Can anyone explain?

My daughter came over last night for a natter and - did we natter? In fact at half past 12 there was a phone call to see if she was safe, the answer? "Yes, we're still talking."
It is not until you have one of those really good, lengthy discussions that things are dredged out of the past that you never knew about. I realised that for a long time in the past she was not comfortable in her own 'skin' so to speak and last night she talked for the first time about not feeling good about being intelligent! Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather - I just never knew this. Some of the gang she went around with at school were bright, but she apparently never actually felt that she was on the same planet as them. It was only when whe did her recent garden design course that a woman said to her," It's OK to be intelligent." (Gosh, the thngs you miss as a parent.... and the assumptions I made.) I make no bones about not being academic myself, this degree is a vertical learning curve for me (is there such a thing as a vertical curve!!?), however, what I didn't realise this was her insecurity about the same issue, albeit from a completely different angle.

The conversation then progressed onto other issues that has affected all of us - bullying. Both my children were bullied at school, she in fact sorted out one rather aggressive boy who was attacking her brother by lifting him up by the lapels of his jacket and threatning to sort him out. It worked - no more bother from that front. She suffered from other girls, and there were many nasty occurences during the days at school for her.
Then the bullying at work issue arose, we have both suffered from this; people who are supposedly adult cannot deal with someone being different. Why not? Where is the difficulty in this? We both agreed that some people do not have the courage to understand that being different is not a threat to them. Having another point of view does not mean that one cannot see their point of view and accept that perhaps it has to be the one that is adopted. Asking questions merely show curiosity and interest, not necessarily disagreement with the speaker.
Interestingly, when she leaves her job, there is a requirement that the person leaving is interviewed and gives their reasons for leaving. Now that strikes me as eminently sensible, in fact there could be an annual interview to discuss issues about the workplace so that these problems are not allowed to escalate into years of misery for people. The interviewer would need to be someone who is not involved with the establishment, in fact why wait until people leave, it could even be an online annual questionnaire. An approach of this kind could be something that might address this horrendous problem that so many people are needlessly facing. I t would also sort out other non-bullying issues like the need for a creche or other practical need that make work so difficult for families.

If we are so concerned about rooting out these nasty bullies, let us positively try to get rid of them from the family, the work place and schools as well as the streets.