By now I'm sure most of you heard about the case in Florida where a father of a special needs child who had been bullied boards the school bus and threatens the bullies. If you have not then take a quick view of the tape here. It's 1 minute long. Totally worth it.
Although in this tape it states that the father had not previously alerted the school, many other news reports say that he had contacted the school more than once and nothing was done. The specifics here is; his daughter is 13 with cerebral palsy (which just makes it worse). The bullies threw open condoms on her, hit her, twisted her ear, and shouted rude comments to her. I'm not even her mom and I'm ready to whop some ass too. The majority of the community feels that while they understand his frustration they do not condone his actions. He actually was arrested because of this. Again outrageous. Here this dad gets arrested for defending his daughter and the bullies seem to get off scott free again.
Parents are so concerned that their little precious may have been scared or threatened by the angry dad and are offended at his language but yet somehow the bullies inappropriate language and actions are not that offensive. No one was complaining about that; kids or parents.
The dad has since apologized and said that his actions were not appropriate but damn can you blame him? Imagine your kid, special needs or not, getting off the bus daily in tears because she is being treated this way. This mans daughter is now on suicide watch. Suicide watch due to the bullying. So in my opinion it was down to these bad ass kids or his daughter. Yes, sure he could have done this and done that and maybe shouldn't have screamed at all the kids but come on. He is clearly enraged and I for one do not blame him. In fact he is my hero! There are alarming statistics about bullying and on this tape dad apologizes and the previous days bullying is shown.
I would and have done the same. I have even threatened to "bust a cap" in a gang members ass that was messing with my kids. All this of course after going to the school several times for help and contacting the police. The school was zero help. They were more concerned with protecting the rights of the bully then the bullied. The principal refused to give me the parenst contact information or to call them himself. He would not bring the child in for a meeting. They wouldn't let me talk to the "child", which by the way was a 6ft2in 7 grader with a juvenile record and gang affiliations. In my case the bully not only bullied my kid but stole his bike. So after trying all the "right" ways to deal with it I waited outside of the middle school for him and confronted him myself. I got my bike back and there were no problems since. I was lucky.
Anyway I just wanted to share my BRAVO for that dad and see how everyone else feels about this. And just so you know I have walked down a middle school hall many times both as a student and a parent. the language that comes from this age group is far worse than what this dad used.
My daughter was a victim of bulling which led to her being jumped by 4 girls and in the ER, and the school - suspended my daughter for a day for participating in violence. We live in such an ass backwards world. In my eyes, Mr. Jones did what any caring, loving and protective parent would have done when hitting a brick wall while trying to protect his child. As for the parents of the bullies, had my child done something so horrific, regardless of the special needs issue, he/she would be begging the little girl for forgiveness with a sore red ass.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post !
I'll tell you what, they can arrest me, throw me in jail, I don't care...my job as a parent is to protect my children from the bad guys, I would have done it in a heart beat too!!!
ReplyDeleteObvioulsy the school won't take this to serioulsy until (God forbid) the girl actually gets hurts or even worse succeeds on commiting suicie...THEN lets see how they feel...They get my vote for STUPID of The YEAR!
Chandra & The Chick- Thanks. My real world friends do not agree with me on this but I'm glad to know my blogger friends do.
ReplyDeleteThe Chick- I'm so sorry that happened to your daughter.
I saw this man and his family last evening on the news. I wanted to hug him. He may not have done this the so called right way but I say he was right! He was at his wits end and God love him for being a stand up dad who is involved in his kids life and feels his daughters pain. Isn't a dad suppose to protect and care for you? He was just doing that. I say, GOOD he scared the bejesus out of those little shits!
ReplyDeleteI saw the pain on his face. He isn't happy with this attention. but honestly if I had millions I'd give some to him to get his daughter in a private school so she could be around kids with CP like her and not be ostrasized and ridiculed.
And lastly while on my high horse, where the hell were the bullies parents? Why don't they do the right thing? Why aren't they bringing their little brats to apologize? Do bullies make bullies?
It just all breaks my heart that this girl went to her dad, her protector, crying about the pain. How could you do anything else?
That should be the question.
PEG- As always we agree. My first thought too was a wish that I could support him in some way. Financially or otherwise, even just stand up there with him. But he's far away. Good point though...where are the bullies and their parents? Probably seeking legal council as we speak to sue him or the school.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with the rest of you here. I would have done the same thing this dad did. As a kid I was bullied some. Until I stood up to them. And that is the kind of thing that adults used to say a kid should do, well they used to say that until they made spanking a child a horrible crime. But how was this special needs girl gonna stand up to them? This just goes back to the lack of discipline people are giving to their kids and how they take away from the schools. I remember getting paddled by the principal at my school when I did stuff wrong(of course that was in elementary school and it was the deep south). Now I'm not saying that schools should have free reign to beat your kids but they can't even put them in detention without getting a call from an angry parent. These bullies get away with so much crap. Yea its no wonder some of these kids who are victims of bullying are on a suicide watch or depressed. The schools CAN'T do anything to the bullies and their parents WON'T do anything! Standing up for your child is a crime? What a load of crap. I know my kids don't have this kind of problem but if they ever did I know I would definitely be kicking down some doors of parents, jail or not! Sorry if I am ranting. This just angers me soo much!
ReplyDeleteThe Watchman- I understand your rant, obviously. Maybe we (blogger peeps) should al go to Florida and handle this.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I was surprised that the news channel was not on the man's side. I'm a mother, I would have done the same thing...except I'm not as big and burly.
ReplyDeleteGood points Raquel!
It's unfortunate that he didn't whoop their asses since he was arrested anyway. Perhaps it would have made it all worth it.
ReplyDeleteThis all gets back to the one/two thing. One person by themselves, no problem. Two people, problems start.
ReplyDeleteSandra- I was surprised too. Because i do feel that the majority of parents who have dealt with bullying feels his pain. I guess thats why I felt it was important to say I supported him.
ReplyDeleteCandice- My thoughts exactly
Mike-?