The incident

The reason I am starting this blog is to discuss a major problem in our schools that nothing seems to ever get done about - school yard bullying. Schools and the Education Department will tell you that they are handling school bullying. Well this is a load of rubbish. Bullying was around when I was at school back in the late seventies early eighties. Nothing was done then. If anything the person being bullied tended to get the blame. Nothing was ever done to the bully back then and history has repeated itself with my daughter. Only difference was the bullying I went through occurred in the early high school years. But now bullying is starting at a much younger age. It is happening in Primary schools. When I was primary I only ever came across one incident with a bully. But in high school it was so bad it made me leave school as soon as I could. I left in year ten because I hated the bullying so much it turned me off school, when in fact I liked the school learning environment.

Life repeated itself when my daughter reached third class. There was a girl - Leah - I won't mention any last names as this blog is not to get back at this particular girl but to speak out about what is really happening. This girl can be described as the popular girl of that grade. She started hanging around my daughter Kim as she only lives a street away I encouraged the friendship and let her come over. After a few visits it became apparent something was wrong as she kept saying to Kim that she could only be her friend at home - after school and on the weekends and holidays but they could never be friends at school, because her other two friends part of the popular group - Nikki and Sasha(sisters) - had never liked Kim and they said that if Leah hung around Kim they would not be Leah's friend. The friendship developed and Leah came over quite alot, slept over and Kim went over her place. But she never socialised with Kim at school if anything she ignored her totally at school in the beginning. She even came to Kims 10th birthday party which was at the end of the school year in third class.

Leah is a what I call a barbie doll type of girl. Blonde, skinny and will definately be attractive when she is older. She came across very sweet and innocent to myself and to her teachers, because of the way she looks and speaks. But when there is no adults around her true self comes out.

The friendship out side school eventually stopped as Kim could see she was only using her. I tried to explain that a true friend would never treat her so badly at school and hide the friendship at home. So she was being her friend for another reason. She was using Kim - whether she played with her so that she could then go to school and talk about her behind her back I don't know. But the ignoring at school quickly turned into nastiness, back stabbing and spreading rumours to Kims other friends. I thought it would stop if she just stayed away from her and ignored it.

Leah and Kim where in different classes the following year and this is where the obvious bullying started to take place. She would verbally abuse Kim, trip her over and worst of all try and turn all of the friends Kim had against her. Saying that if they stayed friends with Kim they would be come an enemy of the popular group. Kim's two best friends confirmed that this was going on. And told me what was being said about Kim. I reported this to her fourth class teacher on numerous times and Kim talked to her about it alot. Her teacher tried to teach her how to deal with the bullying rather then dealling with the bully and getting the bully into trouble. Kim became very attached to her fourth class teacher and stayed in class at lunch time and after school to help the teacher. Now I see she did this to stay away from Leah and her group and she made a friend of her teacher so that the bullying was barable to her. Because she could look forward to going to school to see her favorite teacher.

Then an incident happened one afternoon after school. Leah phoned Kim and told her to meet her at the lane way. Kim presumed they were going to make up and become friends again so off she went. In less then ten minutes she was back home again. She was crying and shaking and I finally got it out of her that Leah had phoned her to come to the lane way just so she could tell her how much she hated her and call her names.

A week or so later. Leah phoned again. I could hear Nikki and Sasha laughing in the background. She said she wanted Kim to come to the lane way as she wanted to say she was sorry for what she'd said. I thought to myself if this was true why was Nikki and Sasha - two girls who had never liked Kim laughing in the background - something was up. I told Leah that Kim couldn't come to the phone and if they wanted to say something they should come around to our place as Kim was not meeting her at the lane way.

When they arrived a few minutes later my daughter stood inside petrified to go out. I asked the three of them what they wanted. Leah said they want Kim to come out. I told Nikki and Sasha to go home as they were not very nice girls and had never been friends of my daughters so there is no reason for them to be here. Once they walked away I said to Leah that this has gone on long enough. You need to decide if you want to be friends with Kim if so be nice to her and stop being mean to her. If not go away and leave her alone. She turned around and said that if I was going to be mean to Nikki and Sasha she didn't want to be Kims friend and left.

I told the school about the incident and about the phone calls that had been going on for weeks and there had been another visit when they came to the door and when Kimberley came out they just laughed and went away. This happened prior to the incident when I spoke to them and Kim stayed inside. I told her teacher again about the pushing over and black mailing her friends. Another incident happened that same week and this time Kims friends where witnesses to what happened. I had told Kim to make sure she stays with her friends so that she always has someone to back up what happens. Kims teacher spoke to Leahs teacher who spoke to Leah Nikki and Sasha who where all in his class. Kims teacher told me that he was very hash with the girls and that Kims friends had backed her up about all the bullying and black mailing that had been going on. But that was basically all that happened. The girls did not receive any disciplinary action, their parents were not notified. They weren't even given detension.

For the rest of year 4 and half way through year 5 Kim just put up with the bullying. It never went away. They didn't ring up or come over anymore. This stopped after I talked to them. But the verbal abuse, black mail and tripping over and pushing still continued. It got worse during the beginning of year 5. She no longer had a sympathetic teacher. Her teacher in Year 5 did not like Kim for reasons unknown to me or her and she actually helped to make the situation worse as you'll see in a minute.

Kim was becoming very depressed. Every afternoon after school she exploded about the smallest thing and this was because she had to keep it all bottled up inside at school each day and when she came home the anger all just boiled out. My daughter is a very studious, quiet child at school. All her reports say this. The only thing she has ever had trouble with is being a bit bossy when she was younger and not being able to tell when a child likes her or not. Sometimes this is hard for a child as the other child is not always honest and they usually say one thing to your face and then the opposite behind your back. I don't know why people just can't be more honest and say no I dont want to play with you and leave it at that. Instead they pretend to your face that they like you then as soon as your back is turned they tell their friends that they can't stand you.

This bullying all came to a head half way through year 5. Kim was due to go on a camp with her school. Her two best friends couldn't afford to go. Leah and her group were all going. The years of bullying had turned alot of the other girls against Kim. Even if they liked her they would not openly show this as then they would become targets for Leah to bully them as well. Kim has been a type 1 insulin dependant diabetic since she was 4 years old. The teacher that Kim had in year 5 was very ill informed and on a number of occasions made a big deal about her diabetes in a derrogative way infront of the other children. This same week that Kim was having trouble finding someone who would buddy her when they went on the camp. Her teacher stood up in class and made a big speech about not touching Kims finger prick as you can get a disease such as hepatitis or aids from needles. Kim shrank in her chair wishing the floor would open up and swallow her. She was so humiliated. This sort of talk only helped to alienate her even more and back up Leahs lies to the other children that they should not hang around Kim.

Firstly let me clarify something. It is totally impossible to catch a disease such as hepatits or aids from a diabetic child who has never shared needles. These diseases are passed from drug addicts who share infected dirty syringes. A finger prick that tests her blood that has never been used by anyone else poses no threat at all. Kim wouldn't want other kids touching it and putting there germs on it anyway. She is always very responsible. The incident that prompted the teacher to say this is because a disabled boy had touched her finger prick case. He had not touched the needle inside the finger pricker. It was more likely that the machine might have gotten broken by the boy rather then him getting a disease from it. Diabetes is not contagious and if you don't have hepatitis or aids you can't catch anything from the persons blood. The only reason health workers etc are so careful when dealing with blood is because of the fact that they don't know what the person has and they could carry a disease. But for a teacher to say to the children that they can catch these diseases from a diabetic child is just plan disgraceful. If she wanted to protect the children all she had to say was don't touch Kims finger prick as it might get broken. Then no embarrassment or alienation to anyone would have happened. I was furious about this incident and was going up to the school to complain about the teacher when kim came home from school balling her eyes out. No one would bunk with her as they didn't want to catch her diabetes or a disease. Well that was the last straw. I rang up another school the next morning and transfered Kim to another public school. I then went up to her original school and told them that Kim was being emotionally effected by the bullying and prejudice at the school. I had to be careful what I said to the Deputy Principal as my youngest daughter would not be changing schools as she was happy and had great friends and the bullying had not started as she was only in year 1. So I left her there and didn't want the school taking a dislike to our family and taking it out on her so I basically kept my mouth shut.
I actually felt like complaining to the Education Dept. about Leahs bullying and the lack of action that was taken against her and I definately wanted to complain about the prejudicial behaviour from the idiot ill informed teacher who over the past six months of the school year had made the bullying worse by treating Kimberley like an out cast and saying in appropriate comments in regards to Kims Diabetes. Another time she told Kim that what she ate for lunch was inappropriate (WRONG) Kims diet is approved by her Dietician as she has to eat correct amounts of carbohydrates with each snack and meal to prevent hypos as she is on insulin.