Phoebe Prince Suicide Alerts Us to Stop School Bullies

Maybe the suicide of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince will finally wake us up.  Maybe the articles in the New York Times, Huffington Post, People magazine and dozens of others will wake us up.  Maybe the long list of charges against the bullies and tormentors will finally goad the public to demand strong action.  Maybe charges of statutory rape, violation of civil rights with bodily injury, harassment and stalking will get a stronger response from the district attorney than, “The inactions of some of the adults at the school are troublesome.” Phoebe’s suicide is another red alert.  But we know that hundreds of other children in our schools are being bullied, harassed, tormented and abused every day.  And parents and school officials are not protecting these targets of bullying.  Some of these kids will gain strength by fighting back effectively against these predators.

Others will be overwhelmed and destroyed by the bullying, but even more, by the lack of protection by the very adults who have taken on the responsibility to protect them.  These kids will grow up concluding that they are helpless and their situations are hopeless.  They will grow up with debilitating, negative self-talk, with anxiety, stress and depression, with little confidence and low self-esteem.

We don’t need more suicides to remind us of what we saw at our own schools, what we see in our adult personal relationships and the interactions we observe at work.  We know the depths to which humans can sink.  We know how alert and courageous we must be to prevent the worst consequences.

A huge number of people failed in Massachusetts.  Start with the two boys and four girls between the ages of 16 to 18 who have been charged as adults.  Continue with the three minors who have been charged as juveniles.  Continue with their parents.  Their parents failed to teach and control their children.  Of course it’s difficult to teach and control teenagers.  But will those parents now defend their venomous children or will they stand with Phoebe Prince?

I think the greatest failure is that of the school authorities, especially the principal and the district administrators who set the tone for the teachers and staff.  They pretend to be education experts.  They pretend to be worthy to teach children.  Yet none would stand up for Phoebe or for the other girl in school who was bullied by one of the accused teenagers.

We know that there are difficulties and that they will hide behind the lie that “we didn’t know how bad it was.”  So what?  Personally as a parent and grandparent, professionally as a coach, consultant and expert on how to stop bullies I say that these people represent failure and should be forced to go into jobs in which their tasks don’t matter.

Would you want someone who pleads “difficulties” as an excuse for their failures when your life is on the line – for example, a school bus driver, a doctor, a pilot, a cop, a fire fighter, a repairman of train tracks, a quality control worker on an assembly line for your medication, pacemaker or your car’s brakes or accelerator?  I wouldn’t give them the responsibility.  All that education has been wasted on them.  And maybe the type of education currently in how-to-be-a-teacher courses is a waste.

Then there’s the rest of us: the legislators who didn’t pass laws and demand policies and programs that would protect courageous principals from law suits by the bullying parents of bullying kids; the parents who didn’t demand the best from their legislators or the enforcement of strong anti-bullying programs by their principals; the by-standers who looked the other way and remained uninvolved; the citizens who won’t pay teachers enough to attract courageous and good ones; the unions that protect their failures from consequences.

Whether the abuse is cyber-bullying, physical violence, sexual attacks or the many varieties of mean and vicious verbal and emotional abuse – the spite, gossip, rumor-mongering, ostracism, targeting or mocking – there will always be “experts” who say “it’s not so bad,” lawyers who say that it’s too difficult to write enforceable laws, and there will always be difficulties in stopping harassment, bullying and abuse.  So what if there are difficulties?  If we can’t overcome those difficulties, we don’t deserve the responsibility and trust, and we will reap the bitter fruits that will await us in our hours of need.

Can Grandparents Stop Controlling Sons-in-Law?

This is about the opposite side of the coin from the toxic parents and grandparents that many people have experienced. One of the saddest cries for help I hear is from nice, kindly, well-meaning grandparents whose daughters have given in to their controlling husbands.  Their daughters don’t come to visit and don’t bring the grandchildren, they schedule visits and cancel at the last minute, the daughters and sons-in-law won’t allow the grandchildren to receive presents, the sons-in-law blame the grandparents because everything they do offends them and the daughters take his side and become verbally abusive in every attack.

The poor grandparents try everything, but no matter what they do they’re blamed.  When they try to point out what’s happening, their daughters attack them.  According to the daughters, the grandparents are completely at fault.  Their husbands are reasonable and correct.  The grandparents are blamed for what they do and blamed for what they don’t do.

The grandparents see their daughters isolated from their former friends and families, not allowed access to computers and not allowed to have cars.  And yet, their daughters accept that treatment and defend their husbands.  They see their daughters harassed, bullied and abused but don’t know what they can do to stop it.  The frustration and helplessness are agonizing.

What can you do for now? I’m sorry, but there isn’t much you can do.  Until your daughters are ready to get away from their controlling husbands, there isn’t anything you can do.

If you ever see fresh and obvious evidence of battering or beating, or obvious evidence of child neglect or abandonment you can report that.  But be sure that’s what it is.  You don’t want to get identified as a person who “cries wolf.”  Of course you’ll get blamed, but you get blamed for everything anyway.

You might offer to take the grandchildren on trips without their grandparents.  But beyond that, there’s not much you can do for now.  Since your daughters aren’t minors, they’re entitled to live their own lives, no matter how horrible we think they are.

Stop self-bullying I’m talking to grandparents who were decent parents.  I’m not talking to negative, controlling, toxic, abusive bullies.  Don’t wallow in blaming yourself or trying to identify the specific incidents of bad parenting that led your daughters to accept their husband’s abuse and to hate you.  It’s not your fault.  Every one of us didn’t like some of the things our parents did and most of us got over it.  Probably, your daughters were fine before they met the sons-in-law.  Your daughters have chosen a different path for now. Stop the negativity and bullying self-talk.  That destroys self-esteem and leads to depression.  That won’t make you behave good enough or the right way to finally please your daughters and their husbands.  Forgive yourself when you’re provoked and lash back.

Plan for the future Keep writing to your grandchildren, keep sending gifts to them and keep a record.  Someday, you may have an opportunity to show them the truth.  Try to hold your tongue quiet and don’t engage in arguments about who’s right or how badly your daughters treat you.  You might say, “I know you look at it that way.  That’s your privilege.  But there’s another side.”  Don’t explain the other side; simply state it.

Allow your daughters to create distance.  Accept the treatment for now and hope and pray for the future.  You don’t want to push your daughters further into their husbands’ control because they don’t want to face your, “I told you so.”

Go have a wonderful life in all other areas.  Keep your focus on the rest of life as best you can.  I know that’s hard but that’s what you’ve been given.  It’s like the weather; snow and sun, drought and hurricanes.  And you don’t get to choose.