When bullies drive you to mom rage - pt 1 "The Volleyball Experience"

 

I have been experiencing the most overwhelming mom rage and I have no idea how to manage it.  My daughter is being bullied at multiple levels at her high school - from teammates, from coaches, from administrators issuing consequences - and I have completely lost my ability to manage my emotions around the situation.  It's toxic.  I know it's toxic.  It's making a bad situation worse.  I know all this, but I can't get control.  

Last year, my 14 year old was a freshman at a small Lutheran high school.  Almost all of the children at this school came from a close-knit network of Lutheran grade schools and knew each other well.  My daughter was the outsider and I explained to her this was going to be challenging.  She was confident she could handle it.  She had attended their volleyball camp at end of summer and the kids were so nice and she had so much fun.  So, we enrolled her and the first few weeks went well.  She made JV volleyball and seemed to be making friends with kids on the team.

Things started to change.  I was picking her up from practice in tears.  The coach was yelling at her, and only her, frequently and harshly.  I listened and consoled.  We talked about how tough coaches can be sometimes and got her calmed down.  But, the yelling continued and coach started throwing in a dose of humiliation.  One day, the team was standing in a circle discussing their game the next day.  Coach looked down at my daughter’s shoes with disdain and asked, “are you going to get new shoes?”.  We could have purchased volleyball shoes but my daughter didn't think it was necessary for a very short JV season at such a small school...and neither did I.  We bought the shoes.  Then, the team was instructed to line up and, one by one, take position so coach could give them feedback on form.  When my daughter took position, coach commented, “there’s so much wrong with that I don’t know where to start” and sent my daughter to the end of the line.  At another time, the team was broken into duos to do peppering.  My daughter’s partner was working on hitting and, as can be expected from a 14 year old learning volleyball, the hits were inconsistent and my daughter was chasing the ball a lot.  After a while, she got lazy chasing the ball and coach issued a reprimand that required mydaughter to answer.  My daughter answered, “ok” and coach yelled, “don’t say ok to me’.  My daughter panicked and said, “ok” again.  This happened a couple more times with coach becoming more angry each time.  Then she demanded my daughter do 20 push-ups while the team stood and watched.  At end of year, there was a volleyball quad and my daughter made an error on the court.  The coach lost her mind and screamed at my daughter so loud the the gym fell silent.  My daughter was so terrified she froze and couldn't function for the rest of her rotation.  She was removed from the game.

As my daughter's relationship with the coach deteriorated, so did her relationship with her teammates.  She became the joke of the team.  They joked about how she was stupid and couldn't do anything right.  Anytime a mistake was made, a teammate commented, "quit acting like daughter's name".  Items were getting stolen from her locker three times a month.  She tried to attend a football game and sit with her teammates and they pushed her off the bleacher seat saying there was no room.  She heard regular comments on what a mess her hair was and why she dressed like a lesbian.  My husband and I told her multiple times that we needed to talk to the coach and to address these issues, but she begged us not to and insisted that would make it worse.  So we stood by nervously and prayed the end of season come before her mental health was seriously affected.  When it finally ended, we hugged her, told her she hadn't done anything to deserve that treatment, and prayed we could move on and heal.