Have you ever been bullied?

This is one subject that breaks my heart. Whenever I hear a story of someone being bullied I seriously tear up. Last night I was watching the X-Factor. The last girl to perform (on the first night), her story made me sob. This is one subject that touches close to home for me. I was bullied in elementary and junior high school. I was an easy target. I had a boy’s name, my hair was short so people always teased me that I was a boy and made fun of me. I was never a skinny kid or a popular kid. However, once I started to figure out who I was my personality made me shine. It did take a while I would say I was about 16 or 17 years old and I started to find myself. At which point I got self-esteem. My mom would say too much self-esteem. I didn’t look at it as self-esteem I looked at it as, I really don’t give a fly F&*k what anyone thinks of me anymore. I am glad to have got to that point in my life a lot of kids don’t. It’s sad.

One of my biggest fears for my son is to be bullied. I can still remember the heart break and the loneness I felt when kids would say mean things to me. When my son was in kindergarten I would drop him off at the kindergarten playground and watch him go play with his friends to make sure they were being nice to him and not picking on him. No one picked on him but what if they did what could I actually do? Nothing. What I would want to do is another story.

So to prevent my son from being bullied I try to keep him dressed nice with the coolest shoes, clothes, hats, and back pack. It’s very sad that it comes to this but I will do everything in my power to prevent my son from being a victim of bullying. As with preventing him from being bullied I will teach my son not to bully either. I tell him other kids are different and just because they are different doesn’t mean you should tease them or make fun of them. If his friends are over and he is trying to bully them I will intervene or if they are trying to bully him I will say something to them as well.

I know kids will be kids but if each parent would take a few minutes out of there life and teach their kids about the harm that bullying can do to a person on the inside, mentally maybe this world would start to be a better place.

So today I am asking you to take 5 minutes out of your day to talk to your kids to see if they are victims of being bullied. Also take a few more minutes and explain to your kid that just because people are different doesn’t give them the right to say, or be mean to other kids.