Bullied boy calls neighbors: ‘I really want to have friends’
It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: your child is being bullied and has no friends. Eleven-year-old Shayden Walker is in that situation and feels very alone. He wants to make friends so badly, so he rings the doorbell at the neighbors, hoping that they have or know children who want to play with him.
“Hi, I’m just dropping by to see if you have kids around 11 or 12 years old that I can play with. I want so badly to have friends”, you hear the boy say through the doorbell camera. The neighbor who answers the door has a two-year-old child of his own, so he refers him to other children in the street. Shayden knows the boys, but they don’t want to play with him. “They bully me,” he explains.
@brennanray It takes 2 seconds to make someones day, you never know what people are going through until you get a chance to talk to them. This young man is well mannered, kind, and brave. So tiktok can we help shayden make some friends???#fyp #bekind #nobullying #love #kindness #letschangetheworld ♬ original sound – Brennan Ray
The neighbor is so touched by the boy that he shares the doorbell recording. In no time, Shayden goes viral on TikTok. His plea has become world news and the boy from Texas is inundated with sweet responses. The neighbor emphasizes that he thinks it’s important to share because “you never know what someone is going through until you get a chance to talk to them,” he explains.
Mission accomplished
Shayden is over the moon. “It is awesome. It really feels like the world is my second family,” he enthused to a local US news station. All the positivity makes him feel a lot more confident. “I am a different person because of them. They are the most important thing that happened to me next to my mother.”
Also read: ‘Cyberbullying: how do you deal with it?’
His mother also responded to the video. “It wasn’t until I saw the video that I realized how lonely he felt. How alone he was.” She is so very grateful to her neighbor. She also calls on others to look around more. “If you see someone being bullied, just be there for that person. Don’t let that person suffer.”
Neighbor Brennan hoped for some nice reactions, but he never expected that much. The video was viewed more than 70 million times in a few days. He eventually also started a fundraiser for the kid, which Shayden and his family can use for fun outings like theme park tickets. The counter of this is more than 37,000 dollars, which is about 33,500 euros.
