How to rise above your circumstances and recover from bullying, by learning to find the humour in a situation and face difficult circumstances head on. The older, seasoned woman, has much to teach the younger generation, through life’s hard knocks.
You might be wondering…
Why do I have an article about bullying?
On a menopause website?
Because I found it appropriate.
It goes along with what has shaped us into the women we are today.
It goes along with our seasoned, experienced, lives.
We’ve all be through a lot over the years, both with raising children, and with our own growing pains throughout the years.
And that’s what this blog is all about.
Growing!
We older women need to celebrate our successes and failures in order to move forward. We need to embrace our challenges, and learn learn learn.
Not only do we need to learn, but we need to pass that on to the younger generation.
Young people need our wisdom, especially nowadays.
We hear about school shootings now more than ever. We hear about bullying on a daily basis. We hear about teen suicides. Children are suffering, parents are suffering. The community is suffering. The world is suffering.
And we grandparents sit back and watch, wondering what on earth WE can do.
Well, my dear seasoned ladies, we can pass our wisdom along to the next generation in hopes that something of value can come from this horrible pain; this never-ending storm.
And we all know the storm.
We’ve been there. We’ve held our own crying children when they have come home wounded in some way or another, bullied by a classmate.
And all we want to do is stop it.
Well, this is my way.
TEACH!
One of the ways I teach is by finding the good in a situation. When we do that, we can, and do, rise above the circumstance.
I have done that many times, and I’ve taught my children to do that also. And perhaps that’s what’s missing in our grandchildren today. Perhaps they need us to teach them how to take the good and throw out the bad.
Perhaps they need to learn how to do that.
Perhaps YOU need to learn how to do that.
Perhaps we have forgotten this skill.
Below you will find an excerpt from one of my books called, Great Big Puddle Of Pee.
I wrote it quite a few years ago, to show that we CAN recover from bullying. We CAN rise above our circumstance. And we CAN teach others to do the same!
What better way to teach our grandchildren than from someone who has weathered the storms of life, and calmed the storms already.
I hope you find wisdom in my story below. Not only that, but humour. If we learn to laugh at ourselves, grow, and overcome, perhaps the hurting people in this world would start to heal.
Help them heal.
Excerpt are from my book Size Seven Shorts on (Amazon.ca or Amazon.com)
GREAT BIG PUDDLE OF PEE
My kids were bullied in School.
It was a harsh reality, but something they faced every day growing up in rural Saskatchewan. I don’t know why they were targeted but perhaps it was because we were the new people who hadn’t grown up there.
Many years have gone by since that time but I still remember the tears, bloody noses, and hardships my children faced, and my many attempts to protect them.
Naturally, as a mom I wanted to ensure they had a place to play where they felt loved, so one winter I set out to do just that.
Even though the town ice rink was only a couple miles down the road, I decided to make a bully-free ice rink on our own farm. It was supposed to be a place they could skate without ridicule or harassment.
Without much experience, I set out to prepare the ground for the rink. The kids and I decided upon a spot right in front of the kitchen window that proved to be the flattest.
As my kids counted out the exact steps for a perfect square, I smiled at the beginnings of a primitive ice rink where they could play without being picked on. It was a wonderful feeling as if I were punishing the town for being so cruel. I wanted to shout, “Take that, you bullies! You can’t get my kids here!”
Soon we started filling buckets with hot water and lumbering them out to the rink-site one by one, slowly saturating the frosty steaming ground. I didn’t really know if I was supposed to use hot water or cold but I heard somewhere that hot water made the best rink, so we continued until the hot water tank died. After that, we started using cold water.
Finally after spending our entire Christmas holidays hauling buckets out to the rink, we declared it finished on New Years Eve. We laced up our skates, cranked up the music, and pranced across the bumpy uneven surface under the stars. It wasn’t perfect with its bubbles and holes, but it was our private oasis that nobody could see but us.
The first day of school in January brought on a panic I hadn’t expected. The school bus had to pick up the kids in front of the house, and that meant the bullies would see the ice rink. At first I hadn’t worried too much about it. The kids were proud of their creation, not ashamed.
When the bus rolled into the yard and stopped in front of the ice rink, every child on it pasted their evil faces against the cold foggy windows, looking at the ice rink, laughing hysterically. My heart broke as I watched my little happy angels drop their heads in shame.
I wondered why they thought it was funny. Sure it was lumpy, uneven, and probably not a perfect square, but that shouldn’t matter to a bunch of kids.
When they returned home, the bus dropped the kids off again and the same thing happened all over again. This time my kids ran into the house with hot steamy tears rolling down their cherub faces.
“They said it’s a pee rink!” my oldest shouted through sobs as she tore off her jacket and headed to her room.
Why would they say such a thing?
After much consoling, I found out the reason. The one thing we had not considered while making this rink was our water. It came from a rusty old well and it was orange. So, naturally the rink looked like it was a pee yellow.
My heart sank!
No matter what we did, they still found a way to pick on my kids!
It was only after many years that I began to realize the lesson in it all. At first I didn’t think there was one, but there were many.
Hiding from the bullies is not the way to handle the problem.
Stand up for yourself with a smile.
As a parent, rushing in to save the day may actually do more harm than good.
Let the little ones learn!
We as parents, grandparents, or caregivers, want to protect our children, but that doesn’t allow for growth. Not for ourselves, or for those involved.
We need to step back and trust that they are in God’s hands, and that they will be taken care of by something bigger than ourselves.
And in the end, we will ALL become stronger for it.
Now that’s not to say that bullying is good. It’s not! It hurts everyone involved, even the parents. It hurts the world. It stunts the growth of many, and makes us want to shrivel up and die.
But don’t let it!
We can rise above our circumstances. We can either let it make us or break us.
It’s a choice!
We can actually use it by growing from the experience, and be grateful for it.
Yes! You heard me. GRATEFUL!
Grateful for the lesson of how NOT to be. Grateful for the lesson to grow strong like a weathered tree, blowing in the wind, able to withstand the strongest storm.
Grateful to teach others this skill.
TEACH!
And in the end, our hopes are to eliminate bullying. But sadly, every generation has it. It’s inevitable. So instead, we need to teach people how to deal with it. We need to teach this generation and the next, to recover from bullying.
To make it out ALIVE!
We need to be there. We need to communicate. We need to support that young person going through the horror of being left out. We need to grab their hand and make them feel loved, NO MATTER WHAT!
We can’t just go about our day and ignore their problems.
That will end in disaster.
No, we need to show up! We need to talk talk talk about the problems.
Like all struggles, we need to help those suffering through it. We need to show them how to learn from the difficulties, and still be able to smile.
I wish that I could say I was able to protect my growing children from the bullies that day, but the honest truth is that I couldn’t. The bullying continued for quite some time.
But it didn’t break them! It didn’t break me!
Why?
Because I didn’t let it, and I taught my children not to let it break them either!
So teach! Support! Talk! Comfort!
The world will become a better place because of it!
Today, my kids are adults with families of their own, and pretty resilient. Without the bullies, they wouldn’t have become the people they are today. Our trials and tribulations are what shape us into productive members of society. Bit by bit we grow, just like that silly ice rink, as weird as it was.
And when you face rejection because of your weirdness, embrace it! When you face ridicule because of the way you look, live, or act, stay strong! Know that you are valuable! Amazing!
You are perfect just the way you are!
Even if you’re pee yellow!
Thank you for reading my story. It’s part of my heart, part of my history, and has shaped both myself, and my children into the people we are today. I hope it has helped you in some small way, and you in turn, can pass that help along to someone else.
I have more stories, more experiences, both nonfiction and fiction, available in print and ebook form. You can find them by going to my author page, Kathleen Morris Books.
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References
- Science Daily
- The North American Menopause Society
- Harvard Health
- Endocrine Web
- NCBI (Pub Med)
- Alternative Medicine for Menopause (LCBI)
- Healthline
- WebMD
- Women’s Health Concerns
- Reader’s Digest
- Mayo Clinic
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Author Kathleen Morris
Kathleen Morris is a successful published author, blogger, and Youtuber. She enjoys writing about things she’s passionate about and making a difference in the world.
