Editor’s note: Sarah Moore is a featured blogger on CuddleBugs. She’ll be posting a two-part series this week on TweenBeat.

If you are just tuning in, please read Part One of my story here.

So where did my husband and I go wrong?  What happened?  I need someone or something to blame but I’m running in circles right now trying to find an answer where there might be none.

I know that her mother and father did not get along while they were married and had an especially ugly divorce and custody fight. Could that be it?  I just don’t know and Marissa had a hard time communicating with us about why she behaved in this way.

I considered the possibility of getting her some counseling but my husband is strongly against this, as if it would be admitting there might be something wrong with her, or even us, but I see it as a way to help this confused 11-year old confront her issues.

We spoke with Marissa on this topic and what she had done for a long time that night, and well into the weekend.  We tried to make her connect her actions and words to the whys and hows of the situation.  I even made her read the note aloud so she would hear how ugly those words were.  I showed her articles about recent bullying instances and the devastating results for the victims, such as suicide, failing school, school shootings, etc.

She was in tears during some of this, but I could not stop until she understood this was not a harmless joke.  Even telling the child she didn’t want to be his friend was mean, but then what she had written was despicable.

We asked Marissa to write apology notes to her teacher, to the child the note was directed at, and most importantly, to God.  We also have been praying more and reading the Bible together more as a family.  I am trying to find the positive in all this, so hopefully she has learned a valuable lesson.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.  Any thoughts on counseling?

Editor’s note: Sarah Moore is a featured blogger on CuddleBugs. She’ll be posting a two-part series this week on TweenBeat.

For those of you who don’t know me, I used to teach at an alternative school in the area, so I have a lot of experience with negative childhood behaviors, including bullying.

Usually the students would act out for reasons such as anger issues, various problems stemming from childhood, abuse, neglect, you name it.  We were trained in how to react and respond to these children and help them deal with what was going on with them.  Different methods seemed to help each child, and eventually I learned many ways to do so.  So why can’t I use this experience and training in my own household?

I never in a million years thought that I would see some of this disrespectful and downright hateful behavior from my own stepdaughter.  Marissa is a very intelligent, creative, and thoughtful person.  She has not been abused, neglected, or anything like that, so where did this all come from?

Apparently she was part of a group of kids that wrote a particularly nasty note to another child, telling him that they no longer wanted to be his friend.  Marissa was the author of said note, and even though she wrote it down it while someone else dictated it, in my book she is just as guilty as the rest of the group.

Marissa tried to defend her actions by telling us that the child was being mean to her and her friends and telling them they were stupid and to shut up, but we did not entertain that at all.  It is NEVER OK to hurt someones feelings, regardless of why, and I thought she knew this.

You may be reading this thinking, kids will be kids, but I am not finished yet.  In the letter there was some name-calling and some choice words, such as “gay.”  So guess what?  This “innocent” note just turned into a hate crime.

When I read this my heart broke, seeing what Marissa had done.  As Christians my husband and I believe that homosexuality is wrong, but our way of dealing with this is to love others even if we disagree with their lifestyles!  Never is it condoned to bully others and call them names, whether they are different than us or not.

To be continued…More on Thursday.

Have any of your kids either been the victim of bullying or the bully?  How did you handle this?