Bullying

I guess bullying is becoming a bigger problem everywhere you go.  We recently had to deal with some bullying issues at Haylee's school, and ended up having her transferred to another classroom.  In talking with my sister about that situation, I learned that her youngest son has also had to deal with bullying.  Now that those incidents have been dealt with and are behind us, a new problem within Carter's Boy Scout troop has popped up.

The first I learned of this issue was during the January camp-out.  The January camp-out was a different setup than most.  First of all it was an indoor camp-out, meaning that we had rented a lodge to stay in.  Secondly, there were two floors, so we put all the boys downstairs and the adults slept upstairs.  The final piece of the puzzle was that the senior patrol leaders slept in a separate room downstairs which left all the younger kids more or less on their own.  Yes, I know... with this setup, we were asking for problems.

Anyway, with the adults watching a movie upstairs and the senior patrol leaders going to bed in their own little room, the stage was set and the bullying began.  There wasn't anything truly major, but some horsing around by a couple of the boys at the expense of a couple others.  Things became loud enough for some of the adults to hear and the Scoutmaster went down to resolve the problem.  Things were quickly back under control and I thought that was the end of it.  However, at the next committee meeting I learned that this was not the case.

One of the boys that was a victim of the pranks decided that he wanted to quit as a result of the bullying.  As a result of that, we decided to have a counselor come speak to the group.  Our hopes were that this would allow everyone to get everything out on the table and provide us with the knowledge and tools to avoid any further incidents in the future.

Surprisingly, we were able to get a counselor to come to the very next meeting.  Unfortunately, the scout that stated he was going to drop because of the incident did not attend.  However, the two primary offenders were both present.  What followed was a rather lengthy and somewhat productive meeting with all the boys participating and coming up with solutions to implement moving forward.

However, there was one specific part of the meeting that I wanted to share.  One of the questions asked by the counselor was how many of them had ever taken the role of the bully at any point in time.  Every single boy there raised their hand except for one, my son.  Naturally, with only one boy not stepping forward, the counselor focused on him and tried to get him to recall some scenario where he had joined in and taken the role of the bully.

What followed was incredible to see.  Every one of the boys there jumped to Carter's defense saying they had never seen him join in and take that role, nor did they believe that he ever would.  It was a very proud moment to be able witness all of the boys defending Carter and hearing them say what a nice guy he is.

Anyway, this is turning out to be quite a lengthy post and it was not really intended to be.  The bottom line is that bullying is becoming more and more prevalent and we as parents need to do what we can to prevent it and make sure that we instill the correct values to make sure our kids are part of the solution and not part of the problem.