advice needed to punish 10yr ds

[biggirlsdontcry]

hi , we are at our wits end to be honest , our 10yr ds has gotten into a fight the other day with an 11yr old boy who has been bullying him , now i understand that my ds was only trying to defend himself as i saw the bully punch my son first i just didn't get there in time to stop them ,
we have always told our ds that fighting is wrong , he is now grounded . but what shocked me the most was the bad language we heard my ds say
just running out of ideas now as to how to show him that his behaviour is out of order , he knows we are disgusted with him ATM but it doesn't seem to bother him ,
how do you discipline your 10yr old ds

[biggirlsdontcry]

anyone ?

[BadgersArse]

thEY ALL knoW bad language , just choose not to use it.

I think " grounding" is fine.

[Tortington]

i think its fair tbh. he was being bullied and he got hit. In no circumstnace would i expect my sons or daughter for that matter to stand there ghandi esq and take it.

he knows how you feel about it - i thing he was in the right on this occasion, its not like he is a raging bully.

[Overmydeadbody]

I think if he is being bullied you need to be quite sensitive as to how you tackle any punishment.

The bad language could be the result of the bullying and not something he would do otherwise.

I tihnk grounding him and then discussing the iisues would be enough, if it is not something he does all the time and a one off.

You might need to focus on helping him with dealing with the bullying, and improving his self-esteem and confidence as these will both be knocked heavilly by the bullying.

Your poor DS.

[nickschick]

They all swear I live opposite a football pitch and the language is blue its a kid thing.

I think he had a fight -he didnt start it and now its done with-youve told him his language was unacceptable and hes had a punishment- move forward and let this incident pass.

Its very hard being 10 they are still our little ones yet they are the older ones in school,boys in particular are becoming bigger and clumsier and its very tricky for them to find their place,trust me I have 3 ds .

If this of any use to you a punishment I used when I heard ds1 my pfb swear was to give him a dictionary and ask him to find 5 other words to describe the same kind of swear word - it failed miserably when he was overheard calling someone a pretentious fool (jollyhockey sticks lol).

[biggirlsdontcry]

no he has never hit back before as the other boy is much bigger than my ds , & i have never heard my ds using this disgusting language before either but when i pulled him up on his language in front of his best friend (who is dark skinned ) his friend told me that my ds is cursing a lot out side when he is playing & my ds made a very racist remark to his friend for telling on him , we made our ds apologise immediately to his friend but his friend looked very hurt
my son up until now has always come to this boys side when other kids have called him names & my son usually hates people who make racist remarks so we really feel disgusted with him for being so hurtful .
any advice please as we have told him he will not be allowed out to play again until he learns how his actions have hurt others .

[SolidGoldBrass]

Your DS is only 10 and is being bullied himself. Please stop adding to his distress with further punishments. Punishment on top of punishment is always a stupid mistake - there comes a point, very quickly indeed, where there is nowhere left to go that isn't pretty much abuse of your child.

[biggirlsdontcry]

solidgoldbrass , what would you suggest to be an appropriate punishment ?
in my eyes two wrongs don't make a right .
he is on his 2nd day of being grounded , but it is the summer holidays & the weather is crap most days but dh wants to keep him inside for a week which i think is a bit excessive .

[ZZZenAgain]

I might send him to a self-defence course but that's all

[LotsOfOtters]

Assuming that you mean he won't be able to play out but will be able to leave the house to go shopping or swimming with you, say, I think grounding for a week if about right, given the racist element.

[ZZZenAgain]

eh? what racist element?

[LotsOfOtters]

Oh - perhaps the racist comments and the fight were different episodes, sorry

[SolidGoldBrass]

FFS you have made him apologise and kept him indoors for two days for defending himself and using some bad language. THat's enough. What are you going to do if he does something really bad- execute him?

[ZZZenAgain]

found it now, no I hadn't read that bit. I think they are different incidents. I would tackle them seperately. This is unkindness and causing offence, the other is reacting to an attack.

If this grounding is a result of him getting into a fight with a boy who has been bullying him and who started the fight by punching him. No, I would not ground him for that. What is he supposed to do then? what did you expect him to do, especially if this is an ongoing thing?

[pagwatch]

it seems to me that your son is being bullied and he may perceive that no one - no one - is sticking up for him.

You have explained how you are expecting him to manage his being bullied. How are you handling it?

I suspect if you punish him for sticking up for himself then he will resent it.

I think a self defence course is a good idea. As for the racist language - that is cclearly not acceptable but sometimes ( often times) children act up when they feel unsupported and defenceless.

What are you doing about his being bullied?

[biggirlsdontcry]

yes lotsofotters he can only go out with us not allowed out to play is what i mean
we feel truly awful that our little boy who is always so caring for others is capable of being so nasty to his best friend .
his teacher raved in the school report about our ds having such a loving nature & always there to help others ,
yes he is being bullied by another boy & we have spoken to the police about that , but have been advised to wait & see if things calm down or if the bully leaves any marks on my son then we would be taken more seriously
so we are all under a lot of stress ATM i posted about the bully a few days ago in AIBU

[biggirlsdontcry]

no he is not being punished for fighting & we have made that VERY clear to him , he is being punished for the racist remark ,
the mother of the bully wont talk to me i have rang her 6 times & knocked over to her , but se wont answer her door & lets her mobile ring out onto voicemail & i have left her messages saying we need to talk as her son has tried to choke my ds & we need to sort this out , but its 3 days now & she still has not replied to me ,
her son is suspected of suffering from ADHD but she has refused to have him tested . every time her son See's me now he calls me a c##t . his mum just does not want to know as a co friend of my son & the bully has told me , the bullies mum passed on a message for me to f##k off .

[pagwatch]

I understand your difficulties.

But you still need to see this from your sons point of view. It will appear to him that he is having his life made unbearable and no one is stopping it. Wait and see is not very helpful when you are frightened.

You need to stop worrying about punishing your son.He shouted at his friend and was rude because his life must be very frightening at the moment leave him alone about it.
You don't need to talk to her - you need to go back to the police. The ADHD has nothing to do with it.

waiting to see if the bully leaves any marks is .

[hercules1]

Personally I wouldnt have punished him at all (racism comment aside but 2 days and been told off is enough, more than enough).

I would get him self defence classes so next time he gets hit he can hit back properly.

Please put your energies into protecting him not trying to find more ways to punish him.

[VulpusinaWilfsuit]

Keep away from the family and help your son to deal with bullying more directly.

Grounding for a couple of days seems enough for bad language, longer for actual racist language, but others have said you seem to be quite harsh on your own son in what are difficult times for him.

Now time to put aside punishments and work more on supporting him?

[biggirlsdontcry]

thanks pagwatch , we feel very stressed out & worried about this situation ,
& yes we reacted the same when the policeman we spoke to told us we would be taken more seriously if our ds had marks on him , we could not believe our ears to be honest , our son knows we are doing our best to protect him & we have just had a playroom built for him so he can take his friends in there ( & we know he is safe) but we felt we had to punish the racist remark .

[LotsOfOtters]

Sheesh - the mother and her son sound like a family on an estate I used to live on. We had to call the dcs in whenever her son came out because he'd try to choke the others and then tell us to f-off when we intervened. It was horrible having to punish our children for his behaviour (or rather his mother's negligence) and also to make this kid such an outcast, but we had no choice. It only improved when, basically, nobody would have anything to do with him so he sloped off elsewhere to harass people. He was 6 btw.

I wish I had some constuctive advice - other than to emphasise how much you love your ds and want to help him. I really feel for you both and wonder if others appreciate how difficult it is to have this going on on your doorstep, where there's no escape.

[biggirlsdontcry]

it is a very difficult situation as most of my ds friends are also friends with the bully , last year we enrolled our ds in a self defense class , ds seemed excited about it but 2 weeks later decided he didn't like it anymore & because we said it would teach him how to stop others hurting him & tried to coax him into sticking with it for a few more weeks he got himself thrown out of the class by not paying attention , in the end the teacher told me not to bring ds back as he was not participating we have also tried karate etc again ds hated it .

[pagwatch]

then thats great .

And remember that whilst you are talking about being "disgusted with him" and that it "does not seem to bother him " - this is not his fault and, how ever well intentioned you are and however hard you are trying he IS stressed, worried and frightened and his bad behaviour is because of that.

What he is dealing with is not your fault but it isn't his either and he needs you to understand that he has no way to express that or to do anything about it. You have punished him enough.

I suspect if I were in his position I would be swearing and acting unreasonably too.

[biggirlsdontcry]

lotsofotters , ha i wonder could it be the same boy , the boy we are having trouble with is 11 , tall for his age & very foul mouthed. i know of lots of boys who are not allowed to play with him because he has tried to choke them etc , & when my DH had to push my ds & this boy apart from the fight the boy started to shout that my DH assaulted him i was there so i saw everything .
we have decided to take our dc's away next week to ds favorite place so that at least is some thing to look forward to ,
i am feeling like a lousy mum ATM , but our ds is a very confident child & really is sweet , & he knows only too well how much we love him ,