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| Unrelated photo of my grandfather. |
It seems the calls would happen for a while and then suddenly stop. Every few months, Emperor would be the target again. I know it's Pony Boy and one other kid with a different voice. But we never knew who.
Lately the calls have escalated in their disrespect and the level of crudeness displayed. You know, I try to give a lot of leeway to children because that's what they are. They make mistakes. I kept telling them that this was really not in their best interest to continue doing this.
Yesterday, we got a couple of very disgusting phone calls. One happened when I answered the phone and apparently? Someone else was calling in at the same time and leaving a horrid message on the machine. They are very crude gay sex, masturbation and drug-related phone calls. Screaming phone calls. It was just too much at that point.
Unfortunately, we found out our local police would do nothing unless I handed them the suspect's name and phone number. And even then, they're juveniles so good luck with that. It was very disheartening to hear. What the policewoman said was that often, the best thing to do is to involve the school's "resource officer."
Well, I'm mighty disinclined to involve the police in school when it concerns an after-school problem, but the point was made that the kids all go to school together, so... at least they can be made aware of the situation.
Sigh. So I went to see Officer "Hammer-Time" at the school first thing in the morning at a friend's suggestion. (Yes, I have to have a nickname for everyone, ok?) He is a very nice person and took my tip about Pony Boy. He called the kid in to "chat," and of course kids are all overwhelmed by the badge, spill everything, and now the cops/school know who did this. It was him and some kid I will call Twig Boy. If you knew their names? You'd say the nicknames fit.
Anywayyy.
BETTER than anything I could have asked for? Is the fact that it turns out this happened on the school bus. Which means the bullying counts as taking place "on school grounds." Which means school consequences, sports team consequences, and home consequences are gonna happen. The triad.
Just imagine getting that phone call, and learning your kid has just bullied a disabled child. For months. And wouldn't stop when his parents asked him to. Wouldn't want to be those kids this weekend.
I learned long ago the way to stop these phone calls was to keep a loud whistle by the phone and when one of those calls began, you blow the whistle!
ReplyDeleteIt's no longer recommended because you can blow out someone's eardrum and cause some deafness, but as far as I'm concerned they deserve it.
I'm not sure I'd blow a whistle at children though.
I am glad that action has been taken now though.
In retrospect, I think I gave these children wayyy too much grace. Then again, that action on my part perhaps enboldened them to more and more stupidly daring things... resulting in what you see here. Mega trouble. Though I take no blame or credit for their actions. They are fully in control of whether they harass our family or not... we are only in control of how we respond to that.
DeleteI can tell you this, grace-time is over as they have demonstrated repeatedly that they are not appreciative of that, or respectful of our family.
Good for you... I can only hope that the parents CARE that they bullied a disabled child... Some parents get mad because they don't want to accept that their kid is a little jerk.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if the cop felt empowered to tell these parents that he's disabled. I've heard about a billion times from people who don't know better that they just thought he was "eccentric." No. That's autism. I guess he passes, but that's about half the problem, he doesn't appear to warrant any special sensitivity...
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ReplyDeleteMaybe Pony Boy should have his named changed to Willie the Weasel for spilling the beans. Boys were meaner in middle school, as I remember, something about having to push a penny along a sidewalk with one's nose as one guy described it...it's all about one-upmanship...but Emperor doesn't deserve that. Things will get better as he has a magnificent mama who raised him right.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Pony Boy did the right thing by owning up to his part in it, though. And I'm overwhelmed by the cops, no telling how scared he was... I'm glad it worked out this way and hopefully will die down over the weekend. Everyone is talking of it.
DeleteI hope the parents did discipline them rather strongly. Little shits.
ReplyDeleteThey deserved worse than they probably got. The thing that killed me was the officer telling me what a nice family one of the kids came from... sigh.
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