Bravery
Many of you follow me on Facebook and Twitter and have seen my comments in the last 24 hours about a case of cyber-bullying towards my stepson. We are very fortunate that he attends a school that he likes, where he gets along with his teachers. Plus, the administrative staff has a strict zero tolerance policy towards bullying, which allows us as parents to have advocates for our kids and their protection.
Bullying still happens, unfortunately.
A very brave young person told their parents about a cyberbullying episode on Facebook. Those parents told us and we went into the school together. In the process of dealing with this, we also discovered that one kid said on Facebook that this was mean, in the midst of the others justifying the bullying.
We've been working with the school and the police to address the cyberbullying. However, none of this would have been possible without a very brave individual who told their parents. I wouldn't have known about this until thousands of people had seen and been involved. Also, a kid stood up to people who were bullies and said, publicly, that this is wrong and has risked being targeted.
So, let's celebrate those two very brave individuals. Bravery isn't always loud and bold. Bravery is a shy, isolated youth telling his or her parents that they witnessed bullying or a kid wanting to belong but saying "guys, this is mean."
