Standing up to Bullying

Email forwarding is a great way to hear those nice “feel good” stories, but Christmas time is always the best time to share those stories. The other day, a teenager read one to my church congregation. The story was about a young girl at Christmas time in the ‘50’s being pushed off the sidewalk into a large puddle. The girl went into a drugstore down the street to warm up. The store owner asked her what had happened. She told him the name of a well known bully. The drugstore owner then gave her a candy stick to make her feel better. After the young girl had warmed up sufficiently, she carried her candy stick unopened back out to the street she had come from. Walking a short distance she noticed that same bully was leaning against a stop sign at the corner. The small girl took a deep breath and walked up to the boy, held out the candy stick, and said, “Merry Christmas!” The teenager stood with his mouth agape and the girl walked on by.

This is a charming story about how one could behave when bullying help is needed. Every parent wants to be able to help their children to overcome in these circumstances, but may not feel confident in their knowledge or decisions and should seek parenting information to assist them. This information may also include disciplining children strategies if their child is actually the bully spoken of in this story. This Christmas story had a good ending and especially when it comes to our children, real life should too.