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.
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