10-year old Ashlynn Conner commits suicide

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . November 14, 2011 . 5:40PM

This is my kneejerk reaction, so I don’t know if this will be a well-thought out post that elicits the response of “thank you and I appreciate what you wrote.” I am ok with this. Right now, I keep repeating to myself, and over and over, “This is not ok. This is not ok. This is not ok.” I’m angry and no, this is not ok.

My son, AJ, is 10 years old. He is in the fifth grade.

Ashlynn Conner was 10 years old and in the fifth grade. Ashlynn’s mother reported that, last Thursday, Ashlynn came home from school and asked to be placed in homeschool because other children called her fat, a slut and bullied her constantly. Ashlynn’s mother declined, as most mother’s I know would. Unlike most mothers I know, she did not press the issue further. The following morning, Ashlynn’s sister found her hanging from a scarf in her closet.

I’m about to get judgmental and self-righteously angry. If that kind of behavior bothers you or you want to play the “no blame” game where the lives of children are concerned because the people who knew her are being punished enough right now, you should probably stop reading.

Ashlynn’s mother, Stacy, notes that Ashlynn had come home crying from school two weeks ago because kids were taunting her. She states that she “thought her kids were strong kids” implying that kids that can’t handle bullying are weak and that her own daughter, who committed suicide, wasn’t strong because she couldn’t handle what was coming at her because Stacy’s “guidance” should have been stronger than the constant barrage of nastiness coming at her at school. I want to challenge that statement with perhaps her daughter didn’t feel supported in any environment.

Stacy noted that kids both at school and in their neighborhood bullied Ashlynn and called her ugly and she hopes that Ashlynn’s story will prevent other kids from being bullied. What stopped this mother from preventing her own child from being bullied? What allowed her to step back and let kids in the neighborhood and in her school overtake adult sensibilities and prevent her from protecting her child in her learning environment, at the very least? How does allowing the death of her child to protect others absolve her from how very little she did to protect her child?

I understand Stacy is hurting. Never, in anything she tells the press, did anything she say indicate to me that she took any measure to protect her child. It takes a lot for a child to come to a parent begging to be removed from a school environment. I don’t pretend I know what kind of child Ashlynn Conner was. I don’t know if she was a dramatic child who overemphasized everything, but I highly doubt that there were no signs that this child was struggling, especially considering her mother admitted to them. There are national laws preventing bullying in school systems. Where was this child’s teacher? Where was this child’s school staff? Where was the communication between them and the parent? You can try to justify to me that a teacher has 30 students, but not every teacher in this child’s day had no time to notice what was going on if she was being called “fat,” “ugly,” and a “slut.”

Someone explain this to me, because I don’t understand why no one is being called on the inattention to her cries for help or the inaction by any adult in the life of this 10-year old child. On a personal note, my son left his last school, on the last day of school, with his school tshirt covered in black marker thanks to two bullies in his class. I immediately contacted his principal and informed him that the teacher was notified and she did nothing. I also let him know that she’d been notified that these two children had continued to bully my son throughout the year and she’d promised me that she was “taking care of it.” I was aware of the school bullying policy and the national laws regarding bullying and that he was welcome to call me to discuss it. That teacher was not asked back to teach this year.

This year, my son started school and one of those two children was in his class and immediately started the same issues. I contacted the teacher and stated that I would like a conference with her regarding this. Within 30 minutes of school starting the following morning, both boys were in the guidance office and the issue was fixed. I can’t discuss why the other boy bullies, as it has to do with his own personal issues, but he does not bully my son or the other children at that school anymore. I stepped in when his guardian wouldn’t due to her inattention or unwillingness because I have to protect MY child.

Being an interactive parent is one of the most important parts of parenting. There is no excuse for not being an interactive parent. I have as many irons in the fire as anyone I know, and if you read this blog, you understand why. I am as involved in my son’s life as I can be, even on the days where I don’t get home until it’s time for him to go to bed.

Not every parent has the proper skills for parenting. To me, that is not a get out of jail free card when you fail your children. It does not mean that you use your story as a warning to other parents to absolve yourself. It means you buck up and take the punishment when you fail them so miserably that you’ve caused neglect through inaction or death through negligence. Where were the school counselors? Where was the mental health help here?

Absolutely, use Ashlynn Conner’s death as a warning to other parents, but don’t let this slip into just another story we forget next week. Use it to promote better policies and procedures in school. Force interaction between staff and parents. Use it to promote outreach to parents on protocol when their child is bullied and for the sake of all this is good, parents and teachers, bullying is ZERO TOLERANCE. Don’t toe the line with it. Little bullies grow up to be big bullies.

Edit: Another 10 year old girl, this one from North Carolina, has hanged herself. Jasmine McClain hanged herself on Monday after being bullied badly in school and, apparently, on Facebook (it’s possible that the sheriff just noticed kids coming forward to comment on the abuse on Facebook). She had left her school for a while to escape the bullying, but returned a month ago. Her mother says she was “unaware that Jasmine was so tormented.” Again, in this situation, I have no idea how someone claims to be unaware after removing her child from school and only allowing her back last month. I’ve already backed my opinions up in the comments, though, so please read those if you would like to fricassee me for being upset with the mother in this case. If parents and school administration are not prompted at this point to take a hard stand about bullying TODAY, AT THIS INSTANT, then we as a society need to force the issue. ENOUGH. No one is allowed to claim ignorance about this anymore. No one is allowed to blame others. We must address this and it must happen now.

Also, I saw this while I was reading last night and I thought to myself, “If this is what our special needs kids are dealing with we need to flush out our schools completely and start over.”

Edit: 11/20/11 Excellent information on what a parent whose child is being bullied can do. I found this on Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is an amazing website. Please go look around on there. They have warning signs, a pledge to stop bullying, and a few other things that are tied to this specific topic. Plus, they are a good site to have on hand with the rate of suicide in our country.

Edit: 12/16/11 Jerome Sattler, considered a founding father where school psychology is considered because he writes the books that are considered the “bibles” for the profession, has done a great public presentation on bullying/cyber bullying that I highly recommend. You can find it here at the psychology page for San Diego State University where he is a Psychology Professor.

Children and Compassion

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . November 5, 2011 . 6:13PM

I was reading an article recently that was discussing a study showing results indicating that babies have a strong sense of fairness and altruistic features. While I don’t know if I agree with the results, as I’ve read reactions citing that altruistic reactions could also be due to other factors and there is no causation when you do studies such as these, the study made me thoughtfully consider children and the way they treat others. I have seen compassionate and sympathetic babies. AJ was a particularly sympathetic little one and would cry when other babies would cry, matching their tone and stopping immediately when they would look at him in wonder and put their little baby hands out to him in a gesture of baby unity.

Little league ended a couple of weeks ago, but I have been remiss in getting my thoughts on this down. Little league is no different than any other setting for children to display beautiful acts of compassion for others. One child on AJ’s team was lovingly nicknamed “Roly Poly.” Roly Poly has such heart when he plays that when a ball comes near him he automatically dives and rolls for it. Roly Poly is a vivacious, thoughtful child who is a strong ballplayer and a sweet child. AJ, particularly, enjoys playing ball with him. The first game we had in October showed Roly Poly in some shockingly pink socks as well as a hot pink sweatband on his arm that designated it was breast cancer awareness month. Roly Poly is 10. He continued to wear hot pink the rest of the month, though no one else on his team or on the league did.

My son has his moments as well. He frequently plays catcher and can be particularly empathetic to those poor kids that strike out. I’ve noticed, repeatedly, that when someone strikes out on our team or the other, that AJ will pat them on the helmet and say, “Nice try, buddy.” It’s not just good sportsmanship. It’s not that he’s not competitive. It’s that he understands that feeling and it’s not a good one and he doesn’t want that other kid to feel bad or alone.

When a child goes down on the field with an injury, the kids immediately take a knee and I notice that many of them are fixated on how they can help the child who is hurt. AJ, as a catcher, is generally in the mix of this as many of those accidents occur near home plate. I see his little brow furrow, and him run to the child as the coaches surround them and he tries to help in any way he can. I see kids pat each other on the back after a great play, console each other after a bad game and, for those that have a bad home life, spend time talking to their team mates and trying to forget life for a while.

Yes, children are compassionate and I know that we want to know when all of that begins, but I’m not sure it matters. What matters to me is that it exists and that it is beautiful.

Teachers and their role in bullying

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . April 3, 2011 . 1:18AM

As I taught my classroom full of teachers, I looked around the room and my heart grew heavy. Often, my classroom deviates from the class lesson to discuss practical application of our learned principles and today I had to discuss something that bothered me on a personal level. I was teaching my students about the development of the young minds that they would help shape and role model behavior at impressionable ages and they far outnumbered me, the new teacher of two years. Frankly, few things intimidate me, but I was going to call them out in advance on something that they needed to learn now, before they did something that could hurt someone tremendously and I wasn’t looking forward to a potential negative response. However, fear has never stopped me from saying what needed to be said, especially when I had the opportunity to use it as a teachable moment and I wiped my hands on my jeans and turned to them.

“You all want to be teachers. We’ve talked about bullying, but what you probably don’t realize is that some of the biggest offenders of bullying in schools are the staff. That’s right. I’m pointing my finger at all of you and telling you now to be careful how you conduct yourself because your actions can be just as, if not more, harmful than the actions that these students deal with in their peers. I recently read a study that told me that teachers instigate bullying on a regular basis. The ways they do this are by ignoring children that are “dumb,” laughing at the jokes children make at another child, feeding into the relational aggression ala Mean Girls by taking sides or allowing it in their classrooms, lunch rooms, gymnasiums and hallways, or, what I consider to be most hurtful, going into their teacher’s lounge and commiserating about children and actively working against the better needs of the child by making the child a pariah amongst the adults as well. They also do this by writing intentionally vague and negative comments that stay in a child’s report card file until they graduate high school. This is all BULLYING and YOU are going to buy into it…unless you consider it and stop yourself now. You can do this with self-awareness and the knowledge that you will NOT be that kind of teacher and that you are teaching to make a positive impact and not crush a child’s will.”

By this time, I was gaining momentum. The room was completely silent. I have my class write journals and I knew that some of them had been bullied by teachers. One of the ways I teach my students is to share stories with them about my experiences both as a student and as a teacher. Now was the time for me to wince and share some of my personal experiences. Earlier this semester, I’d had them do an experiment on assumptions and write a journal about it. One assumption they made about me was that I’d never been bullied. It’s not true. I’d been bullied by a few students, but what really impacted me was the way some of my teachers treated not only me, but my fellow students.

“When I was in high school, I was pretty naive. I thought that teachers always had your best interests in mind and that they could be counted on to act like adults. I’d had an experience in junior high where I’d made the mistake of acting like I was going to throw my basketball at my coach. She flipped out, screamed at me in front of my team and shamed me. I didn’t play much that season and I never tried out for basketball again. Looking back on that behavior as an adult, I’m appalled and curious as to why no one thought that behavior was irrational at the time? However, in high school, I had this idea that everything was going to be different. New friends, new classes, new teachers, a new start and that things were going to be ok. I was wrong.”

“See, adults still do the petty things adults do, even when they teach. Professionalism is key. An English teacher lost her cool and called an entire sophomore class “a bunch of bitches.” She later apologized, but I don’t remember her getting into any real trouble for something that, as a parent, I would take serious issue over. We weren’t acting like a “bunch of bitches” that day. She was having a bad day, we were all working on projects and we weren’t moving quickly enough is what I remember. I was surprised and vaguely concerned that she’d lost her marbles. She also put on the school’s musical. I was helping with sound and when a tape was played improperly she went berserk. It heavily defined my high school years. Not only did she go crazy on me for what another person admitted was that person’s fault at having not rewound the tape earlier in the evening, but she didn’t bother to defend me to an angry cast of people. She walked out of the auditorium and left a freshman to deal with something that was beyond her control. I dealt with the fallout from that for not days, not weeks, not months, but YEARS. I still have nightmares about that. As adults, you are responsible for YOUR responses and for helping to calm the responses of others.”

As I spoke, some students began to look nervously at their hands and what I realized is that they weren’t bored. They weren’t uncomfortable with my story. My story had triggered their stories. I went on.

“Around that time, because of the issue with that teacher, I began lying about things to look better. I was miserable with life. I felt like I had no support and that people weren’t listening when I’d defend myself with the truth so lies were better. Because of that, when I auditioned for something that meant a lot to me, I didn’t make it. When I went to talk to the new sponsor for that activity, it ultimately boiled down to my not being able to be in the activity because a couple of the guys in that activity couldn’t get beyond it and they were short on guys. It wasn’t my lack of talent. It wasn’t that I wasn’t capable. It was that the guys couldn’t get beyond and they couldn’t lose them. The teacher had not only allowed the bullying, he’d promoted it. He didn’t help their growth and he shattered my self-esteem.”

I took a deep breath and sat down at my table in the front of the room.

“Why am I telling you this? Do I need you to feel sorry for me? Absolutely not. I am less than a year from getting my doctorate and I have no idea what path my life would have taken had I not developed the resolve that those experiences gave me. I’m telling you this because every single action you take as an educator COUNTS. Every minute of every day, every smile, every frown, every word, every shrug. It all counts. When you take actions to make your everyday life easier at the cost of hurting a child, you have no idea what the repercussions may be or how long-lasting. I remember those teachers. Let me tell you what else I remember. I remember the fourth grade teacher that wrote to me for 2 years after I moved because I was lonely. I remember the high school communication student teacher that taught me how to be a confident speaker. I remember the band teacher that gave me a chance to learn an instrument when all of the other students had been playing for years. I remember the community college professor that listened to what I wrote and proclaimed it brilliant. I remember the undergraduate professor who still writes me to tell me he’s proud of what I’m doing. I remember the masters professor who comments on my accomplishments with such happiness that I smile to know that she genuinely cares. I remember the doctoral professors who cared enough that in some dark days they cut me a real break when I needed it. I remember ALL those teachers. The good and the bad. What kind of teacher will you be? Whatever kind it is, you will be remembered. But HOW will you be remembered?”

I closed my eyes, shuffled my papers and waited. My students are insightful and this sparked discussion as to the experiences they had and the problems that they’d encountered. Those aren’t mine to share. As we grow up, we forget what it is like to be a child. We forget that people aren’t always nice and those that are supposed to protect us, advocate for us, don’t always do their job. Hopefully, I reminded them and they take it with them. If they don’t, they can always email me and I’ll give them advice.

It’s my job.

Integrity after the Nashville flood

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . March 20, 2011 . 12:02PM

When Nashville was flooded at the end of April last year, it shook the community. Strangely enough, Nashville didn’t get much national media coverage, nor did we receive very much financial assistance from outside sources. Celebrities outside of Nashville didn’t rush to hold telethons to help us nor did the President rush in to assist us. Rather, the people in Nashville pulled together to work as a whole and fix what was broken. The celebrities that lived here put on concerts to assist in relief efforts, or donated cash to help out, and the Nashville flood went quietly into the record books.

Except it didn’t. We just aren’t whining about it. It’s still affecting people here, almost a year later. Insurance companies rushed to deny people coverage and avoid responsibility. People lost homes, businesses and their lives. Some haven’t recovered, may never recover, from the trauma of a rain that came on with less than a couple of hours notice.

In the face of adversity, there are signs of character, however, and sometimes it is important to note that character when it is seen, because it can be so rare. In my small town of Franklin, TN, there was an area of town where the businesses and homes faced extreme devastation. While all of those people and places deserve mention, there is something in particular I feel is important. Our Sonic burger joint was destroyed. It was shut down for almost 8 months because there was just no way they could make the old building work after what happened to it.

You may believe there is nothing important as to a business being shut down and rebuilt after a flood. Here is what makes it special. The other evening, I was sitting and watching my son play Little League Baseball. The people that make his baseball, and the baseball for this entire community, happen, have had extreme difficulty finding sponsors. It seems that with the flood and the economy, people just aren’t willing to reach into their pockets so little kids can play baseball. Businesses have to run and make a profit and all of those things, so when it comes down to it, sponsoring a little kids baseball team might not mean much to a local business facing the adversity of the economy. When gas is $3.49 a gallon (at last check), decisions have to be made. I get it.

However, those children feel the burn of the economy, too, as do their parents, and trust me when I say that the parents are very aware of who the sponsors of these teams are and what they are doing for the kids. So, as I sat there watching my precious cargo smile and throw a ball and learn how to play on a team and laugh, I looked at those sponsor signs and smiled. I chose to eat at Jet’s Pizza that night because they sponsored the Franklin Baseball Club. As I looked around, however, I noticed there were a plethora of signs from…Sonic?

Truly? I knew the local Sonic had been a huge sponsor in seasons past, but they lost everything last year. How could they afford to stay in the game this year? Not only did they sponsor the teams, but they also placed brand new signs (much needed!) designating the visitor and home sides on each and every bullpen. My eyes blurred with tears and I thought about the sacrifices people make to help others when things are not easy for them and it made me realize that for all the people that have not moved forward, some have done so spectacularly.

My local Sonic has done amazing things. They have rebuilt with a gorgeous building and landscaping, the food is actually better than it was, the service more prompt and I enjoy going there a lot more now. I will be giving them my business as much as is possible because I know that they support my son, my community, and myself. It’s important to support the places that are willing to stick their necks and their pennies out there to make the community a better place for all of us. They are investing in our kids.

Thanks, Sonic. I want you to know, today, that I appreciate what you are doing to make it possible for my kid to play this season. They didn’t have enough sponsors and when that happens, kids don’t get to play, like my son didn’t last fall. Thank you.

I can’t get that song out of my head!

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . September 16, 2010 . 12:19AM

Yesterday, AJ and I were sitting on the couch and I heard him singing. He loves to sing, but rarely does it in front of people. I remember when he was in the womb and he’d bounce to certain songs when they’d come on the radio. He’d kill me if he knew I was telling you his favorite song was “Lucky” by Britney Spears. No joke. The kid would bounce like a fiend when it came on, as it was popular at the time, and you could see the outline of two little fists coming out of my stomach like little Alien movie wannabes. It was both frightening and exhilarating for me as a mother-to-be to recognize that my son had a personality even at that stage.

I’m really glad he has no idea where this blog is, nor does he read it, or he’d likely never speak to me again for telling you what I just told you.

Anyway, the boy loves music. He’ll sing in front of people when we play Rock Band but only because it’s “for the music.” I told you he has personality. When I tell people my kid is cool they don’t really believe me and they don’t really understand until they meet him and realize that he actually does seem to process things differently than other kids his age. There’s a 36-year-old hair band member in that 9-year-old body. At 3, his favorite song was by Bon Jovi.

I digress, I digress. I have no idea why anyone reads this blog because all I do is digress. I’ve turned into my 80-something grandmother.

So, AJ loves music. Yes, that was like 4 paragraphs ago. Get off my lawn. I heard him humming on the couch. Wait, that’s not true. It wasn’t just humming. It was full out song. “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she commmmmmmmmmmes, when she comes. She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes.” I’m sure they learned the whole song. This was the part that was stuck in his head, though. For an hour I heard this until finally I looked at him, made sure he saw me, gave him my most charming grin and sang loudly, “She’ll be coming round the mountain, she’ll be coming round the mountain, she’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes!”

He couldn’t stop laughing. The giggles overtook him, then me. We laughed loud and long together. He gasped at me, “Ma-Ma-Mama, I couldn’t help it! It just got stuck in my head and wouldn’t go away!” We sang it a couple more times and laughed louder and longer. We often sing together in the car. Lately it’s been songs from Glee. Yesterday it was songs from elementary school.

Now if I can just get the theme song for Veronica Mars out of my own head, I’ll be set.