Bullying

I hate bullying. I hate that it continues to go on despite 0 tolerance policies.

Babygirl has had at least 3 instances of something happening before gym that has kept her out of that class and "hurt" her ankle twice and requested my writing a note to get her out of gym.  Once I did write the note. The other time I was on to her and figured out something was up.

After a temper tantrum, she finally said she hates gym class because the kids make fun of her in gym for being slow and being fat.

I wasn't fat in school, but I was slow.  Athletics isn't my strength, so I totally got what she was saying.

She's not fat either, not a skinny girl by any means, but not "fat".  She's also far more athletic than I ever will be, she plays outside so much of the time.

I told her I wasn't writing a note because if her ankle was hurting bad enough to get out of gym it was hurting bad enough to not play on her trampoline and she was full force out there.

She cried and cried and finally told me about the bullying going on in gym class. She said she doesn't want my calling the school because it will make it worse.

I wish I could make it better. She's always a target. It's almost like her trauma and reactions are written on her face that she doesn't have the tools to effectively fight back with it.  We work on it and work on it, but she has years of learning social situations to catch up on to help avoid being the target of middle school brats.

We've gotten another American Girl book on bullying and her and I went through it together and I've encouraged her to read it and memorize some of the coping skills, but I feel so helpless.

What to do....what to do.....