Sarah & Ian Hoffman

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5: Counsel

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This is the fifth post in a series about my son’s recent experience with bullying at school.

Last week, we went to see the school counselor.

We sat in his office and told him about how in addition to the kids who have bullied Sam for years, Sam has been harassed by an all new crop of kids recently. We said that our four years of requests for preventive anti-bullying curriculum—and offers of resources—have gone unheeded. We said the “radical kindness” the admissions director talked about on our school tour that was supposedly intrinsic to the school’s values is not radical at all; it’s retrograde.

We told him that we realize we now have three choices: leave the school, stay and tell Sam that’s he’s got to put up with it, or to stay and change the school.

And you know what our counselor said? He said it’s time to rally the troops. That we need to form an advisory counsel of parents to work with the school. That there is power in numbers. That this parent group can help look into best practices and find out what other schools are doing that’s really working to combat bullying. That he believes it’s essential that the school do this work.

Clearly, he said, the school needs something new, because whatever else has been tried is stagnant. Not just a program, he said, but something deeply and pervasively rooted in every aspect of the curriculum. He told us it’s time to find our allies among parents and on the faculty and staff, and to make something happen together.

He offered to let a group of parents meet in his office, and he offered to facilitate the meeting. We talked about letting the administration know, so we’re not doing anything behind their backs.

And then he added: “If this doesn’t resolve by next year, get the hell out.”

When a friend told us to start talking to other parents, I’d pictured some clandestine meeting of a few friends in our living room, to secretly organize some…I don’t even know what. Instead, the school counselor advised us to organize other parents, on a big scale, and to make our work public. And he said he’d host us.

A whole new world just opened up.

 

4: Community

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This is the fourth post in a series about my son’s recent experience with bullying at school.

When a friend told us to start talking to parents at our school, we started talking.

We talked to parents in the hall, on the playground, by email, on the phone. We reached out to parents we never thought to talk to about these issues—because we assumed they didn’t face the same issues, or have an interest in them—and we’ve shared our experience. We told them Sam is being bullied, that he’s been bullied by some of the same kids for four years, and now, suddenly, by a group of new kids. We told them how disappointed we’ve been that the school promises to do something about it, and then doesn’t.

And we listened. We heard from friends, and friends of friends, and parents we’d never met. We heard stories about kids teased and harassed for their weight, their height, their learning style, their lack of sports ability, their bookishness, and yes, their gender non-conformity. We heard how fervently parents want their kids to be strong, empathic people, kids who know how to stand up for themselves, how to manage their own feelings, and what to do when they see a friend in trouble. We felt the support of so many people who offered to do whatever they could to help Sam and to make our school a safer place for all kids.

And after all this talking and listening, we made appointments with the school counselor, the principal, and the head of school. With less dismay, less resignation, some inspiration, and a great deal of hope. We don’t know where these conversations will go.

But now we know we are not alone.

 

3: A Friend

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This is the third in a series about my son’s recent experience with bullying at school.

I emailed a close friend at Sam’s school, telling her of my despair at the futility of having one more meeting with the principal that sounds great and goes nowhere. I said that this has been a battle we have fought alone, and that we are losing energy for the fight.

But my friend said that I was wrong. She said that other parents are concerned about bullying, too. Particularly concerned since recently, a boy at a local high school committed suicide after facing social challenges. She said:

If someone brought in an expert to do a parent presentation on bullying, there’d be a huge turnout…I think we’re a group of people who understand what it’s like to be bullied and we want to protect our kids from both sides of this—no one wants their kids to be bullied, but no one wants their kid to be a bully either.

My friend helped me realize that we are not alone. That other parents may have an investment in doing this work alongside us. Because they don’t want to see Sam bullied. Because they don’t want to see their own children bullied. Because they don’t want their own kids to be bullies—or to be the kind of people who stand by when they see another person being hurt.

This was a whole new perspective. If the school sees that many parents care about bullying, if we are not the lone squeaky wheel, then maybe we can make a difference.

I’m still brokenhearted about what Sam is going through. But along with brokenhearted, now I’m inspired.

 

Praise for our books

“Jacob’s New Dress is a brilliant and beautifully illustrated book and a must-read for all of us.”

Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D., Director of Mental Health, Child and Adolescent Gender Center at UCSF and author of "Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender Non-nonconforming Children" February 9, 2014

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