John and I got an up close view of bullying at Club Med and it was pretty shocking. (This is in no way to take away from the glowing report in the previous entry. David seemed not to be bothered by the bullying, and we got over it.) Two boys attacked our son. John saw it first at the pool, and when I asked him what had happened, he couldn't explain it. I saw it in the ocean and could. I don't know how many of these mean behaviors have to come together for it to be officially bullying, but I think we were there.

Name calling: They called David monkey boy and not in a nice way.

Hiding the other's things: David put his sun glasses on the side of the pool. White shirt boy hid them. Black shirt boy returned them. Black shirt boy was not as bad, but was not innocent.

Rough housing: That's the nice word we use for play that is a bit mean or overly rough. John saw the rough housing in the pool.

Laughing at other's misfortune: Every time David's goggles came off in the waves, they laughed at him and loudly said, "He wiped out! Ha ha! Look how he wiped out!"

Hoping for the others misfortune: And then they said, "Come on Mother Nature, make him wipe out again!"

Threatening to hurt the other: Let's get him! Let's dunk him! (I watched this one closely, and they did not dunk him on my watch.)

Making a club whose purpose is to gang up on the other: After I called one of the boys on his behavior (see below), he suggested David could join their club as a solution. David said no.

Pretending the other did something wrong, so they have a reason to attack: When I talked to the boys, they said David splashed them. I have no doubt that David splashed them though it was in the pool where John was on duty, but they turned that into an excuse to attack. We could also call this responding to a small slight by the other with huge retaliation.


Writing this is very painful and infuriating for me, and David's reaction is hard for me as well. At first David seemed to be ignoring them or delightful, "Why can't we just enjoy the waves?" But then he played up his goat status--"Look at me, I totally wiped out again!" He did not like me intervening, though once I did it got a lot better, and he sought them out the rest of the night.

So, the intervention. The boy in the white shirt, who was the worst attacker, came up to me in the water (having no idea who I was) and asked to use my boogie board. I said, "No." Maybe he's not used to being turned down because he said, "Why not?" I said, "Because that's my son over there, and I have not heard you say one nice thing to him the whole time I've been here. Everything out of your mouth has been mean. Why should I share with you?" He did not deny he had been consistently mean. He offered to let David join the club. Then he borrowed someone else's boogie board. Then he introduced himself to me, and we shook hands. And, the attacks stopped. I'm not sure it became a healthy friendship, but luckily he left two days later.