red_dog104

Its breaking my heart. My son has been a nightmare for weeks. Reall moody, snappy and in general a horrible child. He's been making up ailments so as not to go to school and then he started asking for extra food in his packed lunch 'cause he was hungry'.

Turns out a kid was taking his stuff off him. Same kid has cornered him a few times and kicked and hit him also taken his toy cars off him and broken them or chucked them on the roof of the bike shed. I know this kid and he's 'mentally challenged' or a 'slow learner'. He's a f*cking menace if you ask me. He set fire to his parens house the other week while his parents and 5 brothers and sisters were in bed. Tried speaking to the mother directly about the problem with my lad but she's 'backward' too and just didn't get how serious the situation is.

I was bullied at school and I will not let my baby go through the same. Been to the speak to the teacher about it and have agreed to give it till the 6 weeks holiday. If on his return, it starts again then I am making a formal complaint and copying everyone who will listen including the local paper, the BBC and Central News!

The child isn't going to get away with it and the school are certainly not going to brush the problem under the carpet!!!

Has anyone else experieced the same and got results from doing anything different to what I'm thinking about doing?!

tiggers

I have a good friend who's 7 year old went through exactly the same thing. You're not going to like this, but the only solution in this case was when my friend cornered the kid in question and scared the living s**t out of him. Obviously this is a risky thing to do in a society such as ours, but like you my friend was not prepared to see his son suffer any longer at the hands of a bully.

Obviously he tried talking to the parents (got a load of verbal abuse about his kid being a poof, weak etc.) and tried talking to the teachers who were sympathetic, but ultimately not prepared to do anything.

You may be lucky and find a teacher who will help, but ultimately you may have to solve the problem yourself.

You're right though - it's not fair that yours or any other child should go through this.

Good luck,

tiggers.

Andy Porter

Nothing will of changed after the summer break, sort it now.

Many Humbug Returns

There are only 2 viable solutions:

1) your son or someone on his behalf sorts out the bully with direct action.
2) move schools.

teachers won't do anything - more than their jobs worth, and no point waiting till the scum get expelled because they won't.

jjones

6 weeks of self defence classes. go with him, useful skill to know. go as many times as you can in the 6 weeks.

rogp

The worst thing you can do in my opinion is to not do anything, putting it off until the next term may just change the victim of the bully and not the root cause.
I see no reason why you should move your son to another school.

Whilst I appreciate teachers do not want to get involved, the head will respond to sentences liberally peppered with 'league tables', 'local media' and LEA.

Do the right thing and kick up a stink now!

Roger

Carlos The Jackel

I got bullied quite badly in Primary School - my parents used to say "stick & stones" and all that cr@p - well its the wrong way to go - the stress I was under was unbelivable - and I can understand why kids top themselves. I agree with the above post - go scare the **** out of the kid(s) doing it - you may get into trouble but its worth it IMO.

I got my own back when older - unfortuantly that old saying is true - The Bullied kids usually become the Bullies and I did too. The feeling of power having been bullied for years resulted in my becoming a bully in secondary school.

weapon69

I was bullied when i was at school by a boy who kept hitting me, taking my stuff, mental abuse etc. Used to get serious bruises/cuts. I didn't tell my parents but i became the most aggressive little girl you can imagine. Eventually my Mum twigged what was going on, told the teachers (including the headmaster) they did nothing.

My Mum told me that if this boy did it again, i had her full permission to hit him as hard as i could (she'd back me up if i got in trouble). The situation arose where i had to hit him, unfortunately for him i had a large compass in my hand and sliced his shoulder blade up and he had to go to hospital. He was so ashamed that a girl had done this to him that he said he fell over
The point im trying to make is that although everyone says oh no don't hit back, i happen to believe its the only way to make them stop. Although 5 is a bit young ( I was 8), so.......go and scare the boy thats bullying your son!! (or more realistically move him from the school depending how bad it is for him).IMHO of course.

Pavlo

Get him to a boxing gym, which is probably the best sort of self defence for a young nipper.

A confrontation may well lead to bloody nose, but very rarely does it happen twice.

Paul

weapon69

Forgot to add that i was never bullied again

Tony_W

red_dog104.

I'm a school governor and have experience of bullying incidents.

DO NOT take the matter into your own hands, no matter how tempting.

If you have spoken to the class teacher and are not happy, then make a formal appointment to see the HeadTeacher.
Sit down and speak with the Headteacher and ask for an action plan to be put in place or some formal mechanism for monitoring and dealing with the bullying.
Also ask to see the school policy on bullying...all schools should have one. This should clearly set out the mechanisms for dealing with and erradicating bullying.

Give the School/Headteacher the chance to do something about it before taking matters into your own hands.

If you do not get a satisfactory response from the Head (this means giving them a chance to sort it out) write a formal letter of complaint (detailing all formal mtgs and action plans e.t.c.) to your school governors. The governors will then progress your complaint with the head and other Education bodies as necessary.

The only problem with this is that it takes time. I understand your concern/worry about your child (I've been in the same situation myself and felt exactly the same as you are feeling now, but the school did sort the matter quite quickly). If you take action yourself, you are in effect as bad as the original bully, and could make matters much worse.

Hope that helps, and I hope it gets sorted soon

Tony

beemerboy

I can't believe people suggesting you need to move schools.

I wouldn't let some backward oik disctate where or where not i can send my son to school.

go and see the head immediately, be calm, but assertive, ie. listen to what they have to say, then dictate the path you will take if they do not remedy the situation.

ie. give them a chance to deal with it, but dont get fobbed off.

i do sympathise with you, and no doubt i'll share the experience when my son starts school.
(although hopefully he'll be able to kick ***K out of the teachers as well by the time hes 5

good luck

Dazza

red_dog104

The child is so cheeky and he can't be 'scared' by adults. As he's told my son, he knows his rights and he will tell the police!!! (a 5 year old?!?!) Anyway, my boy is no *****! He's hit back on neumerous occasions but this kid just won't let it go. The little sh*t even punched my son infront of my dad. When my dad had a go at him, he just laughed and gave him the finger (infront of his parents too!).

It sounds so stupid but I keep bursting into tears over this. I'm really hurting for him. He is so depressed and so am I. My partner isn't much support and my ex (son's dad) is trying to help but as we can't stand the site of each other it's quite hard.

Tony - I won't be confronting the child myself. I know the dangers etc. I will be writing if it continues and I will, if necessary, take my child out of school until the problem is sorted (I will deal with the consequenses of that when they come!)

[Edited by red_dog104 - 7/7/2003 12:18:25 PM]

weapon69

BB I suggested moving schools because if nothing changes with the kid doing the bullying then why send your child to school only to be tortured?

AudiMan

Again, been in the same boat with my son (who is 10 now), it's usually the same type of kids that bully too,
1. The schools say they want to help, but at the end of the day they won't get to involved incase there is any come back on them.
2.You could try involving the Police, although they to will probably not be keen to get involved.
My advice which is purely based on my own experience is to act now, YOU deal with the little s**t, one threatening conversation will almost certainly do the trick,
My son now does karate, and it has given him a big boost of confidence, he's not naturally agressive but is certainly more able to deal with this sort of thing now.
It's a horrible situation for both you and your son, but deal with it NOW or he will worry all over the holidays. Unfortunately it's not uncommon and just a sad inditement of the society we live in.

Ian..

red_dog104

Moving schools is an option (as the one he is at isn't very good) however, apart from this problem, he's quite settled and likes the place, so why upset him further?

Scooby96

Take the kid (ie yours) to kick boxing or something similar - taking mine as soon as she's 4! Important to intially focus on defensive techniques and once discipline has been established move onto offensive techniques. Works a treat for kids so I'm told - but yes go with your son and learn as well.

Tony_W

Beemerboy, you are spot on about letting the school deal with it. They are prepared and should be able to deal with it through laid down procedures.

red_dog
All the people on here advising you to take the matter into your own hands are completely wrong.

Be assertive with school and insist they deal with it immediately. Explain how it's affected your son and you. Be prepared to back it up with a formal letter and keep pushing the school for action.
You will only escalate the problem by you dealing directly with it. If you take the focus by trying to intervene, that means your son takes the focus as well...which means this bully and possibly others in his family will also focus on you and your son. Is that what you really want? Let them focus on the school who are equipped to deal with it. Keep pushing them.

Scooby96

or threaten the school that you'll go public about their bullying problem - if they give even the slightest toss about league positions they'll sit up and take notice - start local then go national if they still sit on their fat @rses and do nothing

weapon69

Erm if you take your kid to kickboxing or whatever, isn't the bully/parents of, going to plead assault or something similar?

Scooby96

do not exlcude your kid - push until the bully is excluded

Scooby96

weapon69 - only if red dogs kid starts something, thats why I said focus on defence first, gain discipline before moving onto offensive techniques (ie having offensive techniques is not dangerous if you have discipline)

CarpetCleaner

Sadly bullies only respond to violence or threats of violence. I would not advocate as a parent getting involved directly with the child concerned

I think you need to spend the holidays building up your son's self confidence. The self defence classes sound good. I think it's very much a state of mind thing. He needs to 'have a swagger in his step' when he returns to school which hopefully the bully will pick up on

Alternatively does he know someone in a year higher that could 'ave a word' When I was at school I was part of a vigilante group who sorted these sort of things out

A quick bog wash followed by being being hung out of a 3 story window usually had the desired effect, but I digress

Confidence is the key, simply hitting back may be the reaction the bully is looking for. The bully needs to get the impression that he's not getting to your boy

fast bloke

If the other kid is stealing his lunch etc why not be a bit sneaky about it. A couple of sarnies and a couple of chocolate rice krispie buns made with a packet of Ex-lax. Tell your kid to find the bully and offer him the buns if he can keep one sandwich. The bully will probably eat the heap.

(Make sure your kid doesn't eat the buns )

weapon69

I thought bullies liked having power? If you hit them back then surely thats taking away some power?

Carter

Wow bravo, you must have a really big dick.

Carter

So threatening more violence worked for you? Good example for your son? Lot of respect coming your way from your kid's school/teachers/head/other parents?

Nice one.

Carter

I mean, if we all took that approach to resolving problems, the world would be a much better place.