Being Bullied – ‘The Bully Jar’

I suspect we’ve all been bullied at some point in our lives, either as children, adults or both.  I certainly have.  It’s actually only relatively recently that I’ve felt I can stand my own and just feel cross about it, rather than intimidated and worthless.

For the last 18 months, our (mostly!) very sweet girl has suffered mercilessly from being bullied.  The girl in question was supposed to be her best friend and our girl being the kind of person she is just couldn’t quite believe that anyone could mean the things that were being said. The usual thing – sneaky comments when she thought no-one was listening:

‘You’re too skinny.’
‘You look funny.’
…and to others about our daughter – ‘don’t play with her, she’s weird.’
‘You’re always so mean.’
‘Your hair looks stupid.’
‘You mum doesn’t know anything.’ (Actually true)
‘I want to go to other people’s houses not yours, so I can have lots of sweets.’
‘If you give me your special toy I’ll give you mine.’ (…and then doesn’t hand hers over)
‘She only plays with you because she feels sorry for you.’

At first I put it down to just how children can be and grilled her on what she was saying or doing in case she was sparking these comments.  I spoke to the teacher of course and then, knowing how hard it is to think in the moment, I set about arming our daughter with techniques and phrases she could say in response to these unkind phrases:

Set Phrases
Whatever anyone said, whatever names they called us, we would respond with ‘oh that’s nice’ and walk away. We practised it until it became more automatic.  Then we practised the phrase ‘please don’t speak to me like that’ before walking away.

The Bully Jar
I also set our daughter up with a jam jar and we called it ‘The Bully Jar.’  Every time she stood up for herself she would tell me about it after school and then together we would put a piece of pasta in the jar and we would talk about how well she’d done.  This actually really helped!  She would bounce out of school and say that this girl had said x, y and z and then she’d said x, y and z in response and did that mean she could put a piece of pasta in the jar?

My one silver lining about the situation was that if she could reach a place where she felt in control of this kind of situation at this age then that would absolutely set her up for later in life.  

I thought we’d cracked it until then our daughter told her teacher about the jar and the teacher said it shouldn’t be called ‘The Bully Jar’, it should be called a ‘Friendship Jar’ and maybe put pieces of pasta in it when you’ve said something nice to each other.  My daughter crumpled.  She now felt she was wrong to stand up for herself and if she did she was being unkind.

I’m afraid this didn’t sit so well with me.

To cut a long story short I ended up speaking to several members of staff at the school.  They reassured me that our daughter wasn’t causing any of the problems and that usually they just observe and step in if needs be and were aware it was an ongoing issue.  I said although we were making great headway at home, this was totally unacceptable and if it was my daughter dishing out to other kids then I would want to know about it ASAP so I could deal with it at home and offer guidance as necessary.  If I wasn’t told then I wouldn’t know what my child was up to would I?

Then I gave them one of my hardest Paddington stares…

With bullying I think it’s very misguided to to do anything other that approach things head on. As parents I think we have a duty to our children.  To teach them how to live in society and to neither be a menace to themselves or to other people. We also need to teach them that people are different, that we all have different views and experiences and that’s ok.  We can choose who we spend our time with, or how much time and focus we spend with people.

When you’re in the same class for the rest of your time at primary school however, you can’t avoid someone.  You just have to get on.  Plus life is too short.  So I set about trying to help my daughter develop a manageable friendship with this girl.  If it didn’t work it didn’t work but I was going to try.

It all went very well until Halloween last year.  My daughter wanted to invited this girl to go ‘trick or treating’ with her.  I’m really not in to Halloween but my husband is and so the kids have caught on. Anyway, the girls were so excited about it. An hour before she was due to arrive the mother texted me saying she couldn’t come as she was going on a sleepover at her cousins. There was no time to arrange anything else with anyone else.  Everyone else had plans.  My poor girl was gutted.  If I’d known then what my girl was going to be told at school 3 days later, I would have rocketed the mother.  This girl hadn’t gone for a sleepover at her cousins, she’d gone trick or treating with two other girls from the class instead.

My daughter was billy no mates and I felt it was very much my fault.

So I did this:

And off we went.  Do you know what?  We had the best laugh and both of the big kids begged me to do this again next year and for it to be just us.  My eyes filled with tears.  I’d actually made my little girl feel better.

Now I’ve finally learnt a lesson – some people will never be reliable or honourable, however many chances you give them.  The girls are mostly friends at school but thanks to ‘The Bully Jar’ my daughter has almost perfected the art of not standing for any nonsense.  She says what she thinks and walks away.  She always tells us what’s happened, she still looks for affirmation but she’s so much happier and I feel like I’ve actually done something worthwhile for her.  I’m just so sorry that this is a lesson any of us need to face in life.

Please, as parents let’s do our duty and make sure OUR kids aren’t doing the bullying.  Let’s teach them about the beauty in others, about empathy, about allowing people to be themselves and about respect for others.  If we don’t then I believe we’re just setting our kids up for a fall.

We all want our kids to be loved don’t we?

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I hope you’ve found Being Bullied – ‘The Bully Jar’ helpful in some way.  Have you had any success with bullying?  If so please do leave a comment below.  We’d love to hear it and it can help others in this unfortunate situation.

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