I can understand how a parent can feel frustrated and powerless when they find that their child is bullied at school. I am not surprised to hear that many schools are slow to act on bullying (if at all). Schools should not hide behind draconian policies and soft and ineffective consequences and should start taking real affirmative action with bullying behaviour.
But it is not the place for a parent to confront the bully, instruct their child to beat up the bully and most of all it is not a parents place to strike their child’s bullies. Daphne Melin might have tried to help her daughter ward off bullies, but in doing so she exposed herself as the real bully in this sad and sorry episode:
Cell phone cameras recorded Daphne Melin egging on her 12-year-old daughter, as she fought with another girl.
And then, the 32-year-old mother lashed out at a third preteen, grabbing her by the hair and kneeing her at least twice in the face.
“I don’t encourage fighting, I think it’s the wrong thing to do,” Melin told Eyewitness News on Tuesday night.
She blamed the William Floyd School District, insisting her daughter had been the victim of bullying and threats of physical violence online, actions she claims administrators did nothing to stop.
So at her wits end, Melin’s lawyer Michael Brown says she drove her daughter to the schoolyard to confront her tormenters.
“You get very frustrated with a couple of things. The lack of response by the authorities coupled with the fact that your daughter, who is an innocent person, is being continuously harassed,” she said.
Whilst I feel that this should be a lesson to all schools that are not doing enough to address their bullying problems, the biggest lessons of all are reserved for parents. Not even the frustration of an inactive and non-compliant school warrants such behaviour. Ms. Melin should have known better. Her conduct, especially in relation to a concerned bystander was just appalling.
Tags: Bullying, Cyber Bullying, Daphne Melin, Education, facebook, Michael Brown, Moriches, Parenting, Shirley, Suffolk, William Floyd Middle School, William Floyd School District, YouTube
Topical Teaching 
September 16, 2011 at 4:22 am |
In schools that have very violent and drug related issues, bullying is at the bottom of priorities. The asst principle must deal with a weapons incident, has a girl in his offices who repeatedly is molested by her uncle and must testify in court for the afternoon re unrelated incident. He is handling so many dreadful things , when a bullying incident comes up , he surely must say to himself “What does this parent expect? Can’t her kid take care of himself? Am I to wipe his butt too? The complaint goes if the file with the referral from the teacher that wrote Jeffrey up because he did a “harmless” thing like through a book across the room. Cursing out and threatening a white teacher with racial slurs was not even considered an actionable offense in the schools in which I worked. This frustration leads many parents and kids to bring a gun to school. One mother accosted the three girls that were hitting her daughter walking home and fought the three of them. She was arrested. Quite embarrassing since she was a corrections officer at Miami Dade County Jail.
September 16, 2011 at 5:24 pm |
Something has to be monumentally wrong with a system that is so bad that bullying is comparatively a minor issue. Have you taught in such a school?
September 17, 2011 at 10:39 am |
daphne is a big bully i know her personally and she is a liar.. daphne goes around picking fights with other females for no reason..i hope she gets jail time and her kids taken away daphne used the excuse other girls were bulling her daughter, thats a lie daphne melin martinez walks around thinking she is a tough girl and can beat anyone up..lock her up and take her kids away from her for good
September 19, 2011 at 2:50 pm |
Ashley, we’d like to speak with you on my radio show about your comments. Would you be willing to participate? If so, email me at info@thoseevents.net
Thank you.