Bullying

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Nix

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Sineya
Hi peeps. I wanted to get some advice and some ideas on how to cope with my daughter and the school. She has been bullied a little over the last year by a girl (calling her X) and it got better and faded away. This new term, she is being bullied by X again and its physical as well as mental and a lot worse than last year. My daughter is 7 and a half and very emotional at the moment. She crumbled last week and cried for 2 hours and said things any parent would be horrified to hear. I crumbled too and spent those 2 hours trying to convince her and reassure her that she was loved and liked and had friends and was special to me and her family. It was a hard time.

She is still very delicate but a little better this week. I have spoken to the teacher the day before she crumbled to make her aware and let her know I was not going to stand for it. However, she does not know how bad it is effecting my daughter yet, so I've requested an appointment to see the teacher face to face. The parents of X are also not approachable... they have a big reputation for violence where we live and have had many a fight in and out of the school grounds. This is a very emotional time for her and me and her dad. Please be aware this is an emotional thing for me to write and I am looking for positive responses and advice/ideas on how to further help my girl. Thanks in advance.
 
One thing that often works is making friends with the bully. It's not 100% guaranteed but a lot of people swear by it.

I was bullied a lot through school and even at college and making friends with the bully worked a couple of times but not all the time. Good news for your daughter though in that I found it worked more for me when I was younger than later on so at her age, she may have a shot at it.
 
Is it just one kid that is bullying her or is it a group of kids? I assume that it's just one kid. Here's what you do.

Teach your daughter to be evil. Teach her that X deserves nothing but hatred. Tell your daughter to get friends and bully that kid back. To shame her and to spread false rumors. To hit back and scream. Teach your kid to be aggressive, get her into some sport or self-defense classes or just show her some moves. Boxing is great. Basically, your daughter needs to stop being a victim. I know, you do not want your kid to be evil but evil is better than traumatized.
 
I'm not a parent so this could be well off course but my first thought was to make it as big an issue as possible for people in authority. Speak to the individual teacher, the head teacher, school governors and even the police. Be persistent and eventually someone will have to come up with a resolution.
 
I don't suggest teaching your kid to befriend the bully nor to become a bully herself. But you can teach her to stand up for herself, but at 7, a kid shouldn't have to go through this. Sadly, authorities rarely do anything in cases of bullying between kids, more often than not these things are brushed off.

You mentioned her having friends, if she has friends at school try and tell her to surround herself by her friends as much as possible. A bully isn't likely to attack someone if they are in groups. Ask if the school has a counselling service or a psychologist to see students, this would be good for both your daughter and the bully, but I'm afraid you won't be able to do much about the bully because that's the school's decision, and of course everything is confidential. But for your daughter, it might help her to talk to someone who can give her expert advice. My dad is a school psychologists and he meets with a lot of kids who are having issues at school, from academic problems to home problems to bullying problems.

It's always hard when the other parents involved in the situation aren't approachable.
 
I work in schools, and the best method, IMO, is to make the school care. I have done this by demanding to see the head, and refusing to let my child go into school until I did. I then told the head what had been happening, and subtly made her aware that if it wasn't dealt with I would take it further... the bullying stopped straight away as the head tackled the teacher and the rest of the school staff and also spoke to the pupil responsible.
 
EVIL UU said:
Is it just one kid that is bullying her or is it a group of kids? I assume that it's just one kid. Here's what you do.

Teach your daughter to be evil. Teach her that X deserves nothing but hatred. Tell your daughter to get friends and bully that kid back. To shame her and to spread false rumors. To hit back and scream. Teach your kid to be aggressive, get her into some sport or self-defense classes or just show her some moves. Boxing is great. Basically, your daughter needs to stop being a victim. I know, you do not want your kid to be evil but evil is better than traumatized.
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I certainly wouldn't recommend that A do this. Teaching a 7 year old behaviour like this is not a solution and will only add to the problem.

I understand what you mean about the parents, I know the type you are referring to and this makes things harder because they are likely to be just as bad if not worse than their kid. Talking to the school is a big step in the right direction. Usually they would call a meeting between the parents as well, granted as I said this might not be productive given the reputation of the parents but it is always better to have the school involved.

Do you know if this child is also bullying others? If there was more than one child and set of parents involved then it might help having more support.
 
Learn the law regarding child welfare in your jurisdiction and talk to the school principal about how these bullying incidents violate statutory provisions for child safety. Administrators will likely brush off any comment that is not based on law and does not carry the threat of a lawsuit or an investigation. Use whatever degree of subtlety that seems appropriate. Schools will not respond to much of anything beyond the threat of a lawsuit. The teacher is not really going to do anything because any teacher who intervenes knows he can be sued, fired and charged, not to mention injured and not necessarily in that order if he so much as pulls an attacker off a student.
 
How about you talk to the bully? Bullies have always been bullied in the first place... usually at home. You might figure out why she's taking it out on your kid. That's what my mother actually did with someone who used to bully my little brother. She gave him quite a speech. I'm not saying it changed his entire behavior, but he laid off my bro.
 
Good luck with the appointment! I hope everything goes well. Keep us updated 🙂
 
That's great, if you aren't satisfied, or it happens again, bypass the teacher and go straight to the head. If you're in the UK ask to see their anti-bullying policy and point out what they're not doing. They'll either be scared because you know of such a things existence, or worried when you use their own documents to highlight their own shortcomings. It's the schools job to stamp out this kind of behaviour.
 
Good luck with the appointment. I had to deal with bullying during Middle School, and while it's not the same situation as what your daughter is in, it's a horrible experience to go through.
 
I agree with what others have said which is that in addition to seeking the involvement of as many people at the school who are in positions of authority, she really needs to start seeing a therapist as well. She is undoubtedly developing all sorts of psychological challenges related to trauma and anxiety and the sooner these are addressed, the better. The therapist should also have some well-researched ideas for approaching the situation as well. I'm very sorry that this is happening and hope you all can resolve this and begin the healing process very soon.
 
Oh, I hope your daughter feels better soon. I never had to suffer from bullying at that age, and it must be terrible to feel that way when you're so young...

Teach her that girls are powerful, like show her empowering media or books or anything that interests her. If she grows up thinking that all girls are only little princesses that can't be tough (Some girls are, but not all girls are like that), then it won't help her as much later on. Don't teach her to be mean, just teach her to be intolerant to any negative energy thrown towards her by classmates. Also make it clear to her that it's okay to tell an adult if she's being treated that way, because if it happens in the future, she might be old enough to think that telling an adult about these matters is 'uncool'. But if taught at an early age, she'll most likely not think about it like that. 🙂

Good luck with the meeting! 😀
 
Good luck with the meeting today. Hopefully you can talk with the teachers to find a way to resolve this.
Do you think she would want to do karate again, might help with her confidence? Not to use against people but just to give her more confidence in herself
 
Thanks for all the support peeps 🙂 Much appreciated.

Spoke to her teacher today and the teacher was great. Really listened and took notes on everything. She is going to talk to the other teachers/staff and get everyone to keep an eye out and if they see anything bad or odd looking they are to report back to her. She is assigning 2 secret buddies to her without her knowing to help find out what is going on and report what they see and hear. She is doing the lunchtime watch tomorrow herself and will be calling me on Monday to let me know what's going on so far. She will also chat to her and see if she will open up, if not she will suggest her writing it into a book for the teacher only to read.
 
That's awesome! It's so nice to see teachers and people in general who genuinely care and go out of their way to help you and make everyone safer. I hope with the help of the school, the problem get solved.
 
Glad the meeting went well for you! 🙂 I've been on the recieving end of some teachers not thinking the bullying is a big issue, so I'm glad to see there are still some people out in the world that have common sense 🙂
 
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