The Anti-bullying Blockade!

Two weeks ago, I got an email from the special needs technician at Austin's school.  When something occurs, the phone call or email always starts off with "Austin is okay but ...". This one was about a scare Austin had at the hands of another student.

If you have read this blog previously, you will know that Austin is TERRIFIED of spiders! The school has it documented in his IEP, that's how serious it is, no joke!  One of the girl's in his class had a book of spiders and was tormenting Austin with it.  He got so upset, he ran to an empty locker and tried to hide inside of it.  The girl continued to torment Austin outside the locker.  A bunch of other children rallied around the outside of the locker and tried to keep the girl from getting near Austin who was hysterically crying at this point! One of the boy's ran to get help and a woman from the office came out to resolve the situation.  Austin was taken by Ms. D (the lady who works in the office) to the special needs technician (Ms. L) to calm him down.  The girl was dealt with, she was removed from school for the remainder of the day, well deserved I thought.  I couldn't believe this story and was very upset!  When Austin gets this upset, I have to go into school and get him to settle him down. This time, thanks to the fantastic support system he has at his school, Ms. D and Ms. L were able to calm him and he was fine within minutes.  I called and spoke to Ms. D and she assured me Austin was fine.  I told her to call me if anything changed and I would race to get him from work.  Thankfully, he was calm and able to proceed with his school day without anymore upset or incidents.

When I spoke to Ms. D, I asked her to tell all the children who rallied around Austin to protect him, THANK YOU!  I was so impressed that these children stood up to the girl and supported Austin.  The girl was upset that these children were displeased at her behaviour towards Austin and took his side but children are smart, they know when something is wrong.  What she did was wrong.  She was given her consequence and I can only pray she won't target Austin again and all the children will get along well!

Once again, my heart was touched by the children who stood up for Austin and I am so grateful to all of them!  Each one of them a HERO to me!

All the best! *HUGS*