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NORTH SALT LAKE — Kids love summer break.
However, you can't blame 7-year-old Danaly Rosa if she can't wait to get back to school.
"She was always participating in things. She would say, ‘I don't want to go home yet,’” said Vanesa Rosa, Danaly’s mother.
But when she started second grade this past school year, something changed.
“She kept acting sad and depressed and didn’t say much,” Vanesa Rosa said. “It's hard to see when your child is happy one day and then shuts down the next."
It turned out Danaly was being bullied by another student.
"She was scared. She was threatened,” she said. “I didn't know what to do. As a parent, when you hear something happened to your child, you just get into parent mode."
However, she knew she wanted to do something. "I prayed over and over, and I was like, ‘OK, if that's what keeps coming to mind, then that's what I’m going to do’,” she said.
Her big idea? Dressing up in a different costume every day she picked her daughter up from Wasatch Peak Academy in North Salt Lake.
“At first, I did a few random hats every day. I did big glasses,” the mother said.
Of course, the costumes kept getting more elaborate.
Eventually, she started painting her face. She dressed up as Hulk, E.T., even did some Disney characters. Sometimes, it took 2 to 3 hours to get done.
"I did it because I wanted to see her smile back. I just wanted her to be her again,” Rosa said.
It worked. Danaly started smiling again, and the other student bullying her stopped because those costumes were the talk of school.
"Others would tell me, ‘I love what you're doing, don't stop’,” she said.
She didn't. For 158 school days, she dressed as a different character.
Vanesa Rosa was concerned other kids might make fun of Danaly because her mother dressed up, but the complete opposite happened. In fact, Danaly became one of the most popular students in class.
"A bunch of kids would randomly come up to me and say, ‘I love what you do every day. What is it tomorrow?’ And when everybody would ask, I would tell them, ‘I can't tell you. It's a secret’," she said.
It turns out, makeup, paint, and smiles is the secret to stopping a bully.
"It was absolutely worth it, and I would do it in a heartbeat again,” she said.
