Blog: The Interview Process
The interviews that I
have decided to take on have been very emotional for me. This was a surprising fact and I guess I buried
some of the feelings involving my daughter’s conflict and loneliness experiencing
bullying. I often thought that I should
maybe change this topic, but I feel I must face this particular interview and
deal with remembering the experiences of my daughter and the victimization she
felt.
The question that stirred
emotion for me was “Do you have any noteworthy stories of resilience that you
could share? If so, could explain how that can affect you in your work with
families, peers, and society”. My
daughter (the interviewee) response was
The fact that she knew that she had the support of her mom (me), and was
able to talk to mom about her struggles with her peers helped her to deal with
the isolation and learning to forgive herself and her peers. The other things that made her resilient to
being a victim of bullying were training in Martial Arts. Tae Kwon Do gave her an outlet and when she
and I received our Black belts, it gave her a sense of accomplishment. Her self-esteem was heightened by this and
she is very thankful to her mom for guiding her in that direction and going
through it with her. Needless to say I
wanted to cry, but I held it in for the sake of the interview.
My other interviewee
reminded me of the passion I have for the work with young children. She is committed to contributing as much as
she can to the field of Early Childhood through her work with teachers of
children with special needs.
The interview process
has been interesting thus far and I believe that I have been reacquainted with the
idea and thought of why I do the work I do.
Choosing this topic of bullying in young children was not a
coincidence. I realize that there are
some areas in my life that I need to revisit such as forgiving those teachers
and parents who bully children, and most important forgiving myself for not
looking inside the minds of the children that bullied my daughter and not
forgiving them as she has done. The
revelation of forgiveness resonates in this process.
Other parents need to self reflect, and take a step back when their child is being bullied or has been bullied. As parents we want to protect our children and get the child/children that is causing our child emotional stress. What are we teaching our children when we go off on a rampage, waiting after school for the child who bullied our child, telling their parent off along with teachers and school staff ? What did we accomplish? We taught our child how to respond in a negative, non productive way. Finding positive ways to end bullying and making a child feel better about themselves is a step in the right direction.
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