situation has got so out of hand that the family is now proceeding with legal action against the bullies.
“On Tuesday I am in court applying for a VRO against a 12 year old to keep her ( the bully) away from our beautiful girl. All because parents don’t accept responsibility for their children.”
https://www.facebook.com/leighdavey64/posts/363409864107553
Messages of support
Leigh’s post has conjured up strong feelings and messages of support from all over the World, with many people sharing their own stories of bullying.
With so many similar stories of families who have suffered the terrible affects of bullying, it is clear that posts like this are so important.
Leigh ends her post with some words of advice for other parents:
“Please, in this awful age of social media (or anti social media as we call it) check your children’s messages. Bullying affects the whole family, not just the bullied. It needs to stop and it needs to stop now!”
I hope Leigh and her family can recover and move on from this awful treatment.
Share this post if you think that NO ONE deserves to be bullied.
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