OPINION: When I was nine years old I was bullied terribly by a girl in my classroom. My teacher's way of solving the "problem" was to keep her and I after school and have us clean paintbrushes together in the hope that a bit of quality time spent together would somehow magic all the bullying away. All she did was tip a bucket of dirty water over my shoes when the teacher wasn't looking, mouth the words "I hate you" and then she skipped happily home.

So my heart broke when I read about a Christchurch father, so driven to desperation over the bullying of his own daughter, 9, that he erected an anti-bullying sign outside her school. I don't blame him one bit. My own situation was only resolved when my mother, tired of her daughter coming home in tears or faking one illness after another to get out of another school day, marched up to the school herself, came to my classroom door and told the teacher she wasn't going to leave until my bully was dealt with.

I think the sheer shock of seeing her sit down at a tiny little school desk and refuse to budge, coupled with the realisation that the problem was much worse than first thought, compelled the school to act. The girl's own mother was summoned to the school, counselling was offered and things improved from there.

READ MORE:

* Father erects anti-bullying sign after repeated assaults

* Anti-bullying protest at school

* Kiwi students report second-highest rate of bullying

I don't know why my classmate decided to start bullying me, maybe she didn't really know herself. I don't know what makes anyone be a bully, from a president right down to nine-year-old girls. And while we can't always control the actions of a bully we can control our own reactions to them.

If you are a school teacher it should be a no-brainer. If a child says they are being bullied, assaulted, threatened or frightened at school, then anything and everything in your power should be done to protect the victim.

The father in Christchurch says he met six times to address repeated assaults of his daughter. Six times. And yet the assaults continued. The bullying, the father says, had been ongoing for about 18 months. That is 18 months too long. The school's apparent lack of action shows just how much work we still have to do to make sure bullying is taken seriously, and dealt with properly, especially when young children are involved.

Do I think the dad did the right thing by putting the sign up? Absolutely he did the right thing. He drew a very clear line in the sand and said 'enough is enough' and to me that is worthy of our highest praise, not criticism.

Did he make the problem worse for his daughter? Well, she has endured 18 months of physical and emotional abuse from girls she probably once thought were her friends so I doubt very much the problem could get any worse.

It's not for us to know whether the sign will stop that poor little girl's torment. But what it will do is let her know she has a father who loves her, who will fight for her and will do anything he can to protect her and stand up for her. And right now, that's exactly what she needs.