I was badly bullied throughout my school life because I walked differently to the other children.
The affects of bullying are life lasting which is why my series of blogs will look at how I coped from aged 6- 15 and hope that my experiences offer an invaluable insight for parents and carers to observe and address the tell tale signs of a victim of bullying.
Many things can lead to a child becoming a bully.
In the tough economic climate, sadly many people are losing their jobs and parents’ often have to share the bad news with their young children which they will often do around the dinner table. Although the news about Dad’s job may be sugar- coated to cause the children minimum stress, it will naturally include the subject of cost saving, such as “I’m afraid after this term Nicola, we can no longer afford your dance lessons, but hopefully you can start them again soon”. Tantrums may result and even more mature children who realise the situation can’t be helped will still feel an element of resentment; it’s this resentful feeling which they may look to vent out on a peer at school the following day...
Show off Nicola is especially horrid – aged 8
Nicola had the latest of everything and she made a point of showing off her latest new toys in the playground. This made her very popular, crowds of children would make a beeline towards her every break time hoping that they would be allowed to hold her latest doll; she only let a select few actually play with it.
During the rubix cube craze, and they had literally only just been advertised, when Nicola who of course could quickly solve the puzzle easily, already had the original shaped one, and the limited edition hexagon shaped one, mesmerising the other children with her ability to now solve the miniature version of the toy.
Sitting on a bench for the proceeding couple of weeks’, the peak of rubix cube mania was Nicola and her friend Alison during every play time. The very few other children who had the latest toy, some of whom hadn’t even unwrapped it from its rigid plastic packaging, would queue with their muddled cubes and pay Nicola and Alison in crisps, chocolate or money for them to solve theirs. She was making a small fortune!
Weeks lapsed before my Mother could finally afford the counterfeit market stall version with its wonky stickers and distorted colours and although rumours about Nicola’s Dad losing his job seemed true, and perhaps why she had upped the fee to cash only for solving other children’s puzzles, I thought that somehow I could persuade her to solve mine with a promise to give her some sweets the following week.
I’m sad to say that this wasn’t how it turned out! Nicola laughed at my inferior toy whilst grabbing it from me to pretend to the other children that she would solve it for me, and then the bell rang; she stuffed my cube in her bag and skipped ahead of me to our class.
Far slower than her, when I eventually reached my desk, a few of the children in my class were whispering and laughing and when I lifted the lid of my desk my treasured toy was scattered into broken pieces like a broken plate.
It’s due to my experiences as a child, that I know, how unkind children can be at primary school age and why I’ve addressed this in my series of books, Dilly’s Dog’s Disguises – www.dillysdog.co.uk"