One of the many reasons I did Law is because I don't 'take' to bullies.
I remember, back in the day when I was a journalist and I would roam the streets of Far North Queensland looking for a scoop, I came across a group of pimply-faced, testosterone-charged, drop-kicks picking on a lad with Down Syndrome in the main street. I told that group of No-Hopers to 'Fiss off' or 'Nuck off' or something along those lines. At the time, I was shocked that children could be so mean to each other.
I felt just as enraged this evening, when my Eldest told me, in tears, that a girl in her class 'pushed me against the door while we were lining up today and then said, 'Eldest Child of MMMC, are you blind? Why did you run into the door?'
Slightly miffed is the mother of the pushed child, ie me.
What do you do you when your child is bullied?
Do you talk to the teacher?
Or, do you have a talk to the bullier and politely suggest they refrain from pushing other children around because if they continue to do so, the school will be informed as will their parents?
Or is that, tempting as it is, bullying as well?
We had similar issues with Farmboy. Spoke with the teacher and she was brilliant. I also spoke with a friend who teaches and she suggested that we teach Farmboy to stand up for himself a bit and tell them to get lost and just walk off. That worked too...!! (He is only 6 though so it was not extreme bullying but enough that I had to fight the urge to slap the child in question).
ReplyDeleteAh, AFW. You are the hose-to-the-fire that I needed.
ReplyDeleteI was ready to pull the Mother-of-said-Bullier aside and have a firm, but quiet, chat.
The Husband suggested he go to the school and perform a few Round-House kicks to all-and-sundry, despite the fact he is not martial-arts trained and merely watches a lot of Manga animations.
Talk to the teacher, Obi-wan. Thank you.
Hmmmm, not nice. I'd talk to the teacher x
ReplyDeleteAFW is right. You have to go to the teacher. You can't go to the other kid. (But reading about M's situation really made me angry too! Then picturing you getting those Nuckers and The Husband doing round-house kicks made me sort of smile.)
ReplyDeleteHmmmmm we've been going through it recently. Its not been sorted out as they said they were going to. We really can't wait to get out of here now.
ReplyDelete(have updated the other blog)
I think go in straight away and talk to the teacher. If they don't listen, then take it higher. I hope you get someone who listens.
Hugs to your big girl.XX
Your first answer was spot on. go to the teacher. Responses may vary of course. So ,this may help you with your next move. But ,more significantly, help your child to not show it is getting to her. very difficult for a child & practice is important. p.s. my heart is with you & your husband but my headsays this other response is better in the long run .There are always bullies in the world. Its fantastic she told you & this is a dialogue you want to keep going. so, in the long run its about giving her the power to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteGood luck, wendy
I have just deleted a long cranky comment. Teachers hands are often tied with these kids. Parents of the bullied also have few rights. In my one very nasty experience the child doing the bullying and traumatising a lot of other 6 year olds had all the rights. Give your girl some verbal ammo, get in and tell the teacher it's NOT going to happen again and never take a complacent line from the admin. Chances are dear Emo is not the first or the last one on the receiving end.
ReplyDeleteOne of the nastiest bullies I ever saw was in the senior class of a very expensive GPS school in Brisbane. His peers just said he had always been like that and to ignore it as they were used to it and had been told to ignore it for years. The poor kid was completely unlikeable because nobody had re-educated him.
Do your girl and the bully a favour and keep a close eye on things.There's another long cranky comment.
Bullying makes my ears hot. Do you read Pottymouthmama? Lexi has been going through bullying issues with her 6 y/old too. If you have a look at her archives I remember there was a long comment thread of advice. It's hard on a mamas heart. Talk to the teacher is a great start - hope she's a good egg. Best of luck. xx
ReplyDeleteThis is teacher me talking here ... never as a parent, confront another child about an issue. Some school admin's will have your guts for garters & then you could find you have become more of the issue for the school rather than them dealing with the bully. Have seen it happen.
ReplyDeleteThis is now parent me talking here ... talk to the teacher. Always talk to the teacher first. Never talk to the other parent, no matter how well you may or may not know them. Had a parent 2 years ago send me a really rude letter saying how I needed to discipline my child & speak to my child (all in capital letters) because of course, her child had done NOTHING. I wrote the most scathing email back to her telling her some home truths about her child & then promptly deleted it. I did speak to the teacher & forwarded the email to admin. Other parent ended up with egg all over their face because, of course, their child had done something too.
I detest bullying & I can't abide the mean girl mind games & excluding tactics they employ on one another from such a young age (I've seen it in Prep even) but also I think the term "bullying" can sometimes be overused ... not saying that it is here but I have had kids come to me at school saying so-and-so is being mean to them or bullying them when in fact they're just having a difference of opinion or being a bit silly & careless.
Does the school teach a social skills program i.e. The Friends Program or You Can Do It? Maybe you could draw on some of their objectives; confidence, resilience, persistence, etc. Empowering your big girl with strategies to be resilient is the best thing. There will always be a bully or a nasty person wherever they go & having such a loving Mum, who will listen to her, is the first step in facing it all.
I tell my Big Girl, you can't control the way people act towards you but you can control the way you react to them.
Please talk to the teacher. My A was being bullied last year, she goes to an all girls scchool so you can imagine...anyway I left it and left it at A's request (she thought it would only make things worse if she told) until one day she came home from school in tears and told me that she wanted to kill herself. That afternoon in tears myself I rang the school...they were absolutely brilliant, not complacent at all but incredibly supportive....they sorted it out immediately. The bully was punished appropriately, her parents contacted etc (and this wouldn't have been easy because she is a star pupil) I could go on but I won't. I only wish I'd spoken to them sooner as does A. I would never hesitate or take my time to contact them if a similar issue arose.
ReplyDeleteGoodluck. Kiss to eldest child x
I remember very keenly the day my father, enraged at a group of girls who had just been throwing rocks at me, told them to "piss orf or I'll rip yer bloody guts out" and then having to rather shamefully apologise to those very same bogan misfits when their wild pig angry mothers came screaming to our house demanding an apology.
ReplyDeleteAfter that I decided it would be best if Papa stayed out of it.
Speak to kid A's teacher and make sure she knows there is a problem.
OMG! I wrote an essay ... sorry about that. Teacher hat off now & off my soap box ;-)))
ReplyDeleteThank you. Every one of you. So sensible, and each comment so different but the same.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely, honest maternal resource I have here.
A bug hug, or big hig, to you all!
Esp. Mogantosh who's just added another to the Dependants List, and WendyC (you're new) and LittleMissAG for your verbosity, and Kylie because you have tea-towels who are better behaved.
I have freakishly resilient children (such is Army life & our 9th school experience) & so far, no one has had a bullying incident. There was an attempt on my eldest though, in Darwin, at an indigenous school. A year 6 boy told her she looked like a boy when she got a cute pixie do in year 3. She took him aside & suggested he might taking his anxiety out on her as he's having issues at home. Yes, she was like a little white Oprah. The teacher rang me & said my 3rd grader had reduced the school bully to tears & could not have been more proud of her.
ReplyDeleteNow, my son was scratched viciously by a boy with
'issues' in kindergarten, & badly, bleeding kind of attack. He has 3 big sisters so he was tough. I said to the lovely principal, that i was not sure what to do, say or how to react as this is a new situation for us. She said her son was bullied & she went about it all wrong, left all her teaching skills behind & went into mother Lion mode & fronted up at the child's house & went bonkers (her words) & just couldn't help herself. I love it when a mature, calm principal can admit she lost it, when it was her OWN child.
I'd ask advice & see if the teacher reacts with a glazed over "too much paperwork, can't be bothered" reaction or proactive (God awful) couselling session, but ask to sit in, as your child's solicitor, i mean mother, so it doesn't get turned on your child & you can GLARE THE CRAP out of the bully. Much can be said for the mother hen who can stare down a bully & let them know you KNOW who they are, what they have done & it's friggen NOT going to happen again, ditto for the next 3 siblings. Good luck, i imagine it's tough, either than or trip the little witch on her way out. Love Posie
up here if a child is hit they both get in trouble and sent home, which I think is crazy, if your child has not been involved , just been bullied. what a teacher told me, she told her son and daughter if your going to be sent home anyway give them the biggest hit you can so they will think twice about picking on you next time.....its advice I have never had to use but after 42 years of always being miss nice, I would teach her to stand tall so if this ever happens again she will know just what to do! I think this is my longest comment ever!
ReplyDeleteOh man, I get miffed at bullies too! Believe it or not, I was the subject of lots of bullying in my day. When I found out that Sayer had to get glasses, that was the first thing that came to mind. I remember my mom talking to the bullies in my neighborhood (not school) or their parents. It always resulted in more bullying. I think I may go the route of talking to the teachers so they are aware of the situation. It's a tough one that I'm sure I'll have to deal with at some point. I will make sure to take note of what you choose to do....Good luck
ReplyDeleteTelling the teacher might help the other kid too, i mean where is the bully-girl learning this stuff? at home through experience or is it just stuff she's copying off the telly? lets hope it's the latter. Good luck x
ReplyDeleteIt seems all are in agreed you should talk to the teacher...BUT make sure you ask the teacher what her/ the schools strategy is for dealing with these situations because they can **ck it up and make it worse. Bullies are usually super sneeky and charming as is their cowardly natures. THey will of course deny all wrong doing and then when they get the first chance exact revenge on the bullied child and often enlist others to their cause...you now how "dobbing" is perceived in a school group. The best strategy I have heard of that has effectively worked is at my boys high school. When bullies are reported they don't confront the child then and there or pull the two children aside for a heart to heart...they spy. They watch the bully like a hawk enlisting the help of teaching staff that watch the kid not only in the classroom but the playground and after school. It does not take long for the bully to rack up some really good evidence. Then the bully is confronted by authority, the child who is being bullied does not have to be envolved to give evidence and the bully cannot sweet charm their way out of it. I agree talking to the parents of bullies does not work they are usually bullies themeselves. Good luck my friend I will be thinking of you xx
ReplyDeleteOh dear. Mr Rooney taught our eldest the Vulcan Death grip for such situations but to use it judiciously. ie when no one is looking. It did make us all laugh I have to admit. Being a kid can really suck sometimes. xx
ReplyDeleteI'm going to read all the other comments later, because I'm too angry to wait to have my say.
ReplyDeleteMy first action is to nail the teacher and tell her to get this other kid sorted or she could be charged with assault.(ie the kid). The school, too, is culpable.
If the school has a news letter, I would write a submission on this subject stating the facts, and warning all parents at the school to get behind you to stamp this behaviour out.
The teachers are in charge , as you know, of all that happens at school, and , part of their role is to protect your children in all ways.
All of that being said, I have, and I would, get this other girl in a corner, and threaten her personally. No witnesses. Eye-to-eye contact only, but words and a voice of thunder and menace. (Think of her as a bush turkey splatting in your kitchen!)
The child is learning this behaviour at home and if her parents can't subdue her at this age for the welfare of the community, it is the duty of someone else, ultimately , to do so.
If she were to continue, she'll be in a gang bullying little old ladies at railway stations and stealing handbags.
It takes anger for a child of 10 to behave like this. I bet she's bigger, older and more stupid, than M.
I would also word all of your children together about this sort of action and tell them to go straight to the teacher after the event if it occurs, so the teacher can act then and there.
I feel like husband. Kicking a few heads.
Crickey! I'd go to the parents AND the teacher (s).
ReplyDeleteYour son did the right thing in not acting aggressively and talking to you about it. He has shown restraint, maturity and sensitivity and you should be so very proud of him.
ReplyDeleteAs a semi-retired teacher myself I would certainly advise you to bring it to the teacher's attention and then see what happens. I would want to know if this sort of thing was happening in my classroom!
Best wishes,
Natasha.
As an addendum, as it were, (as if you needed one after the novel I wrote above), my own mother reigned as Queen of the Warrior Mothers in my eyes when I moved from school to school as a child during WWII.
ReplyDeleteAt Child#2's age,I found that the teachers were the bullies, not the children.
We lived at one stage,next door to the convent primary school, sharing an ancient paling fence which I had to nail together each afternoon after school as it was constantly being kicked to bits by the school kids.
I have always been handy with a hammer and nails!
But, to get to our house, we had to walk through the school grounds from the tram.
Every Friday, the day my mother went to town (!) to buy the produce for the household, returning home during the luncheon hour at the school ,with over-loaded string bags which would have weighed down a camel.
I tried to blend with the tan bark on the play area, but was nevertheless, found by ogling school children each Friday ,to inform me that my mother was having another verbal stoush with Sister Mary Antonio on the school verandah.
As this event was regular and gratis , it drew an approving crowd of downtrodden pupils.
Myself excluded here,by my immature introverted embarrassment.
The nun who had the look of Mussolini and his build, objected constantly to our family members walking through "her" school/parish church grounds.
Of course ,I was a marked target for the combined warfare waged in return by the nun brigade.
I was caned on the hand with a bamboo rod at one stage , for something I did not do.
I told the nun then what I thought of her amid my tears, packed my bag, and walked out.
I refused to return until my father spoke to the parish priest who tried , uselessly, to breathe a spirit of good will into this doomed brood of gorgons.
In the next grade, a new nun arrived and was my teacher, of course- presumably to sort out this intransigent pupil/parent stand-off.
She was a woman of enormous girth and height, more along the lines of George Tyson. And did she pack a punch to go with it!
She would also poke me in my then small abdomen with her black board ruler at frequent intervals.
This matter was too serious for the parish priest, so both my parents descended on the archbishop one Saturday afternoon at the time of confession at the cathedral.
One on each side of the darkly veiled and stifling confessional, barked in his ear until the veil threatened to be torn in two by the vehemence.
The following week found me at a new school, (Ithaca Creek State School for the record), and from then on , I went from strength to strength, mastering my Tables and Long Division in my first day.
They were my happiest school days in 13 years of drudgery and boredom ,and much personal abuse ,, from the nuns at my secondary school, otherwise.
Looking back, I must have appeared as a heroine-type, along mythological lines ,to the silent majority of my fellow sufferers, as by the time I reached the secondary school, I was my own champion vigorously defending nun-erring behaviour towards myself, in my own verbal stoushes and passive resistance manoeuvres.
There were counter attacks naturally, like throwing me out of the MathsI MathsII. and Physics classes in my subsenior year, for telling the old bag who "taught" these subjects that I would report her inefficiency to the Registrar of the University and have the school removed from its fraudulent academic status.
It was lonely studying these subjects alone to matriculate in medicine, but, I have no regrets.
DMC, some of those nuns (particularly the Irish exiles in my experience) were bullies of the worst kind. They are the ONLY bullies I recall from my primary school life and I had never thought of them as such until I read your comment.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I don't believe any school is exempt from these behaviours, I do think some are better than others at dealing with it. It all comes down to the empathy and common sense of the administrators who seem to be swimming in PC platitudes and regulations. When multiple victims of the same bully are sent to $180 an hour counselling to develop "resilience" and the bully gets to read books in the office waiting area for a day one can see why it has become such a difficult thing to address.
The world has gone mad!
As someone who was bullied off and on in high school (such is life when your father works in the ministry part-time), I became the Queen of Attitude and always had some sort of snarking/off-putting remark. Didn't solve the problem, and I still cried when I got off the school bus but the bullies never ever caught a glimpse of me feeling 'down'.
ReplyDeleteYes, my first comment. What can I say, I like living on the edge. I worked in schools & can assure you, let your head, not your heart rule.
ReplyDeleteWendy
I can't give maternal advice because i am mom to eight little furry terrorists but I have no 'real' children, as you know. But as an ex-child who was constantly bullied I can tell you things changed when i began standing up for myself. I went directly on the opposite side: I wasn't bullied anymore and I didn't bully anyone..I was simply untouchable and respected like a little boss. And then go and talk to the teacher, because she was probably sleeping.
ReplyDeleteWhat a time! I've been off the power grid since Sunday night. I hope you've seen the teacher by now. I agree with the crowd, talking to the teacher is the first step. Just remember, you have rights, don't back down.
ReplyDeletexo
Annie, none of these nuns was educated let alone given teacher training.
ReplyDeleteThey came from poor Irish peasantry. Their families were probably only too pleased to be shot of them.
However, the ones I have mentioned bullying me were Australian, but still virtually uneducated.
They went into convents for lifetime security rather bullying small children than standing alone and doing a proper job at large.
The hag who "taught" the Senior subjects of mathsI , mathsII, and physics , was an old woman at the school when my mother went there.
Seriously, she was in her 90's and taking on the responsibility of teaching calculus about which no one had much of an idea at that time. She made it worse and totally confusing.
We were meant to do physics experiments.
This school possessed literally antique equipment for this facet of the requirements for matriculation, but, we had to sit and copy the prac. books of the girls who had preceded us word for word, every Saturday morning.
This , for me, was major cheating .
This was a major reason for my anger at their pathetic methods.
In first year Med. , we did do the experiments and I started to understand the niceties of this subject then.
Sorry I go off every now and then .
Agree with all the above comments to tell the teacher first. Save the rant for all of us, probably a safer option. It does make your heart break doesn't it. I am a complete champion of the underdog and was even as a child at school. I went to watch Roboboy present the weather to the class last week - he gets quite bad performance anxiety and stuffed it up, several girls laughed at him and he started to cry. He is in prep! But his teacher handled it really well and put those girls in their box. Have faith in the teacher and I get the feeling you are strong minded enough to not to be fobbed off on this one. melx
ReplyDeleteZero tolerance. I would definitely contact the school. Kids can be so cruel.
ReplyDelete