Good on her.
Being bullied in school is a very frightening experience, especially as a young child.
You feel powerless and unable to escape the situation.
Having being bullied myself throughout secondary school I can still remember how scared I felt and I even started skipping school so I wouldn’t have to face my bullies.
It’s never an easy situation to find yourself and it’s often difficult to know what to do but this young girl came up with an idea that proved effective at keeping the bullies at bay.
Ten-year-old Giada Oates from Hackensack, New Jersey, decided to start carrying a whistle in her school bag after suffering a serious attack from a boy in her school.
The young girl was grabbed from behind by a young boy who put her in a choke hold while telling her she was going to die.
Giada told The New York Post that she felt close to passing out but wouldn’t allow herself to;
“If he’d held me for a minute longer, I would have fainted to the floor. I was trying not to cry, saying to myself, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ ”
The horrible incident was later reported to both the school principle and the police.
Since the assault Giada has taken to wearing a whistle around her neck which she blows whenever she feels threatened by a bully in school.
She says within moments a teacher will appear which really deters the bullies from bothering her.
Since Giada began wearing a whistle other children at her school have started to do the same, mostly girls due to unwanted sexual attention including their bums being pinched.
I think Giada is incredibly clever and brave for standing up to her bullies in this way but it saddens me that Giada and other pupils at her school feel the need to protect themselves in this way. Hopefully better anti-bullying education can be put in place to stop the bad behaviour in its tracks.
