ARE YOU BEING BULLIED?
Melanie
Last summer, for the first time ever, my parents let me go to an overnight camp for two weeks. Camp Friendship was a really cool place. It had a huge lake, canoes, arts and crafts, rock-climbing—all kinds of things to do.
I was kind of nervous to go, because I hadn’t been away from home very much. I also was a little scared because I didn’t know anyone else at the camp. If you’ve ever been away to camp, you probably know what I mean.
Anyway, things started out great. I liked my camp counselor, Maya, and most of the other girls in my cabin seemed pretty nice. I made a friend, Katy, who was in the bunk next to mine.
The problems started on the third day. That morning, I went through the breakfast line in the “mess hall” and looked around for a place to sit. When I saw my cabin-mates sitting together, I headed over to join them. All of a sudden, one of the girls—Jessica—put her swim towel on the one empty seat and said, “Sorry. There is no room at this table.” A few of the other girls giggled. I felt really hurt. I didn’t know what else to do, so I found a seat with girls from another cabin.
Well, it didn’t stop there. Later that day at the archery range, Jessica told me there were too many campers doing archery—and maybe I should go find something else to do. At the end of the day, when I was heading to my cabin, I heard all of the girls talking and laughing. As soon as I walked in the door, everyone stopped and just looked at me.
When I said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
Jessica said, “It’s really none of your business.” Katy and some of the other girls looked kind of uncomfortable, but nobody said anything. I crawled into my bunk and pretended to go to sleep. But, I hardly slept all night.
The next morning on the way to breakfast, my friend Katy caught up with me to say she was sorry about what happened last night.
“What’s going on with Jessica and the rest of the girls?” I asked her. “I feel like I’m being left out of everything!”
Katy said that for some reason, Jessica was telling everyone that I was stuck-up and that I talked about other girls behind their backs. Jessica didn’t want to have anything to do with me, and she told the other girls that they shouldn’t either.
I asked Katy if SHE thought I was stuck-up and if SHE believed what Jessica said about me. Katy said, “No. Nobody does. We’re all just afraid of making Jessica mad.”
Katy and I talked about what I should do. I definitely did not want to talk to Jessica. That seemed way too hard. We finally decided that we’d both go talk with our counselor, Maya. Maya was a college student, and she seemed really cool. She had told us on the first day that we could talk with her about anything. I was kind of nervous, so I was glad that Katy agreed to go with me.
It turns out that I didn’t need to be nervous. We saw Maya at lunch and asked her if we could talk with her in private. She said, “Sure thing!” and we walked outside.
Katy and I told Maya exactly what had happened. Maya listened carefully, asked some questions, and wrote down notes about what we were saying. When we were done, she said, “I’m really sorry, Melanie. Nobody deserves to be treated that way. Jessica was really out of line.” Teri said that what Jessica was doing was bullying, and that the camp had rules about bullying. Here’s what Maya said she’d do.
First, she said she’d report the bullying to the other counselors, so that they could all watch Jessica’s behavior more closely. Next, she said she’d talk with Jessica, and with all of the other girls in the cabin, one at a time. She’d tell Jessica that she has to stop the bullying immediately or face consequences. She also said she’d ask Katy and my other cabin-mates to think about what they could say and do to help me and not encourage Jessica. Finally, she said she’d check in with me each day in private to see how things were going.
Maya asked if I was OK with her plan, and I said I thought it sounded pretty good. I said I was kind of nervous about what Jessica would do, though.
I don’t know exactly what Maya said to Jessica later that day, but whatever it was it worked. I also noticed that Maya and the other counselors hung around Jessica a lot, so it was hard for her to act up.
Jessica and I never ended up being good friends, but that’s OK. At least she stopped picking on me. And camp turned out to be pretty fun.
