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How doesn't it turn into a "He said, He said" thing? No adult has seen any discussions among the boys.
Once a student told me he got punched in the stomach. I asked him if he and the other boy were friends and the answer was yes. So I got the boys together and told them to talk about this incident and to just ignore me as I would just be listening until I needed to intervene. (I sent the boy punched in the stomach to the clinic even though he said he was fine.) For the most part, this solves the problem but I did have to jump in and remind them that a friend wouldn't do that at key points.
So that is one way to prevent it from turning it into a "he said, he said" thing. That is why I blame the teacher for at least not being curious.
What should the principal do? The principal should go stand out on the playground and watch for it themselves if that's where it is happening.
The child who is being bullied shouldn't have to do ANYTHING. He or she shouldn't have to change themselves, look tough, have empathy for the bully, none of it. The adults in charge should stop the bullying. Period.
As far threatening to sue, I am far from a millennial, but that is the language that school administrators understand. And you have to have everything in writing. I've also seen history be rewritten by multiple school staff and administrators
One time I told a principal that if it didn't stop (this was physical bullying so a little easier in some ways), I would call the police in the middle of the day and have a police car roll up in front of the school building during school hours and I didn't care who saw it.
It magically stopped. Whaddya know
Last edited by bookspage; 05-28-2017 at 06:35 AM..
I need some advice. There is a little boy in my son's first grade class who is bullying him. He tells other kids in the class not to play with my son and if they do he won't be their friend. He calls my son a crybaby, loser, gay and more. I've talked to the teacher but she said it doesn't happen when she's around which leads me to believe it's happening on the playground. I have the father of the child's phone number and am tempted to call and talk to him about it but don't want to make it worse for my son. My son is generally pretty tough and lets most of it roll off him but it definitely bothers him. Two weeks ago I picked him up and he was crying uncontrollably about it.
My question to y'all is what would you do? We talk about how not to react to the child, how to kill him with kindness and how he should just walk away and ignore him. We've been to the teacher. We are in year round school so it's not like they're going to be out for the summer and they're guaranteed to be in class again next year (and every year really-it's a one class track). As a parent I'd want the other parent to call me but I can also see this backfiring. I've met the dad before but he wasn't overly friendly. I just don't want this to go on for years and years and feel like it's time to stop it.
Has there been a physical fight about this between the two lads?
Im not a parent myself but I'm sorry to hear this as it would hurt to see this happen.
You can call the other kids dad and it may help but personally I told my oldest god child when he was 7 " if someone starts something then YOU finish it " as he's absolutely tiny and always has been for his age so naturally a few would try it on with him
I meant the above as standing up for himself firstly with words but last resort his fists and yes he stands his ground and he's as confident as you like
Best of luck Anna I hope things get better for him
If the kid being bullied fights back, he doesn't even have to win the fights. Bullies want easy targets.
I was bullied a lot in school. At some point, though, my response changed from passively trying to avoid, or going to authority, to meeting any affront with shock and awe. Most of the time, the kids I was standing up to could have whipped my butt. But once they learned that picking on me was going to result in my attacking them with everything I had through a blood red mist, they just moved on to easier targets.
If you run to authority, the bullies will give it to your kid harder for having squealed, but they'll get off to the side where they can't be seen. If your kid makes himself a hard target, they will leave him alone.
What don't you understand about it???? If the teacher isn't doing anything about the bully and he's continuing to bully the OP's son then she needs to escalate to the principal so it stops! How? By calling the children's parents and making them aware of the situation and possible suspension if it doesn't stop. Bullying in our school district is taken seriously and handled right away.
They are in first grade so most likely the child who is being bullied did not lying about it. Regardless, things like this should not be taken lightly and need to be investigated!
I think it's perfectly fine to talk to the child's parents. A lot of people will say no, but it can't hurt to talk to them. That way, if you did decide to pursue a legal angle, they would want to know if you had already done everything you can to get it to stop. If you said you'd never talked to the parents, they would probably fine that strange.
You should also talk to the principal for sure. I'd request a conference with the teacher, principal and parent of the bully.
Bullying IS very serious. I saw a news story the other day, about a child with peanut allergies, and a bully started throwing peanuts at him, during school (which could cause him to have a potentially lethal allergic reaction).
If the kid being bullied fights back, he doesn't even have to win the fights. Bullies want easy targets.
I was bullied a lot in school. At some point, though, my response changed from passively trying to avoid, or going to authority, to meeting any affront with shock and awe. Most of the time, the kids I was standing up to could have whipped my butt. But once they learned that picking on me was going to result in my attacking them with everything I had through a blood red mist, they just moved on to easier targets.
If you run to authority, the bullies will give it to your kid harder for having squealed, but they'll get off to the side where they can't be seen. If your kid makes himself a hard target, they will leave him alone.
No.
This absolutely does need to be brought to the attention of school authorities. It's not "squealing". People have a right to report these things or any other type of abuse. Please don't tell them not to, to sweep it under the rug. That's just all kinds of wrong. The school does need to know about this, because it could be happening to other kids too.
Please don't tell people not to report abuse.
Last edited by tassity22; 05-30-2017 at 09:19 PM..
This absolutely does need to be brought to the attention of school authorities. It's not "squealing". People have a right to report these things or any other type of abuse. Please don't tell them not to, to sweep it under the rug. That's just all kinds of wrong. The school does need to know about this, because it could be happening to other kids too.
Please don't tell people not to report abuse.
Out of interest what can the authorities actually do? " Don't do this its bad " and then what?
Not so much first graders but imagine if this was a good few years older what do think would happen to the kid if it becomes official? He will be an even bigger target and will have a reputation as a " squealer " which will not only lose him friends but make him more popular with the bullies.
In this case he HAS to have the confidence and support to be able to fight back and look after himself NOW otherwise he'll be a target for years to come
I know what you're saying and I can't stand bullies but unfortunately reporting them is just a short term fix, by appreciating the bigger picture and addressing it it will solve the problem and be better for the lad in the long run
This absolutely does need to be brought to the attention of school authorities. It's not "squealing". People have a right to report these things or any other type of abuse. Please don't tell them not to, to sweep it under the rug. That's just all kinds of wrong. The school does need to know about this, because it could be happening to other kids too.
Please don't tell people not to report abuse.
What I am saying is that you cannot fight your children's fights for them, either literally or figuratively.
Do you really think that a bully who is called before the principal won't remember who told on him and make it even worse for that kid?
I think a lot of people here have a romanticized view of children. ("If you get the principal involved, the bully will quit walloping on your kid because the principal tells him to.") Yeah, right. There are a lot of little creeps out there. You can try to re-engineer the little creep's psychology (good luck with that) or you can teach your own kid how to make himself a hard target.
This whole concept of self-reliance; situational awareness; being a hard target against those who would do you wrong; etc.; seems to be something today's parents are scared to death to teach their children, preferring to believe that they can keep childhood free of anything except unicorns, fairies, and green meadows full of pink and white flowers. Unfortunately, if you teach children that they have to run to someone in authority to solve all their problems, what you will end up with is a bunch of adults who can't solve their own problems without resort to authority.
I see this even in my quite civilized workplace, when two people come into conflict. When I was newly in the workforce, the two people who had an issue with each other would usually hash it out between themselves and the manager would never even know something was going on. Nowadays, as soon as Bill has an issue with Janie, the first stop is the manager's office: "She's doing [x] and I want you to fix it." If I ask "Have you talked about this with the person concerned?" - Oh, no, I want you to do that.
Obviously there are incidents both in adult life and childhood that exceed the range of "deal with it yourself" but I am not convinced that a first grade bully situation is one of them.
Last edited by turf3; 05-31-2017 at 06:45 AM..
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