One Woman's Work to Stop Bullying
No one likes being bullied. No doubt, everyone has at least one story of being bullied, being a bully, or watching someone get bullied. Stories are rampant in the media and social media can make the act of bullying easier. It can also make stories about bullying more accessible.
"The Only Way Out"
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| "The Only Way Out" by Katie Kuperman; 181 pages |
The confrontations between Rebecca and Chantel escalate to the point where Rebecca wears scarves to hide a nasty bruise on her neck. Kaitlyn knows Chantel is continuing to harass her friend but doesn't quite realize the extent to which the bullying is being carried on by Chantel and her group. Complicating the situation is the girls getting different schedules at the start of the year. This makes it difficult for Kaitlyn to properly keep an eye out for her friend. Despite making new friends at the fictitious Leacrest High School, and both girls finding boyfriends, Rebecca finds herself unable to find a haven because of the persistent threats and attacks by Chantel.
Kaitlyn is troubled by the constant bullying her best friend goes through, but Rebecca tries to minimize the attacks and makes Kaitlyn promise she will not say anything about it to anyone; not any of their parents, not their boyfriends, and not Mr. Kemp, the girls' favorite teacher. Kaitlyn wants to help, but she feels bound by her friendship with Rebecca to not say a word of it to anyone, a promise that could prove fatal if Chantel continues her escalating attacks.
The incidents that take place at Leacrest High School inspire Kaitlyn to start "Time to Talk", an organization aimed at stopping bullying at the school. Kaitlyn's idea spawns t-shirts and cell phone cases, among other things that students can have with them to remind themselves that they can't, and shouldn't, wait for someone else to say something when someone is being bullied. The movement catches on throughout the school and the vulnerable members of the student body feel they finally have a voice.
What takes place at Leacrest is nothing new to schools across North America. Students everywhere are the target of someone's taunting, or worse. "The Only Way Out" gives readers a feel-good story that shows something good coming out of a bad situation, one with terrible collateral damage.
Books on Bullying
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| Katie Kuperman |
"I believe we ought to lift each other up, not put each other down," Kuperman says on her website.
Kuperman's novel has received positive reviews from readers and educators alike. The initial success of her work inspired her to put together a workbook, "Many Ways Up". This is an anti-bullying and mental health workbook that takes the elements found in "TOWO" and allows people to put them into real life practice. Kuperman says "Many Ways Up" is written for children ages 11-18 and a portion of the proceeds from the book are donated to BullyingCanada.
Keeping our Children Safe
Parenting isn't easy. We are responsible for taking care of our Miracles of Christ. This obviously involves feeding and clothing them. We also need to keep them clean and make sure they bathe. We try to keep them safe. That's easy to do when they're with us, but they won't always be with us. Our children have their own lives and schedules, just as we do. We can teach them right from wrong and hope our lessons will stick. All parents hope they will avoid dangerous, awkward situations. Hopefully, our children won't abuse drugs or alcohol. They'll meet the right people and fall into the right groups. If they see something happening that isn't right, they will do or say something. They'll step in and prevent a bad situation worse.
This doesn't always happen. I would love to tell you I always spoke up when I saw someone being pushed around, but I didn't. Peer pressure can be something else. Everyone has seen something at school, a sporting event, some extra-curricular activity where a group of kids were confronting one kid and clearly making things uncomfortable for them. There are always plenty of bystanders, but no one stepping up and making sure no one is being berated, pushed, or hit for being different, for not wearing the latest fashion, or just because the aggressor is having a bad day.
I hope my kids are neither the bullies nor the bullied. One day, I got a phone call from a teacher who saw a child in the schoolyard being antagonized by a group of children at recess. My youngest daughter, The Oppressed, stood up for this one student and yelled at the others for picking on them. Suddenly, picking on this kid didn't seem like such a good idea when they had backup, and the odds were a little closer to even. The teacher was so proud, she immediately called me after recess to tell me what my daughter had done for this child. When I saw her after school, I told her how proud of her I was. She was happy to hear it, but she was still upset about these kids who decided to surround this individual and try to bully them. It stayed with her for a long time.
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| "Many Ways Up" by Katie Kuperman |
Doing the Right Thing
Kuperman's book gives some tips on what can be done to stop bullying. Through Kaitlyn, the reader can glean information for getting things started at school and making sure no one is on either side of a bullying incident. Granted, it's easy for the author to come up with a feel-good conclusion for her book where most everyone gets a happy ending and people look forward to a bright future laid ahead of them. We all know reality is different, and it's not always a happy ending. It's not even a happy story when people see someone being pushed around and beat up, sometimes by a friend or someone we know. No one wants to jeopardize a friendship or lose their "social standing" by sticking up for someone who's in a lower caste at school.
It's even easier to do it and get away with it because of social media. People can leave anonymous messages for someone to see, messages that can demean someone. Sometimes the messages automatically delete time and there is no proof that such a message was left. All the victim can do is say something was done and hope they will be believed.
No one has the answers. I certainly don't. That's why I say I offer parenting stories, not advice, because no one knows what they're doing. We try to do our best for our kids and hope they don't make the same mistakes we made. We hope things are better for them than they were for us. We hope they'll come to us if there is a problem, and we hope we'll know what to do if and when that happens.
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