Bullying and Team Mom

A funny thing happened on the way to "It's not the school's problem."

Last summer after being bullied for several months, my daughter said she hadn't told me earlier because I would get angry with the bully, but also that she wanted to handle it herself.

The bully in question had dated the boy who was my then daughter's boyfriend. My daughter had never met or spoken to this girl. Bully girl did some hateful things to others, such as ordering a lot of pizzas to be delivered to a certain boy, papered his home with tampons and put his personal information on more than one adult web sites. She used Facebook as her means of attack on my daughter. She called her names like caterpillar, because my daughter has to die for eyebrows! She doesn't look like a caterpillar at all, but bully girl was trying to wound my daughter who just happened to be self conscious about her eyebrows. Bully girl said lots of nasty things about my daughter and her boyfriend for all to read. I do have to admit that bully girl did get the nickname skankwhore out of this. However, we at Team Mommy told my daughter and her friends not to use that any longer and try to ignore her.

Eventually the bully girl started picking on another girl who had an eating disorder and wore heavy makeup. This girl was a year younger than my daughter and by this time, my daughter and another friend had taken all they could. They went to see a counselor about what bully girl was doing to eating disorder girl. At this time, my daughter also mentioned the bullying she had endured in silence, at least to any adults. The counselor requested copies of the facebook taunts and comments and was very upset after she read them. She told the girls to talk to the ASB teacher in charge because bully girl was a class president. This teacher took it very personally and said it would not be tolerated. Gone from Facebook were the bully girl and her so called friends. That did not stop bully girl from being mean to eating disorder girl at school though.

Finally, it was told to the vice principal who said, "This is not a school issue." The eating disorder girl asked if it was a school issue when she went to take the SAT and bully girl and followers were there taunting her before the test. Nothing was done from that point, that I know of, until tonight, prompting me to blog for the first time in many months.

Now the funny part. Via robocall the VP called to say there will be two guest speakers tomorrow and one has to do with cyber bullying and how to handle it...Hmm. Guess with all the headlines lately, knowledge is power.

This leads me to Team Mommy. It is a name I coined one day while talking with another mom. My daughter is a senior and still a girl scout. The same troop and girls are still together since first grade. These are not wallflower type girls, but gorgeous, smart, talented, loving young women who have tons of friends even outside their troop of eight. We moms know each other and our girls quite well. Most of the girls call all of us moms mommy. While talking to this mom one day, she told me something that will never be repeated, but we moms need to know. I said Team Mommy vs Angry Teenager, Team Mommy ALWAYS wins!

So, most of these lovely women don't know what I call them, which I will get around to at some point, but do yourselves a favor and take care of other kids and make your own club of Team Mommy. It costs nothing and is invaluable, especially for other opinions or advice. And who has a teenager who doesn't need this from time to time?