Next on the Girls' Wish List

Those American Girl dolls have really taken over our house, and now Chrissa is next on the girls' wish list. If you're not familiar with the marketing prowess surrounding these dolls, you should check it out. It definitely works on Abbie & Kait.

Monday night, we went over to some friends' to watch Chrissa's movie on HBO. It was the premier, and I'd seen enough about it on the website to know I really wanted the girls to see it.

The movie directly addresses bullying in schools -- an age-old practice that never seems to end. I really think it's a perfect movie for young girls to see. In fact, there is a school-based program built around the movie. And if you didn't know there was a doll attached, you wouldn't learn that from the movie.

On the way home, the girls and I had a very frank discussion about bullying. This was a hard conversation for me, because I had to admit to having been on both ends of the bullying spectrum.

When I was in school, I remember being referred to as "Dorky D'Lyn" more than a few times. And when we had our 10th year reunion, some of my classmates enjoyed the walk down memory lane that included a "newsletter" that had been produced, making fun of me, when we were in high school.

I had never known about the newsletter, but even as an adult, it hurt me to know about it -- so much so that I spent the bulk of the evening visiting with my brother-in-law and vowed not to go back for my 20th reunion. It's not so much that it hurt then -- when I was an adult. But it broke my heart to think of how that would have hurt me had I known about it way back when. And it really did hurt to see how much they enjoyed the memory of making it.

The successful part of me that has a wonderful husband and two beautiful children still remembers those awkward years where I couldn't score a basketball goal if my life depended on it and could have never made the cheerleading squad.

But don't think I was the only one that faced bullying. It's kind of ironic that both the 4th and 5th graders studied the food chain today. Bullying takes place at all levels in the pecking order. If there was a way I could find Billy and Betty Welch and apologize to them for any pain I caused, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Those two children needed friendship and kindness and they got anything but that.

If you have young girls, I really recommend they watch this movie. It'll be on HBO again this Saturday at 1:30 Eastern. It's also available at http://www.americangirl.com/. They not only need to know that bullying is wrong. They also need to know that if they are the ones being bullied, they can do something about it.