Originally published 2021-09-09.
In October 2019 Randy Smalls, a father in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, found out that his 13-year-old daughter had joined in teasing a seventh-grade classmate, Ryan Reese, about her clothes and make-up. Instead of a lecture and a grounding, he took the money set aside for his daughter’s own shopping trip and spent it on new clothes and salon visits for Ryan, with his daughter coming along to help choose. The story spread far beyond Berkeley Middle School, and it still prompts a useful question: what should a parent do when their child is the one doing the bullying?
What happened in Moncks Corner
Ryan had been teased by a group of girls for some time, mostly about what she wore and how she wore it. She told her mother, Richauna Reese, who asked who was involved. One of the girls turned out to be Smalls’ daughter. The families already knew each other: Upworthy reported that the two mothers are friends, and local station Live 5 News reported that the girls are cousins.
The timing made the teasing especially painful. Ryan had recently lost her father, her grandfather and an aunt, and stress had been linked to non-epileptic seizures. She later said the bullying pushed her deeper into depression.
Once the families talked, Smalls asked if he could take Ryan shopping. He had been bullied as a child himself and said he understood how she felt.
The consequence he chose
Smalls’ daughter had a shopping trip planned for that Saturday. He redirected the money to Ryan instead, reasoning that since his daughter loves fashion and the teasing had been about clothes, it was a fitting consequence. His daughter was upset, but she came along and helped pick out Ryan’s outfits.
He also took Ryan to a hair salon and offered to pay for appointments twice a month until the end of the year. After the story spread, local salons offered to keep Ryan’s hair styled for free for several months.
His explanation to his daughter was short and pointed. As he told Yahoo News: “When you laugh along, you’re co-signing the bullying.” In other words, she did not have to lead the teasing to share responsibility for it.
How Ryan and the families reacted
Ryan said she had not expected anything like it and started crying. Her mother said she had never seen a parent take such a clear stand on bullying. Ryan described Smalls to Live 5 News as “the first father figure I ever had.” According to her mother, the two girls get on well now.
Smalls posted about the day on Facebook, and thousands of people reacted, many offering to help Ryan. He later appeared on ABC’s Strahan, Sara and Keke, where he said parents have to take responsibility for what their children do, because even well-raised children can drift when they are with their peers. Taking action, in his view, means being the parent rather than the friend.
(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)
From one family to a local campaign
The attention led Smalls to start Parents Against Bullying, a group aimed both at parents whose children have been bullied and at parents whose children have bullied others. Live 5 News reported that it planned to work with local efforts including Berkeley County Beats Bullying and C.A.V.E. (Communities Against Violence Everywhere), inviting teachers, school leaders and community members to share ideas.
That second audience is the unusual part. Anti-bullying messages usually speak to victims and bystanders; far fewer reach the families of children who bully, who may feel defensive or ashamed and not know where to start.
What the research says about bullying
Bullying is common, especially in the middle school years. According to federal data published on StopBullying.gov, about 19 percent of U.S. students aged 12 to 18 reported being bullied during the 2021–2022 school year, down from 28 percent a decade earlier. Rates are higher in middle school, at about 26 percent, than in high school, at about 16 percent, and girls report it more often than boys.
Several points from the research line up with what happened here:
- Bystanders matter. Bullying usually happens in front of other students. When peers laugh along, it rewards the behaviour; when they step in or refuse to join, it often loses its audience.
- Children who bully are not a single type. Some are socially popular, others are marginalised, and some are being bullied themselves.
- Punishment alone is not enough. StopBullying.gov notes that zero-tolerance policies and expulsion are not effective on their own; prevention works best when the whole school community is involved.
If your child is the one bullying
Finding out that your child has hurt someone is uncomfortable, and defensiveness is a natural first reaction. A few steps, drawn from common guidance by schools and child psychologists, can help:
- Listen first. Find out what happened, who was involved and why, without accepting “it was just a joke” as the end of the conversation.
- Name the harm clearly. Help your child understand how the other person felt, as Smalls did by linking the consequence to the teasing.
- Make the consequence connected and proportionate. A response tied to the behaviour teaches more than a random punishment.
- Support repair, not a show. An apology or a kind act can help, but only if the person who was hurt wants it. Gifts should never replace changed behaviour.
- Work with the school and keep checking in over the following weeks.
- Look for causes. If the behaviour continues, consider talking to a school counsellor, family doctor or therapist about what might be driving it.
One fair caution: new clothes did not make Ryan worthy of respect; she deserved it all along. The heart of this story is not the shopping trip but a father who refused to look away, and a daughter who, by the families’ account, learned from it.
Sources: Live 5 News, October 2019: Lowcountry father helps girl who was bullied by his daughter; Upworthy: Dad takes daughter’s bullying victim shopping; StopBullying.gov: Facts about bullying. Original interviews by Yahoo News and ABC’s Strahan, Sara and Keke.
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