To the Boy Who Reported My Son’s Bullies

Thank you for being brave when he couldn’t

My son is only 8 years old but he has already learned how to hide his problems.

He likes to mind his own business, fly under the radar, and avoid trouble. Even though he mostly kept to himself, he still managed to make a lot of friends as soon as he started Junior Kindergarten.

We moved to a different city and a new school district when he entered grade one, but he managed to make friends soon after. It didn’t take long before the other kids who like Sonic the Hedgehog and Minecraft spotted him as one of their kind.

Things haven’t been so easy with our latest move. It’s been almost an entire year since he started grade 3 at his new school and he still hasn’t made any friends. That wouldn’t be the end of the world — he’s a bit of a loner and he still enjoys coming home to play with his siblings. What really troubles me is that he has also become the target of a few bullies.

And we had no idea it was happening until we witnessed it ourselves.

Witnessing the Bullying

You always think you’re going to hear about your child being bullied, not actually see it with your own eyes. You’ll hear about it when your kid comes home upset and moody, when they tear up at the dinner table, or when you get a phone call from the school.

But I found out by seeing it with my own eyes.

My son was going skating with the school. Mr. Austin and I are not into sports and we’re practically allergic to athletic competition, so this was our son’s first time on the ice. He was slow and he struggled, but he was doing his best and he seemed to have fun.

At least, he was having fun until another kid skated by and made him fall on the ice. And then did it again. And again. Usually stopping to watch my son struggle while he laughed about it with his buddy.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This kid was harassing him repeatedly. And doing it at an event full of parents and teachers, no less.

That kid is one bold bastard.

When we spoke to our son, he told us the same kid had been bothering him for months. But he didn’t tell the teacher, didn’t tell us, and didn’t show any obvious signs of distress.

We reported what we saw and heard to his teacher. She spoke with everyone involved, but stressed that they were all friends and that probably the bullying was really just horseplay.

We heard nothing more about it, and when we asked our son if anyone was still bothering him at school, he said no. So, we figured everything had been resolved.

A few days ago, I found out that we were very wrong. I came out of the shower and I had a voicemail message from my son’s teacher. She asked us to call so she could speak to us about “what happened on the playground today.”

Before calling the teacher, I asked my son what had happened. At first, he told me nothing happened, but when I told him about the teacher’s voicemail, he said “They attacked me.”

After getting him to open up more, I learned that “they” were three boys in his grade, including the one who was bullying him at the skating rink. They knocked him down to the ground, punched him, kicked him, and stuffed rocks down his shirt.

This was the first time they had been this violent toward him, but he told me they’ve been bullying him almost daily for months.

We only found out because the teacher told us about it. And the teacher only found out because some other kid witnessed the attack on the playground and told the teacher on duty.

Pinning Responsibility on the Victim

There are some people who insist that there are two sides to every story, two legitimate explanations for everything, and who are fond of saying “It takes two to tango.”

I’m not one of those people. Often, there’s only one story, it’s just that it gets bundled up with a whole set of fibs and rationalizations. And surprisingly often you end up in a tango against your will.

I discovered, however, that my son’s teacher is one of those people.

For every incident we discussed, she found a way to assign some of the fault to my son.

He didn’t tell them to stop forcefully enough, so they thought he was playing along.

Maybe he smiled during some of the teasing, so it might have looked like he was enjoying it.

They’re all friends, so maybe they don’t realize what they’re doing is bothering him.

She was less equivocal about it when she called to tell me about the assault on the playground. Though she did say that some of the boys involved claimed my son was smiling during the incident, so they thought he was okay with it. She acknowledged that this “doesn’t make it okay” but I was a little shocked to hear her take this testimony seriously (I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of anyone smiling through a beatdown).

Now, I know that she has a hefty responsibility on her hands, and that it’s a sensitive matter given her position. She has to do her best to assess and approach the situation neutrally.

But at the same time, I can’t help but notice a tinge of victim blaming in the way all of this has been handled.

There’s been a focus on what my son might be doing to signal that he doesn’t appreciate the harassment. There’s been some desperate scrounging for excuses (oh, they’re friends — they thought they were just playing — maybe they play rougher than he’s used to). And a lot of the solutions have been focused on what my son could do to prevent this from happening (including speaking with the guidance counselor to learn strategies for speaking up).

It’s almost like she thinks the problem isn’t the bullying; it’s my son not responding to it properly.

Let’s Raise Heroes

What happened on the playground that day made me realize that I haven’t been handling things as well as I could have, either.

No, I’m not trying to rationalize the bullying, but I have also been guilty of putting too much emphasis on the responsibility of the victims.

I’ve always taught my son to stand up for himself. I’ve taught him to seek help when things like this happen. I’ve taught him that he needs to have the courage to speak up.

But none of it worked. He’s still incredibly reticent to come forward or even admit that he’s being harassed and bullied, even when it turns violent and aggressive.

I’m not sure why he is, exactly, but I know that it’s often harder to speak up about abuse when you’re the one on the receiving end of it. It can feel embarrassing to seek help. You might worry that you’ll make things worse by telling. You’re worried that no one will believe you, that you’ll be gaslit, that you’ll be told you’re just misreading the situation (in my son’s case, that worry is sadly justified).

Often, the most effective way to resolve these kinds of situations is to have others step in or speak up on behalf of those who are harmed. But I was so focused on trying to prevent my son from becoming a victim that I didn’t spend enough time teaching him how to be a hero.

As far as I’m concerned, the boy who witnessed the assault and told a teacher about it is a hero. Thanks to him, the bullies might face consequences for their actions, and my son might be able to make it through the rest of the school year without being attacked.

I don’t know his name or who he is, but I wish I could give him a hug.

Hell, I wish I could throw him a goddamn parade.

I am incredibly grateful for what he’s done. And I’m also grateful to his parents. Again, I have no idea who they are, but the one thing I know about them is that they didn’t make the same mistake I did. They didn’t just try to empower their son to stand up for himself. They also taught him that being brave means more than facing down your own adversaries and your own troubles — it also means helping out those who can’t.

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