I have three children who i love dearly but i do call them the 'unholy trinity' they are the Leader the Follower and the Bloody Martyr. Now my daughter is definately the Martyr using doing everything as though it was a favour to the human race. Including sweeping all floors before her with her bottom lip!
Most of the time we get on muddling along as a great many do. However, i'm a little confused as too what to do. My girl is receiving some bullying at school. Previously when at junior school she never held back and told me what was going on and then i managed to sort it with the help of the school.
The dynamics have changed though now she is at secondary School and she reluctantly told me this was happening after i was first told by a friend of hers. She was horrified at the fact that we were going to the School with this but i convinced her this was the best course of action.
Well, apparently not. After doing so this bullying has got worse and the School seems to take very swift action over talking me down but not in sorting the miserable little f******s (Ok they might have problems themselves but personally it's my kid thats suffering. Hang'em!!)
Do i go to the parents of the kids do i go to the School again or say "bugger this" and call in the Plod?
Would like some input from others. Experiences maybe from a teacher or two just to give me something to mull about before my daughter and I fall out.
My daughter i will add is not quiet. As anyone who knows me can testify that gentically the chances of her being quiet are stacked against her. She is rather cool though, I dont want her to hide the light that shines.
Been there Lost - as a parent. When it was my daughter, I made a real nuisance of myself. The school got fed up of me. I put it all in writing and kept copies of the letters I sent. They listened and took action when I threatened to take her out of the school. Two reasons: a)there would have to be a transfer form completed and the LEA would question why nothing had been done, and b) my daughter is clever and they'd be losing a pupil who would make a difference to their league tables.
The child who bullied her was excluded for a while and then was put in a different class; the bullying stopped.
In my experiance at school i also managed to end any bullying i was going through by simply taking a course of action that i kow most of you wont agree with. If i was called names i fought back with more offensive names which usually worked because the bully realised that they hadnt a hope of winning, words can be powerful even if it does bring u to thier level for a while. As for physical bullying i always found that the bullies responded well to getting a punch in the face for thier troubles. This worked for me.
Like a scarily large number of us, have also had similar problems with my son. Things improved after the deputy head spoke to the other kids in the class and the extent of the bullying was finally realised and the offenders were excluded.
Anyway, thoughts for you and your daughter:
- she needs to keep an incident diary and log any instance of bullying, physical or verbal
- follow up all of your verbal contact with the school by letter or email and keep copies of these and their replies
- i would write to the LEA, and copy in the Head, Deputy Head and the Chair of the school governors with a copy of this log, any correspondence and stating that the schools failure to deal with this situation is stopping your child accessing the curriculum
- as far as i'm aware, any physical violence counts as ABH and can be reported to the police.
hope this helps
we suffered bullying with our middle child... went to school and spoke to the head .no joy.......it didnt make much difference and my son was soon to leave the school..not spoke to the governors. who helped NOT............... asked for the anti bullyin policy ( had to pay for copy ) went back for another meetin and quoted half of the policy...the offenders parent were eventually fetched into school and all concerned spoken too..... relived the situation in the short term..... but soon started again....thank fully we left the school............ my boy went to the new high school with one of the lads... i do not condone bullying... but i could not bollock my son when i got called into school cause he got the little **** on the bus on the way home(only once). i know this wont remidy your situation but wat goes around comes around and i hope your daughter will have a happy ending to this bullying she will come out of this a stonger person
xx
I have something very shameful to admit.
I was a bully when I was younger. Wierd thing is I didn't realise what I was doing was bullying until I looked back on it many years later.
The girl that I was bullying turned to me one day and quite simply slapped me. All my bravado went out the window and I never teased her again. Even more wierd we ended up becoming friends.
I am in no way saying you should encourage your child to slap someone I just wanted to say that bullys are mostly cowards.
That is the first time I have ever actually told anyone I was a bully. I am highly ashamed of it and just as glad that someone stopped me.
Screw this.
What happened when you spoke to the school about the bullying?
Did you ask to speak to the Headmaster/mistress?
It really is the school's responsibility to sort out bullys so if they give you anymore lines, just threaten to go to the local paper or something.
You'd think that - however in reality most parents just send their child to the catchment school, regardless of what they read in the papers. If you read enough, you'd find fault with most schools.
Not everyone gets to send their child to their first choice of school..
Unfortunately these "problem" children who are doing the bullying seem to always get away with a lot more because they have problems.
As if its an excuse, granted some kids really dont know how to act in a civilised society because they havent been shown how to by their parents.
Ive had a couple of incidents at my childrens school, where the child stealing something from my daughter/child biting my child on the face has just been let off because they have problems. Now this is no way to show children that their actions have consequences.
Im sorry if im rambling a bit but bullying in schools is a topic that really gets my blood boiling.
All i can say is, definately dont let it drop. If the school isnt helping you enough, then go above the school. Go to the police if is actual physical/threatening harm. Just dont let them bully the life out of your daughter because it may stay with her for years to come.
Louise xx
not sure if this will help hun but i'll give it a bash for you. my boy ( who is 9 ) has been getting bullied for a while by a few brats up here, this has been going on in school as well as after. it took him getting physically beaten before he told me, so being the enraged mother i went to the school on numerous occasions as they have a so called "zero-tolerance policy" which in actual fact means a quick 5 min lecture on bullying in assembly and telling the bullies they were naughty and not to do it again 
. i was told that anything that occurs out of school cant be dealt with by the school ( i caught 3 boys beating him up inside a bus shelter directly opposte the school gates while an adult looked on laughing 
). i went to the parents and they DID have words with the kids, and it abaited for a while but then it started again, so i told my local council (weird move i know but we are trying to move), and they have now put extra bobbys out at kicking out time and this seems to have worked for now 
)and it hasnt worked....
i know its not much help but hey, thats how it was.