Grand Thoughts: Bullying is an issue with grandparents, too

Though I love social media, it also scares me.

I am a huge fan of all the incredible opportunities the Internet offers, but I also fear its darker side that allows some people a gateway to evil.

Just recently, baseball legend Curt Schilling revealed, angrily, about a group of young men who posted sexually derogatory tweets about his 17-year-old daughter after Schilling congratulated her on his Twitter account for getting accepted to college. Schilling researched the nasty tweets and found the names of the bullies. He then fired back, naming two of the perpetrators on his personal blog; one is a disc jockey at a New Jersey community college, the other a part-time ticket seller for the New York Yankees. Both have been fired from those jobs.

Obviously, Schilling is fighting mad.

So am I.

You don’t have to do much Internet research to see how many young people have killed themselves over cyberbullying. And it makes me sick. This is a new problem with the birth of social media and, because it’s so new, it’s hard to fathom its ugly reach. But believe me, if someone ever dares to bully my grandchildren, I’ll be like Schilling.

Bullies have always been around. As a freckled redhead, I had my share of bullying when I was a child. I was called “Red” or “Spots” throughout my childhood, and, on more than once occasion, I heard “I’d rather be dead than red on the head.” But being rather tough and loaded with self-confidence — thanks to loving parents — I never let it affect me.

And when something did happen, I talked to my parents about it immediately. Until their deaths, I had an open line of communication with both my mother and father. I’m making sure that I have the same openness with my grandchildren that I had with my parents. So far, thankfully, I do.

I remember an incident — the only violent incident of bullying I experienced — when I was 11 years old. I had just gotten off the school bus and was walking the two-block route to my house. Every school day, I had to pass a house where I knew a mean boy lived. He didn’t go to my school, but he would sometimes be sitting on his front porch like he was waiting to taunt me as I walked past. I always ignored him until one day when he started following me down the street.

Apparently I made him mad by not responding to his bullying. So he threw a rock at me; it hit me in the leg. I stopped, looked down at my leg and saw blood soaking my sock and shoe. I looked up at him, and, for the first time, not only was I scared, I was mad. Laughing at me, he turned around and walked back to his house.

He wasn’t laughing later that evening when my father and I stood on his front porch, telling his mother what he had done. She was very apologetic and the bully also apologized, although he did so only after being forced by his mother. He never bothered me again. To this day, I’ve never known his name and I have no clue what became of his life.

But on that day, I knew I had backup. If you messed with me, you messed with my parents. It instilled a confidence in me that I have today. It’s my life goal to give that same confidence to my grandchildren.

The fact is, bullies are everywhere. A couple years ago, my oldest granddaughter, Tilleigh, 8, experienced a couple of incidents of bullying at school, but the staff was right on top of it and handled it perfectly. A child threatened to physically harm her. Though he never touched her, he threatened her on the playground and on the school bus. She was frightened. My daughter spoke to teachers at the school as well as the principal. The principal, in turn, met with the child’s parent. Not long after, we learned the family had moved from the area.

If the school staff had not handled the situation, my daughter (Tilleigh’s mom), my husband and I were prepared to deal with it ourselves. Like my father handled my childhood bullying situation by approaching his parent, we would have made contact with the parent of the child who bullied Tilleigh. If the harassment wasn’t resolved, we most likely would have taken it a step further by filing a petition in juvenile court for verbal assault.

The bottom line: My grandchildren have backup, just like my parents were there for me and like Curt Schilling is there for his daughter. If all adults fight back to stop these angry, punk kids (and, sadly, adults, too) from bullying, we’re going to see positive results.

With social media opening the door for bullies to reveal their evil, we adults — and even our children — must work together to put a stop to it.

Contact Karen Nazor Hill at khill@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.