Ask Sam letter

Hi L,

I’m really pleased you’ve written to me to try to get some support for what you’re going through with this bully at school. 

Bullying is wrong and you have a right to feel safe at school so you shouldn’t have to be worried and scared that this girl will do something horrible to you, especially with the threats she is making to you. It sounds like you’ve been trying to cope with this for a couple of months now and have tried to tell someone at school and I am sorry to hear that they haven’t really taken you seriously at the moment. Your school should have an anti-bullying policy and take what you say seriously and have steps they should follow.

You haven’t said if you’ve told your parents or a trusted adult about this. Maybe this is something you could think about doing as your school will have to act on it and report back if someone were to talk to them about this.

It helps to keep telling until you find someone who will listen. It might also help if you were to make a diary/log of any time this girl says or does anything nasty towards you – even if it’s just a glare or hand signs. You don’t need anything complicated, you could just carry a sheet of paper with headings such as date, time, what happened and where, who else was around and how it made you feel. If there’s more than one sheet of paper you can keep them together somewhere safe rather than carry them around all of the time. With this evidence it will help school to see how bad this is for you. 

You’ve said about this girl also bullying your twin and best friend and how you’ve been supporting them but it’s getting too much for you now. Perhaps you could talk to them about ChildLine and how we can support them. I wonder if your twin and best friend might support you in trying to get the bullying stopped.

ChildLine would really like to continue support you so that you can try to stop this bullying and return to feeling safe and happy at school like you always have done before. You can ring us for free on 0800-1111 (calls don’t show up on bills); you can chat to us on-line through our 1-2-1 chat service or send an email.

You might also find some help and support on our website, particular in the Explore section where you’ll find information specific to bullying and also the Message Boards where young people support each other – you can just read through previous message threads or you could always start your own if you wanted to.

You’ve done really well telling us about this. We know that bullying is very difficult for young people to talk about and they are often made to feel scared about what will happen if they do say anything. This is wrong and you are entitled to talk to someone and to feel safe. Our counsellors are here to listen and support you whenever you need someone to talk to.

Take care,

Sam