Don't be cruel (Bullying in Schools)

Member Name: Krystal

Product:	Bullying in Schools
Date:	21/03/01 (59 review reads)
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I had my first experience of being bullied as a child when we moved house and I had to change schools. I was 8 years old and very happy at my present school. I had lots of friends and was being taught with pupils a year older than me as I was considered to be "bright". I wasn't the only one, there were about 6 of us.

Then my parents decided to move to a bigger house in a different area. It was too far away for me to go to the same school, so I reluctantly had to say goodbye to my friends. We moved just before the summer holidays, so I started at my new school in September.

I was so nervous on my first day, but the class teacher asked another girl to look after me and initially everything was fine. Then a few days later, as a few of us were playing in the playground, a bigger girl, a couple of years older than me, marched me up to a wall and made me stand facing it with my hands on my head. I was completely baffled as to why she'd done it, and thought she was messing about (even though she was quite rough with me). I ran off and went back to playing with my new friends. I forgot all about it until a couple of days later when this girl found me in the playground and said "You're the one that ran off the other day aren't you? Why?" All I could stammer was "I-I didn't know what you were doing". It turned out that we weren't allowed to play too close to the school entrance (though nobody had told me) and this girl was a monitor - junior school equivalent of a prefect. And standing with my hands on my head was deemed a fitting punishment for my "crime".

From that day on I dreaded going to school as this girl now had it in for me and took every opportunity to verbally bully me for no obvious reason. I was too frightened of what she'd do to me if I told anybody, so I suffered in silence. It was one of my happiest days when she eventually left to go to senior school.

I hav
e never been physically bullied, but mental bullying can be every bit as distressing. My parents didn't have much spare money, so at senior school I wasn't able to keep up with the latest fashions like my peers. I pretended not to mind, though of course I did, very much. I would get snide comments about clothes and shoes which I tried to take all in my stride, but really I was so hurt inside. I would go home and shut myself in my room and cry into my pillow. Being a bit overweight and interested in my school work didn't help either, as I was thought of as a fat swot.

Those girls probably thought they were being funny, but they made what should have been happy days a misery for me. Reading what I've written so far, I hope I don't come across as being too self-pitying, but it affected me badly at the time.

I left school at 16 rather than go to college, just so I could earn my own money and buy my own clothes. Sometimes I regret doing this, but things have worked out fine now and I'm very happy, married with two lovely children.

Bullies obviously have some sort of inadequacy in their own lives to want to make them pick on those who are smaller, weaker, or different in some way to themselves. It is the ultimate cowardice, and I despise them. If they knew what effect they had on people's lives, would it make them stop? Sadly I doubt it.

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