The bus bully…

We all tense up as soon as we hear the word “bully” come from the mouths of our children or someone we love.  This made me do some inner searching on where most of school bullying lies…on the bus!

Gosh, for a moment, my heart goes out to these amazing bus drivers ( most are really great) who do their best to keep their eyes on the road, driving this large vehicle, and try to tend to many kids ( some who have had a crappy-kind-of-day).  They need to get paid more in my handbook!  Much more!

Anyway, my daughter comes home crying that she is being bullying by a boy a few years older than her and another little girl also a few  years older.  Now trust me, I know my daughter is not always a princess so I listened carefully as there is always two sides to the story.  When she began to tell me about this girl who she felt was bullying her, I began to ask questions.  Heck, the little boy is probably trying to really flirt, but he doesn’t know how!  Anyway, back to the little girl who I will call Sally ( not her real name).

As I asked a few questions and dried her eyes in between her long story of expressing this “bullying”, without realizing it, she began to tell me that this girl was being raised by her Dad because her Mom and Dad are now divorced because her mother had to be put into the hospital a few times for drinking.  Believe me, kids talk!

Afterwards, I looked at her in the eyes and asked, “After hearing all of this, my heart feels sad for her.  She doesn’t have a Mommy tucking her in every night like you do.  What do you think is the best thing we can do for Sally?”  She looked at me with a few tears still streaming down her face and a snotty nose and smiled and said, “We can pray for her.”  WOW, this Mom’s heart skipped a few happy beats!!!! “Yes, we can and you know what else?”  She lit up and asked, “What?”  I chimed in, “Maybe you can ask her if she goes to church anywhere and if not, invite her to go with us and we can come by and pick her up.”

So today, who knows how it will go, but all the way to school my daughter talked about finding out more about Sally and even having the courage to invite her to church.

I knew, like most kids, there is an underlying issue going on in a child’s life that soon begins bullying or being overly aggressive.  They are trying to be dominant and are struggling with self-worth because of a situation they are in or have been in.

Yes, it is hard when our kids feel like they are being “bullied” but before we turn into Rocky Balboa, try to get to the root problem of this kid because I bet in the end you will feel more sympathy than anger toward them.

Thank you to each and every bus driver who carefully cares for our children each day of school!  We do take you for granted when we should be praising God for taking care of our special cargo…