The Not-So-Good

I promised to tell you about life in the north, both the good and the not-so-good, and this week we have experienced some of the not-so-good.  It pains me to have to write about this but this is part of our lives up here, so I feel compelled to do so.

Bullying.  I know, it's everywhere.  Some of you were surprised to hear that there were drugs up here, and so some of you may be shocked to hear how badly kids, adults and indeed whole families are bullied up here!  Many of you have probably heard and read about kids who were bullied so badly that they attempted or actually went through with suicide. Some problems are universal, even in remote corners of the world.  In fact, I would argue that bullying may be even more of an issue in smaller towns because if everyone knows everybody's business, then there are more people to target the victim.  In a major city, there is a lot more anonymity. You can walk down a street without every single pair of eyes knowing almost everything about you, both that which is public knowledge as well as your extremely private and confidential information, too.  Of course, this is just my opinion.  I am not backed up by facts and statistics.

All of us have been the victims of bullying at one point of another up here, some of us more than others.  Some of us handle it better than others or just refuse to allow the bully to pounce, and others are down and depressed about it.  As parents, it is heartbreaking to find out that your son or daughter is the victim of some unfeeling, mean and dysfunctional kid, and the feelings of helplessness are terrible, and guilt inducing.  This is the first time we have had to deal with this kind of thing on behalf of our children and we are overwhelmed and distraught that it is happening.  That said, we are extremely proud of our children for being brave enough to tell us about it so that Greg and I can act on their behalf and put a stop to it.

When we first arrived in Tuk, our children were considered somewhat of a novelty.  Not many teachers 'from outside' as it is called, are married let alone have children!  The fact that Greg arrived up here with his supply teacher wife and three kids was practically unheard of with relation to the school.  It happens more frequently with the RCMP, whose wives and family follow them everywhere, and every few years they move from post to post.  In September, we had lots of kids knocking on our door asking our kids to go 'play out' (the Tuk expression for going outside to play or hang out).  Our kids were happy enough to comply since they were all anxious to make friends.  The kids up here are very direct and blunt with their question asking, and as a result, our kids were heavily questioned about where they came from, why they are here, and what they like to do.  Things were looking promising for all three of them and we were thrilled that they were so easily and readily welcomed here.

As time went on, the number of kids coming through our home after school and on weekends dwindled, as did the spirits of particular children in our family.  By early October,  Patrick and Charlotte were spending their weekends with each other, and James had one friend who shared the same love of video games, and played all the same games.  When questioned, we were told the same thing by all three kids.  "We don't want to be friends with kids up here.  They are mean, rude to the teachers and each other!".

The majority of the bullying seems to be centred around Patrick.  Patrick is a sweet kid with a big heart and a strong sense of who he is, even as an 11-year-old.  He has hit puberty hard and as a result, is sporting a darkening and thickening line of hair that I would not yet call a moustache but he does.  Despite my begging for him to shave it off, he loves it and insists that he doesn't care what others think of a kid in Grade 6 sporting facial hair.  He also has a speech issue, which has gotten considerably worse since we arrived here, probably due to the emotional turmoil he has been experiencing, and it is doubtful that the weekly speech therapy that should have been well arranged and in place now via satellite from Yellowknife will happen at all.  As a result, Patrick is a major target for the bullies in his class.

And his class has some major bullies.  These kids come from broken homes where they are bullied and abused by their own families and/or neighbours.  Some of them have parents who are hardly ever in Tuk, having chosen other priorities in their lives outside of the community, leaving their children on their own, or whose parents refuse to believe that their precious darlings are capable of such atrocities.  Some kids are also from families who have been bullying other families up here for years, and so those kids can do what they want and get away with it.  It's pathetic and enraging all at the same time.

Patrick's teacher has been amazing about keeping what she calls "the pack of wolves" away from our son in the classroom, but all it takes is for her to turn her back for a second to grab some handouts or to work one-on-one with another student and then the wolves attack, leaving my son hurting and loosing faith in humanity, one insult at a time.  Patrick did do something about it, and told Greg and I and his teacher and the principal all about the names he is being called, the comments about his appearance and his speech, and the pranks they pull on him, such as dumping garbage  and stealing items out of his desk.  The verbal abuse has been the worst of it, though.  When those kids were spoken to about bullying Patrick, they got mad and chased him home from school that day.

Patrick bore this pretty well, although we began to notice that the wonderful spark in our son's eye had gone.  He had come to me several times crying and saying he was homesick, and there was a time when we were all terribly homesick, but this ran deeper.  We noticed that Patrick was not participating in family events, choosing instead to read in his bedroom, where he could escape into his imagination and enjoy some time away from the nightmare he has to call reality.  We were all so relieved about getting out of Tuk to go home to our family and friends for the Christmas Holidays, that we never thought for a moment of what would happen when it was time to go back to Tuk.

Patrick kept it all inside until Monday, January 5th, the first day back to school.  On our way out the door he started panicking.  He freaked out, and he would NOT set foot in his classroom!  He just couldn't make himself do it, and when we realized the extent of his suffering, we didn't push him.  Emergency meetings with his teacher and the principal and commitment from Greg and I to Patrick's education has allowed us to completely remove our son from his classroom.  He is working on Independent Study now, and he doesn't have contact with his classmates any longer.

And it's not just Patrick.  James told us tearfully the other day that the bullies in Patrick's class were making nasty comments to him, too during gym class.  Grade 6 and Grade 7 have a combined gym class, so James and Patrick are together.

Charlotte and I watched a bully viciously attack another boy on the playground at recess the other day.  She saw the bulging eyes of the boy who was being attacked and realized that the bully had his gloved hand over the mouth and nose of the kid, suffocating him.  She started screaming at him to stop and when that didn't work after a few seconds she started pummelling him on the back.  Once that kid was hauled off his victim, he said that he was mad at Charlotte for hitting him.  Since this kid is a notorious bully, Charlotte panicked, and refused to go back to school that afternoon and the day afterward.  She was convinced this kid would come after her because that's what he has done in the past with other kids, and due to an incident at lunchtime where her hat and mittens were taken from her coat and thrown up and down the hallway, she is convinced it was him and freaked out.

Steps have been taken with all the teachers and all the administration of the school to ensure our children's safety, but I understand why they are still extremely nervous and now approach a school day with anxiety.  Now I do, too.

Oh yeah, and both Greg and I have been in situations where people have tried to bully us.  We have both been able to laugh and walk away, but we were well aware of what it was.

Where are the kids learning this bullying behaviour?  From their siblings and the people who bully them, from their parents, and their grandparents, and their great-grandparents.  There are generations of bullies, and it is well known that those who are bullied by others will often bully others.  This is very much the case with the boys who bully Patrick.  There are families up here who bully each other.  I have heard grown adults say that it was okay that their kid beat another kid up because he was a _____________(insert last name here).  There is a pecking order of families up here, and it all goes by your last name.  In Tuk, and indeed many northern communities, bullying has reached epidemic proportions.

We are fighting back, or we are trying.  We are protecting our children as best we can, and we are encouraging them to find their voice so that they can speak out against what is happening here.  And perhaps that is why I am writing this blog.  It has to stop.  Now.