I had a wonderful afternoon visit with our certified Australian trainers for the anti-bullying program, ‘Breaking Out of the World Game’. Principals John Faulkner & Louise McKay have done over 12 trainings so far and are gearing up to train more schools in the Victoria district.
It’s been a long day for me traveling, speaking, and teaching.
But it’s been a far longer day for the parents of the two young people in the Ohio shooting that lost their fight for life today.
I cannot imagine the agony of the longest prayer and deepest asking a heart can bear that a parent would do at the bedside of their child.
I never had children of my own. But to have a child, to dream of that child growing up, to send my child to school one day and then meet the doctor at the hospital in a fight for the life of my beloved son or daughter and feel the powerlessness that they must have felt…
To not be able to stop the hands of time as they slowly pulled my child from my arms and watch in unimaginable horror as my child slipped through the veil beyond my reach… Is beyond where my heart and mind can go.
I ask myself, “How could we not have seen it coming?” “Didn’t anyone notice something, anything that might have signaled that something was wrong – something was out of kilter?”
We all need to be better at reading the symptoms, signs and signals. They were there. It’s time to take a stand.
One more time a tragedy has hit our nations schools. The shooting of 5 students by A young boy who had been bullied makes every mother’s heart break for the loss.
This is a tragedy of major proportions…for the children who were shot, for the child who will not see the light of another day on Earth, and for the student who saw this as the only means of expression.
My heart cries out, “Could this tragedy have been prevented?”
We need to get to the root of issue. Bullying is not an isolated incident! It doesn’t happen one time and cause this kind of a reaction.
Up until now, I said that, ‘Breaking Out of the World Game’ (our anti-bullying program) is an intervention program. Maybe our intervention program needs to be called a prevention program and taught as part of the required curriculum in every school.
Let me say this in another way. Is it time to make an anti-bullying program a prerequisite in every school? If we have come to this, let’s admit it and take a stand as parents and concerned community members. Let’s not lose one more child to our paralysis. Let us act on behalf of every family in America.
It starts with the little abrasive things that we do and say to each other and builds up on daily. If not curbed it turns into teasing and taunting and mental and emotional abuse.
We cannot turn our backs any longer. It is you and I as adults who are on trial here.
I am asking for other voices… your voice to join the call. This is dedicated to our children and our children’s children that they may grow up to live a full life.
My prayers go out to the mother’s and families involved. But are we not all involved? Are we not of this nation and this world? Let the sacrifices stop. For every sacrifice belongs to us if we do not take a stand.
My deepest apologies to all of you parents and teachers who were with me for those two wonderful evening events in Melbourne. That you all came out to discuss the issues we are addressing for your children and for the three schools involved was inspiring. Parents are often tired after a full day of work and though that might have been the case with you, all of you showed up and stayed for the full evening.
I apologize for not getting these
slides up on the site for you earlier, but I have had a personal emergency with my mother.
Again, THANK YOU for your support of our children and the welfare of our world’s future.
Louise Mackay can be reached at:
lmackay@slwntma.catholic.edu.au
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