Need Advice. My Son is Dealing with Bullies.
Posted: 27 Apr 2013 03:00 AM PDT
Community Question is a category inspired by you. Here and there readers write in with questions that are better served by the varied, experiential knowledge of those who read and contribute in the comments. Please respond to this post in the comments, but if you have a question for the community email it to Heather.
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The following question is from Jenny M.
“I homeschooled my now 17 year old son until he was a Sophomore in high school. At that time, my three kids were put in public school. This year, my youngest went to Kindergarten in public school. Because of poor choices, one of our daughters has been brought back home to homeschool. I loved homeschooling and greatly missed it.
Our six-year-old has been through a lot this past month. First, his teacher, who he loved, quit her job to stay home with a newly adopted daughter. He’s had a hard time with this – not so much in what he says, but he’s just down about it. Last week, when I picked him up from school, I could tell something was wrong. After talking to him for a bit, he told me that a boy in his class pushed him and held him against a wall at recess. This continued, I guess, for most of recess. I told him that he needed to tell the boy to stop in a loud voice. If that didn’t work, then he needed to tell a teacher. I wrote the teacher that evening, and she wrote back and said she had addressed the problem.
The next day, the same boy pushed my son again. He told a teacher, and the boy had his recess taken away. Today I picked my son up and found out that while waiting to be picked up, a different boy came up to my son and punched him in the chest!!!! I told him that he needed to LOUDLY tell these boys to leave him alone.
I’m not sure what to do from here. The irritating thing is seeing how a young child’s innocence can be taken away by these things. Maybe these three incidents won’t do anything, but if this continues, it can have a big impact on his life. Now more than ever I want to bring him home and school him as I felt I should do in the beginning.”
Jenny wants me to ask “What are the community’s thoughts on this?” and say that “Any advice is very welcome.”
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Like Jenny M., I am concerned about how to handle bullying. Even though my child isn't born yet, this subject is of great concern to me. I can't stand bullies. I hate bullies. I loathe bullies. Part of me just wants to spank their butts and give them a little dose of their own medicine and then give their parents a piece of my mind. But, I'm more interested in why a person (child or adult) bullies; getting to the root of the fruit, so to speak, and dealing with the problem from its origination. For today, my question is what would you do? How do you deal with bullies if your child is the victim? What if your child is a witness only? What if your child is the bully? What if you've addressed it and the situation hasn't improved? What if the teacher/school won't listen or refuses to intercede? What if their intercession has made the situation worse or is ineffective? What if the bully isn't disciplined at school, even when his/her behavior violates school policy? What if your child was disciplined for defening him/herself but the bully wasn't disciplined at all? What if you've talked to the other child's parents and they blew you off, refused to listen or believe what you said? What if the parents saw nothing wrong with their child's behavior? At what point did you or would you step in? At the first sign of bullying, when your child follows your advice and the bullying continues or gets worse, or when you first notice a change in your child's behavior as a reaction to bullying? What methods have you used that didn't work?
All input is appreciated.
My oldest since moving to a new school, a much smaller school, has had constant bullying. I went to the HS Principal and NOTHING was done, went to him 3 times to be exact. When it escalated to where my son was being sprayed with perfume and told he is Gay what does it matter, I had enough. Then come to find out the HS principal was part of the problem. So anyway I ended up going to the Superintendent, mind you this is a really small school. The Super has since fixed ALL problems and my son now enjoys school. I told the super that they have a Zero Tolerance bully policy and I wanted it enforced. It was. The students in question that were bullying have been suspended or had corporal punishment inflicted per the school policy. STAND UP FOR YOU KIDS, DO NOT LET THE SCHOOL DICTATE HOW THEY ARE TREATED. Don't turn a blind eye saying oh the school will handle it, kids are kids, no its time more parents stood up for their kids. End of rant. LOL - Raelina
ReplyDelete^^ I agree with Raelina. I never had to deal with that with my kids, but have had my kids stand up for other kids being picked on.
ReplyDeleteBe prepared to go as high up the ladder as you need to protect your children, even if it means removing them from the school and home schooling them if the need arises.