Survivors of Bullying: Would You Send Your Children to the Same School in which You Were Bullied?

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Bullying and life – pictured as a word Bullying and a wreck ball to symbolize that Bullying can have bad effect and can destroy life, 3d illustration

As an activist in the Bullying Awareness Movement, I’ve had many adult survivors of school bullying ask me whether they should send their children to the same school where they were bullied themselves as children and teens. Naturally, my response is a “No!” – or more appropriately, an emphatic “HELL NO!”

Having been a target of bullying from grade six until I finally escaped through a school transfer, I decided during my pregnancy with my first child, that should we ever have to move back to the town I was bullied in, hell would freeze before my children would grace the halls of the schools there.
“What parent worth their own salt would subject their children to that kind of learning environment if they could help it?”

Here are my reasons for keeping my kids clear of *Oakley Schools:

1. Bullies tend to take jobs which give them authority (Teaching, Law Enforcement, Corrections Officer, Supervisor, etc.). I knew that by the time my babies reached school age, the majority of my former bullies would be teachers in the small town where I had been a victim (teaching is the second highest profession for workplace bullying).

White egg between brown ones

White egg between angry brown ones

2. In small, Southern towns, such as the town in which I was victimized, the country-hick mentality is this:

“If we hate you, we will hate your children even more.”

Because they had targeted me in the past, it was a safe bet that upon their finding out who my children’s mother was, they would target my babies as well, if not worse. Anytime you are or have been a victim of bullies, anything (or anyone) you love and care about is always fair game to them. If they come for you, they will come for those you love also.

I realize that in this day and age of progress and advanced technology, this may sound a little “Hatfield and McCoy” but things like this do happen and more so than we know.

Every situation is unique and naturally, everyone has different experiences. So, again I ask you, Would you send your kids to the same school you were bullied in?

Feel free to comment below.

(*not the real name of the school district)

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