I'm a Christian and you're not.

I've seen it happen. Girls can take the whole concept of being "unsaved" to uninformed, tween extremes. They look down on girls who don't know Christ, harshly excluding them from their circle of "saved" friends, telling them God doesn't love them because they haven't accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, spreading rumors that they're atheists or, hey, maybe even Satan worshipers. They missed the part where Jesus threw a fit right in the temple because religious cliques were doing those very things. A church following an us-versus-them theology often fosters this attitude.

How to know if your daughter is involved in bullying.

Actually, it's safe to say that she is involved, or will be at some point. To use the terminology of Barbara Coloroso, author of an in-depth book on peer abuse among both boys and girls, she has a strong chance of being either the bullied, the bully, or the bystander.7 Wherever she falls, she may not share her status with you. It's important, then, for you to know the signs so you can help. She's going to need you.

Signs that she may be bullied:

When she talks about the other girls, she expresses confusion, betrayal, hurt, sadness, or anger. Not just sometimes. Often.

She stops participating in activities she once enjoyed.

Where previously she was a good student, her schoolwork suffers.

She seems withdrawn and listless-more than just pubescently moody.

She suddenly seems to have no friends at all and may not give a reason why.

She experiences anxiety symptoms when she has to go to school or activities involving other girls. Hyperventilating, unexplained crying, and freezing up are common.

She develops mysterious physical symptoms, such as stomach pain, chronic headaches, constant nausea, all of which are real.

She's missing belongings, such as jewelry, that were once dear to her. She may not be able to tell you what happened to them.

She drifts off into her own world, even in the midst of family gatherings or crowds, so much so that it's hard to get her attention. When you do, she may not know what's been going on around her.

She has nightmares or has trouble getting to sleep.

She becomes over-the-top emotional over small issues at home, lashing out in inappropriate anger or crying uncontrollably-and you know this is not just PMS.

She mentions thoughts of death, or you notice cuts, scratches, or bruises that she can't or won't explain.

She stops wanting to eat, bathe, brush her hair-all the things a tween girl usually prides herself on doing on her own.

Signs that she may BE a bully:

She uses put-down language when she talks about other girls-words like loser, lame, stupid, and butt-ugly.

She isn't light-hearted with her friends-giggling, hugging, chattering. Their interactions are fraught with arguing and sulking.

She has trouble following rules, or manipulates her way out of following them.

She's either teacher's special pet or is always in trouble for defying authority.

You get the occasional call from a mother, saying your daughter is mean to hers. When you confront her, your daughter isn't upset that someone would say that about her. She's more likely to respond with, "That girl is such a crybaby. She can't even take a joke."

She doesn't cope well with stress. She blows up over small issues, and is easily frustrated when things don't fall into place.

She's overly moody, sometimes showing signs of depression.

Interesting, isn't it, how the victim and her target exhibit so many of the same behaviors? They're both acting out of pain, it would seem. How absolutely sad is that?

Signs that she is a bystander (witnessing bullying on a regular basis):

She may tell you about some of the bullying she's seeing, though she'll seldom do it in full detail.

If you suggest that you need to intervene, she may backpedal, say it isn't that bad, and ask you please not to say anything.

She may be unusually protective of her own circle of friends who talk about a girl or group they consciously stay away from.

She's possibly defensive about why she looks the other way. "I don't want to be the next victim." "Even if I tell, nobody will do anything. All the grown-ups think she's perfect." "It doesn't do any good to turn her in. Her dad has, like, all this money. She gets away with everything."

If you're realizing right now that your daughter is probably being bullied, may be a bully, or is standing by while bullying goes on, this is not one of your happier moments of motherhood. It's the dark side of childhood, and no mom wants her daughter to have any part of it. But please take heart. You can be of great help to her, more so than anyone else in her life. There may, in fact, be nobody else who will. It requires careful guidance from you, and you in turn need guidance, beginning, of course, with your Father.

From the Ultimate Parent

I've come to think of Psalm 55 as the Psalm of the Bullied. It's really uncanny how it applies to our mini-women.

Psalm-writer David has obviously been bullied: I shudder at the mean voice, quail before the evil eye, As they pile on the guilt, stockpile angry slander.

v. 3 He shows all the signs a bullied girl suffers from: My insides are turned inside out; specters of death have me down.

I shake with fear, I shudder from head to foot.

vv. 4-5 But the bully isn't an enemy from an alien land (or, in our case, random strangers at the mall), but a personal peer.

This isn't the neighborhood bully mocking me-I could take that.

This isn't a foreign devil spitting invective-I could tune that out.

It's you! We grew up together! You! My best friend!

vv. 12-13, emphasis mine David the Bullied One goes to the only hope for help that he has: I call to God; God will help me.

At dusk, dawn, and noon I sigh deep sighs-he hears, he rescues.

My life is well and whole, secure in the middle of danger Even while thousands are lined up against me.

God hears it all, and from his judge's bench puts them in their place.

vv. 16-18 Being the oh-so-human person that he is, David doesn't hold out a whole lot of hope that even God can stop the bullying.

But, set in their ways, they won't change; they pay him no mind.

v. 19 There is much venting. This is painful stuff that won't go away easily. It turns into an understandable desire to get back at that person who's tearing his life apart.

Come down hard, Lord-slit their tongues...(v. 9) Haul my betrayers off alive to hell-let them experience the horror. Let them feel every desolate detail of a damned life.

v. 15 Yikes. But that's no more vengeful than a tween girl who cries, "I wish all her friends would turn on her. I wish they would tease her till she wanted to throw up. Then she'd know what it feels like to be me."

Somewhere in the midst of all this understandable wailing and gnashing of teeth, David must feel God moving in his situation, because after the pause we so often see in the Psalms-that blank break between verses-he gives us a sound piece of advice: Pile your troubles on GOD'S shoulders-

he'll carry your load, he'll help you out.

He'll never let good people topple into ruin.

v. 22 How does he come to that conclusion? Tell your daughter to pray about her bully, and she'll echo David in no uncertain terms: "She won't even listen to God, Mom!"

But David's sure God will intervene: But you, God, will throw the others into a muddy bog, Cut the lifespan of assassins and traitors in half.

v. 22 Not being a literalist myself, I wouldn't assure my bullied daughter that God was going to toss the RMG into the nearest swamp with the water moccasins and kill her off before she's thirty (which wouldn't be soon enough anyway in her mind). But I would remind her that there are both natural and grown-up-made consequences for continued meanness. A girl with a reputation for peer abuse may have a following, but she's seldom well-liked. If she's caught, her "disciples" usually cut and run, disavowing any knowledge of her dealings. Her need for power is an addiction and addicts are not happy people. They always need more, and sooner or later that's going to catch up with them. An adult is going to see it up close and personal. Most schools have a Zero Tolerance policy; one discovered threat and she's suspended-no warnings, no second chances. She may be good at pretending, but nobody's so good she can keep abusive behavior under wraps forever-not at eleven or twelve years old. Again, when she returns to the fold, there is none, because nobody wants to go down with her. She may then act as if she doesn't care that no one wants to be around her, but social isolation is tantamount to being thrown in a muddy bog. Her lifespan as a ringleader has been cut off.

Here's the thing the mother of a bully needs to know: your Really Mean Girl isn't mean to the core. She just acts mean. She too needs to "pile her troubles on God's shoulders" and let him carry her load and help her out of this mess. She's in danger of living a life that bears no resemblance to her true self. If she calls to him, though, he won't let her "topple into ruin."

As for the timid bystander whom no one can blame for hunkering down and protecting herself and her friends-she too "shudders at the mean voice, quails before the evil eye"-and what's worse, she knows her shuddering and quailing is keeping her from showing her integrity and sense of justice. The guilt being "piled on" her comes from within, where she knows what's right to do but she just can't bring herself to do it. God will "hear and rescue" her as well, if she'll just call out.

I see the whole psalm as an outline for the bully, the bullied, and the bystander: Admit to your situation and own your part in it.

Pour that out to God, in detail (shuddering, quailing, and innards turned inside out).

Believe God hears you.

Believe there will be fair consequences.

Then trust, trust, trust, because your how-to answers will come.

If you have ever had trouble following that spiritual outline in your own life situations, you'll get a tenth of a sense of how hard this will be for a twelve-year-old girl to do, much less one who's eight or nine. She'll need you to walk her through it. She'll need for you to pray with and for her. And she'll need for you to constantly remind her of the following, no matter what her bullying status: All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Test Your Own Waters

Abuse by peers is not the sole property of the young. Bullies who weren't stopped in their tweens and teens usually go on to abuse people in their adult lives. Their behavior can be harder to name at first, until we realize our power to be ourselves is ebbing away. Bosses can be bullies. So can overbearing friends, coworkers, family members. The most painful experience of bullying occurs in abusive marriages, where a spouse who has vowed before God to love, honor, and cherish does nothing of the kind.

I bring this up for two reasons.