Greetings to all of you who make up the big family of this beautiful community! When I read this month's topic that invites us to discuss bullying or school bullying I wanted to tell my experience how I felt helpless as a mother when my daughter was a victim of school bullying.

I always had a very special relationship with my 3 daughters. When I would come home from work we would lie on my bed and we would all tell each other everything that happened during the day, one by one, the good, the bad, what made us laugh and what made us sad.

I taught them to stand up for themselves, not to be bullied by anyone and of course to respect both their classmates and their teachers. Many times they asked me how to act if a classmate tells me every day an insult, I advised them to go to the teacher and expose the classmate. I never had to go to school because everything was solved.

When my oldest daughter reached the 5th grade of elementary school, she started telling me about the bullying from a group of male classmates. When she would arrive at school, she studied in the afternoon shift so the school transportation would drop her off at the institution before 1pm, there was a boy from the morning shift waiting for her to harass her. He would chase her through the hallways to kiss her without her consent. This boy, who was older than her, since he was in the 6th grade, told the boys who were studying with my daughter and they began to do the same. They were complimenting her, chasing her during recess to give her snacks and they all wanted to team up with her so as not to leave her alone during class time.

This set off the alarm bells, when my daughter told me about it I felt powerless***, I didn't know what else to recommend her to do, because she wasn't going to spend the whole day glued to the teacher to be left alone. The time came when the child was not in the mood to go to class.

In those days, the class content indicated that they had to learn the parts of a letter in order to write one correctly. The teacher told them to choose someone, write a letter correctly and turn it in as homework.

My daughter asked me for help with this assignment, as she had to turn in the letter the next day. I told her: Why don't you write the letter to your teacher? That way you can explain everything that is going on and ask her to help us find the solution. The girl liked the idea and started to express everything on paper. Of course, my motherly voice was also reflected in the postscript of that letter where I told the teacher that I was aware of everything and that I needed her help.

I know that it is not easy to have control of all the students, especially when they are in the last years of elementary school, entering adolescence. I was a teacher for 23 years in elementary schools and I understood my daughter's teacher perfectly well, but I also knew that she could stop this situation. So I asked her as a mother.

My daughter told me that the teacher received all the letters when she entered the classroom. And after recess time the girl saw how the teacher cried when she read her letter, when she learned of her daughter's feelings, when she read that the girl felt sad, cornered, uncomfortable, angry and that many times she didn't want to go to school. She called my daughter and the school counselor and brought everyone involved to some sort of trial.

They summoned me to the school and the representatives of those boys. We all talked and what I liked about this experience was that the kids themselves solved the problem. My daughter stood up and told them that she wasn't interested in love stuff right now, that she wanted to play in the hallways of the school with her friends and feel safe and calm at recess time. The boys pledged to respect her and the other classmates and they did.

The boys became friends again. They even shared activities and schoolwork. There was no repetition of any abusive situation against my daughter or the other girls. But the teacher and I were always on the lookout for any warning signs.

Fortunately, everything was resolved with several factors to keep in mind:

1. That the victim of bullying accepts and denounces what is happening.

2. That both parents and teachers are aware of the situation and help to resolve it.

3. That the bullies are exposed and try to reach an agreement.

4. That parents are aware of any uncomfortable situation that our children have at school, in the street, even in the same family.

It is true that we cannot be on top of our children all the time, but creating a relationship based on trust, where our children can tell us what they want or what they need to tell us, how they feel, how they want to act or ask us for advice, that is our way of protecting them and taking care of them even if we are not present in any situation. If there is no trust our children hide their feelings, they repress themselves and could be victims of bullying without anyone knowing it. We must be attentive and report any situation of bullying is part of the solution to the problem.

I hope my experience will help others who are going through something similar. Thank you very much for visiting my publication and see you next time.