Bullies...I Hate them!

I know, kind of harsh.... but

I've got something bothering me....BAD!

I went to a Scout Meeting tonight with the kids. It went well enough. And during the frosting of the cookies portion of the "meeting". Some "teenagers" showed up. They really didn't have a purpose of being there, they were just lingerers, I suppose. I'd seen them before in the past but never thought anything of it.

Then as I'm sitting on the floor giving Dylan a cookie a dad says loudly, "HEY!" I turn around to see a bunch of the boys standing around one of the scouts (10yr) getting up off the floor, crying. And the teenage kids, walking quickly out of the gym.

Jaden came up to me later and said, "Did you see what happened to "BoB" (changing the name for privacy)?"I told him no and he continues to tell me that the teenage boys chased BoB into the gym, tackled him, and then punched him in the face.

WHAT!? Who ARE these kids? What gives them the right and audacity to show up, WITH ADULTS around, and punch some kid? I'm SOOOO angry right now. (If you couldn't tell by the mutiple uses of the caps lock key)

I want to run to this kid's mother and tell her what happened. But I don't want to be the "uncool" mom who tattles.

I want to make this child understand exactly what he causes when he does something like that. But it's not my place to do so.

I want to scream at him. Again, it's not my place to do that.

And I'll be honest here (because it's my blog)....maybe make him aware of what it feels like when someone bigger than him places their fist in his face. BUT...that's not really an option.

*Of course none of that will happen, but I want to!

I got Jared stuck on this show on MTV.com called Bully Beatdown. You don't have to watch the shows, but the to sum it up: People being bullied call in to the show and a professional fighter goes to the bully and gives them a propostition. $10,000.00 to go in the "cage"/ring and fight a professional fighter their own size. Of course the cocky bully takes them up on the offer and looses rather quickly. The 10 G's then go to the "victim's". A humbling experience that hopefully simmers that Mean Machine down.

I have had some incounters in the past where some of my kids were being treated rather unkindly. First that comes to mind is when Jade was about 4, a child kept throwing sand in his face. The mother was a ways away chatting with other ladies, with her back turned. I waited a min. to see if the mother would take notice and do something about it. When nothing was done and my patience expired, I went up to that child and told him not to do it anymore. OF COURSE, that's when the mother decides to turn around and sees a "woman" "yelling" at her child. She marches right up to me and starts yelling at me for "yelling" at her child. (I wasn't yelling, promise!) I was SO ready to jump up out of my chair and have a little confrontation of my own. And Jared knew that...He decided it was time for me to go to the car. After I had "cooled" down a bit I even tried to ammend things but that...woman, wouldn't have any of that. WHICH only brought all that anger back.

Since then I have learned to just remove my child from the situation or say really loudly, (example) "Ashton, the boy isn't playing very nice when he hits you" and hope the parent hears it. I have really come a long way (jared can vouch for that) and react in a more passive way. I have my moments from time to time.

What I can do now is focus on how MY children will treat others. I don't want them to ever be a bully nor do I want them to become the "victim".


How far would you go for your children? And how far is too far?