In recent years, school districts across the nation have taken measures to bring awareness to bullying. Many students take an anti-bullying pledge. Both kids and teachers are educated about what to do if they witness it. One Reddit mom, however, vented about her daughter getting severely bullied and her school doing nothing to stop it.
The fed-up mother detailed her plight in an October 25 thread on the AITA subreddit. In her post, the OP (original poster) explained that her 11-year-old adopted daughter has been emotionally and physically bullied. But her school only started to take things seriously when they lawyered up.
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The Reddit user's daughter is being bullied after kids at school found out she was adopted.
The OP explained her daughter is adopted, “something we’ve always been open about and celebrated as part of her story.” Some kids at school, however, recently found out about the 11-year-old’s adoption.
The students “started saying horrible things – telling her stuff like her birth mother didn’t want her,” the mother shared. “They tell her that she’s unwanted, tell her she’s a reject.”
What started as name-calling has gotten worse.
Unfortunately, the bullying didn’t stop with name-calling.
“A few days ago, she came home in tears with her hair butchered. They’d cut off 2 inch of her ponytail while in class all while taunting her names and laughing at her reaction,” the mom wrote. “They will follow her through the halls to make fun of her on a regular basis now.”
Despite her daughter being bullied relentlessly, the school has reportedly done nothing.
“Both my husband and I have been in touch with the school about the bullying more times than I can count,” the mom detailed. “I emailed, called, even showed up in person to speak with teachers and the principal, but all I got were empty promises that they’d ‘look into it.'”
The Reddit user added, “Nothing changed, and my daughter’s mental health has taken a hit. She’s anxious, struggling to sleep, and now begs us not to send her to school.”
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Frustrated, the OP and her husband reached out to a lawyer.
After “feeling like no one was taking this seriously,” the OP and her husband contacted a lawyer to “explore legal action against both the school and the bully’s family,” she explained.
“Only when the school and her parents learned we were considering a legal action did they start to act,” the OP wrote. “Suddenly, the school calls me to say they’re moving the bully out of my daughter’s class and claim they ‘had a talk’ with her. The girl’s parents reached out too, saying they’d ‘talk to their daughter’ and promised it would stop.”
Except at this point, the frustrated mom doesn’t believe them.
“It feels like they’re all saying this just to get me to back off and avoid the legal consequences,” she wrote. “I worry that once the dust settles, things will go right back to how they were, and my daughter will still be dealing with this. My family thinks I should give the school and parents a chance now that they’re finally taking action, but I feel like it’s all for show.”
Fellow Redditors all agreed in the comments: She is not being a jerk.
The OP wanted to know if she was an a–hole for proceeding with legal action despite the school and the bully’s parents claiming they are now handling the situation.
In the comments, Reddit users resoundingly agreed she was not.
One teacher chimed in to share, “DO. NOT. BACK. DOWN. I can promise you that this family is a bunch of bullies (at their jobs, with people in general) and they’ve been getting away with it forever. This is a lesson their child MUST learn now.”
The teacher added, “I can also promise you that if your child defended herself in any way that caused the bully shame or harm your child would have been punished severely by the school and the bullies’ parents would not back down.”
“They ASSAULTED your daughter,” someone else commented. “The school and the bully’s parents had ample opportunity to deal with this issue BEFORE YOUR DAUGHTER WAS ASSAULTED. Their pitiful attempts to rectify their sheer lack of discipline is, quite frankly, too little, too late.”
A lawyer even commented in the thread. “As a lawyer, I say sue, sue, sue. Get a settlement agreement that contains a plan of action to address bullying in the future. Sue them all,” the person wrote. “I would also file a police report. Cutting her hair was assault. Big fat F to all of them. Protect your child.”
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