Roughly 160,000 students have skipped school because of bullying.

Bullying is an ongoing crisis in our country and all over the world. Normalizing the talk of bullying has created helplines and other ways to prevent this issue. But bullying still rises as kids find new ways to hurt feelings through social media and other online platforms.

The most common form of bullying in schools is verbal harassment.

Even the classic quote of Thumper “If you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all” can’t help all schools prevent bullying. But we sure can try with all our might to stop this negative cycle! Daniel Thigpen is a second-grader at Penderlea Elementary School in North Carolina.

It was supposed to be a special day at school celebrating career day.

Daniel was so excited because he knew exactly what he wanted to dress up as! A Pender County sheriff to be exact. Daniel had the patches, hat, flashlight, and handcuffs dressed ready to celebrate.

But Daniel’s day, unfortunately, took a turn for the worst when his classmates started bullying him saying he wasn’t good enough to be a sheriff.

Daniel got home and told his mom the disappointing news and her heart sank. Daniels’s mother works for the 911 Communications Center in Pender County, and that’s how Daniel bloomed his dream of becoming a sheriff himself. Daniel’s mother Lizzie said

“I have a bunch of friends who are in law enforcement and he looks up to a lot of them and he looked at me not too long ago and was like ‘that’s what I want to do when I grow up’ and I thought that was great,”

Daniel is a kid surrounded by wonderful role models and it is heart-breaking to know his classmates belittled his dream.

But little did Daniel know he would have much more support than he could ever imagine. His mother Lizzie went to Facebook and expressed the upsetting incident that happened at school. When some Pender County deputies got word of the sad news they immediately reached out to Lizzie with a brilliant idea.

Luitenant Cotten of Pender County proposed to Lizzie that they wanted to escort Daniel to school!

Lizzie was overfilled with gratitude and the deputies were eager to help Daniel have a much better day. So that next week Luitenant Cotten and 6 of his other deputies rolled into school to surprise Daniel. Daniel was glowing with the brightest smile, Luitenant Cotten even said

“I mean the grin on his face… I swear it was from ear to ear. You could see all his teeth when he grinned.”

Daniels’s fear of going back to school vanished when he was surrounded by the best team around. The 7 sheriffs walked Daniel to class and he was lifted from the funk his classmates put him in. Daniel was reassured that the skies the limit and he can pursue any dream he imagines.

This heart-warming story shows how kindness is much more powerful than any bully could be. For the full story check out the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/lizzie.williamson.524/posts/2468497470130882

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Source: Spotlight Stories, WECT News 6, DoSomething, Facebook