How do I handle this at parents evening? Bullying & me stupidly upset...

[WellThisIsShit]

DS is 8yrs old, and a very sensitive young boy who’s been through a hell of a lot in his life so far, to set the background. And so I guess he’s different, and not as resilient or socially adept as some, and certainly not as able to fend off the children who have zeroed in on him for their fun this year.

I feel dreadful about this, and that it’s my fault he’s different and that he’s vulnerable to being picked on. And this is really getting in the way of me being able to deal with it properly for him.

Ffs I’m scared I will just burst into tears if I try and talk about this with the teacher, but if I don’t broach it, then Im definitely being a rubbish mother.

It would help to have a realistic idea about what I can expect the school to do in terms of helping sort this out. I’m so worried that if it goes on too long it will confirm all DS’s low self esteem thoughts and leave a permanent mark on him - but I’m pretty sure the attitude of the school will be that he just shouldn’t feel that way and other kids should be able to deal with it so DS should be able to... but he can’t, and it’s awful.

Btw for full disclosure: I became very ill the year I had DS and have since found out I have a horrible genetic disease that killed my sister and father (all within the last decade). It’s life changing and life limiting, and as the remaining members of our family pissed off when we found out (ds father who was my husband for years before this all happened, and my erm, warped, mother), poor DS only has me to cling to, which terrifies him. I don’t know if DS has it too btw, haven’t found out yet. I rely on carers daily and no matter how hard I try, I can’t make life ‘normal’ for my darling boy.

The main bully started before the summer break by poking fun as DS’s ugly disabled mother. That’s why it hurts so fucking much and I’m crying on mumsnet at 1am in the morning!

I need to go in tomorrow calm and not looking like I feel any of this stuff, and help my child....

If it is hard to go out then don't go to parents evening and another meeting about the bullying.

In all schools I have been involved in (4 children, lived in NE and SW, so a few schools) any parents who can't make parents evening or have more than a few minutes of things to discuss are able to make a separate appt on a different day to go over things.

If you are going to discuss the bullying at another time then just arrange that appointment with your son's teacher and say you can do parents evening stuff at the same time. This means you only have to do one outing - beneficial to you, and the teacher has a gap in their appointments. They can then try scheduling some one else in they couldn't fit in and had to see another day or they have a few minutes to catch up from previously overrun appointments. Most teachers in our primary would appreciate a few spare minutes just to grab a cup of coffee or catch up on over running, they are always pressured to get everyone seen but also to leave on time!

As for what you need to discuss. How about, between now and the teacher meeting, writing down what you need to say. This way you can make sure everything relevant is there and if you do get emotional you can refocus using the list. It is easy to forget/get lost off when emotional and miss things. You can even give the teacher your notes if needed.

On another note, ds3 is 11 and went up to secondary school in September. He was being stopped every so often by some yr 8 boys telling him he was some YouTuber with 2,000,000 followers blah, blah, blah. Surrounding him and holding him up, making him feel a bit intimidated etc. What might be called 'low level' bullying.

We gave him tips on trying to prevent it and said to tell us if it keeps happening so we could mention it to school.

His first meet the teacher (parents evening to meet just his form tutor) came up and when we went to book in on-line it was full. (27 appointments available for 30 children). Ds's form tutor sent a message home with him to say we could arrange another time to go in if we wanted. So we thought we'd e-mail and arrange a time.

On the Monday before meet the teacher ds came in and told us of further problems with the boys, resulting in him being late to tutor time and getting a 'ready to learn' warning. So we e-mailed his tutor, saying can we meet and there is also another matter to discuss. We arranged to see her on the Wednesday (one day after meet the tutor evening anyway) and had a relaxed meeting.

We did the progress report and how son was doing first, then got down to the other boys. She took it more seriously than we had, wrote down words like 'ds felt intimidated' etc. and also knew at least one of the boys (and wasn't surprised when his name came up). She said she would e-mail all the form tutors involved, the yr7 and 8 head and yr7 and 8 pastoral leaders and possibly other relevant (yr 8, deputy head) teachers if needed; various teachers would speak to the boys etc. etc.

She spoke to son about it, assured him they could sort it, told him he needed to feel safe at school rather then not feeling he couldn't go to certain areas when the other boys were there, that he should not be made to feel intimidated while at school etc. Later that day she sent us an update e-mail about who had been informed and it would be tackled with the boys over the next couple of school days.

She also checked with ds if it was ok to talk to the other boys. It would be obvious it was ds who had 'told on them' and he needed to know the boys could retaliate and escalate the bullying. Ds knows if that happens to go straight to a teacher and get it stopped. Thankfully we know the school will stamp it out, they have already sorted out problems for our older boys on the school bus from before we moved closer to school (they now walk), we were surprised as thought it would have been the bus drivers/companies responsibility, but school sorted it immediately.

Sorry to go on so long, but from this you can see that some bullying that is not as bad as what your ds is dealing with has been taken very seriously by his (secondary) school. Your school has to take this seriously, it is affecting your ds and you and it needs sorted.

If you can, find their bullying policy on-line and look for what the school say they should do. Ask them questions that reflect what they have said they need to do in their policy. E.g. What are you going to do to safeguard my son? If you do make notes of what to say to the teacher, add on any questions you'd like ro ask so you don't forget one, write down any responses from teacher too so you have a record. I know notes help me as I get very nervous when talking to people, especially if I've never met them before, this nervousness make me forgetful and I rely on notes to jog my memory.

This is not something school should do the minimum it needs to do with and then think it is sorted. It is something they should monitor and check isn't continuing. If they haven't done that then you definitely need to bring it to their attention and get something done about it.

I need to find out about any young carers stuff somehow. Don’t know how though as school haven’t been that helpful about this kind of thing, though good in general.

And no one from children’s services wants to see us as ‘we don’t meet the criteria’.

I’ve been begging for help since Easter, and have been spectacularly dumped in it by everyone except my GP. I’m so grateful for my GP. But she’s going on mat leave next month.

She has contacted adult social services on three separate occasions since Easter to alert them to my situation and ask them to help me and they’ve refused point blank. They just tell her that they’ve decided that I’m doing fine and I don’t meet any criteria for needing help. Although they’ve not seen me or spoken to me, they feel they can over rule another professional who has.

My GP is saying, err, no, I’m phoning YOU to inform you that in my professional opinion she is NOT fine and needs urgent help. She is giving them new information but they just reject it and they just keep telling her I’m fine!

At Easter I was injured by a particularly nasty carer, which was just the last in a long line of awful carers from a adult care agency that clearly couldn’t needs my needs (which aren’t too high, but they do clash with the way care agencies tend to be run, as I’m a mum with a young child depending on me, not a dependent just waiting around for care whenever and however anyone can/wants to do it. So, it’s very different). I’ve had alot of trouble trying to recruit the right carers for me and DS’s needs - one huge problem being money, the other problem being that I’m not well enough to go through the recruitment process myself and desperately need help to do it. I’ve also been battling with universal credit and until September couldn’t get assessed for work capability so wasn’t receiving any disability benefits. My GP finally managed to sort that out for me, thank God. All of the above meant I haven’t been able to get to any hospital appointments this year, which is kind of a big deal. And the next thing looming is housing, as were in a very precarious position as far as housing is concerned and I need help getting on the housing register and all of that.

But hey, I’m ‘doing fine’ apparently and any pleas for help are ignored.

FYI SS haven’t seen or communicated with me since 2015.

They’re supposed to do yearly assessments so are clearly not doing their job, and every time I have tried to engage with them, they’ve made my life worse, not better. And that looks like it will be the same again this time.

At one point in the summer ss actually told my GP that they’d just reassessed me and taken me off the highest need band (yes, this is the way they treat people on their highest need band, shudder), and that they weren’t going to do anything more for me for at least another 12 months so would the GP stop calling! Errr, almost got my GP believing it until she asked how I’d been reassessed... the person claimed that they had reassessed my needs (the needs of a fully competent physically disabled adult) by phoning up my friend who’s details they happened to have as she has sat in on meetings from time to time. Anyway, they’d apparently phoned her up and gone through my current health and disability needs with her, and from this call had decided I was doing really well and they downgraded my level of need and closed my file for another 12 months. Soooooo, the GP phoned me to ask me why I had kept this from her, and that she was a bit disappointed that I had as it’s hard to advocate for someone if you don’t know all the facts.

I started to be very upset on the phone, as it was the first I’d heard of any of this, and it’s a massive confidentially and data protection issue, phoning up someone else to discuss me like that! I’m a completely normal independent adult, so how the fuck dare they do this??? And just as I was getting very upset I stopped myself, and thought I should just check this story out first, as it seemed a little strange that my friend would have this conversation and not tell me about it afterwards.

Anyway, I quickly established that none of that had actually happened (phew!), and someone had been telling rather elaborate porky pies to my GP to stop her persistence in trying to get me help. The GP went back to ask again for help, and now suddenly someone has noticed I haven’t been seen for 3yrs and apparently they’ve lost ALL my previous assessments, and so they are refusing to do anything until they’ve done a full assessment right from the beginning as if I’m completely new to them (They’ve been ‘helping’ me for 8 yrs). They’ve said that the assessment will be done primarily with a view to cost cutting, not helping me, as I don’t need any help (of course!).

So now although I’m desperately in need of their help, I’m now going to have to undergo 3-4hrs if assessments and produce a solid defense of the direct payments I receive which they’ll be looking to try and take away from me. So yay for the ‘help’ :(

Sorry that was just me splurging completely irrelevant stuff onto this thread.

I’m just so worried, one chink in the armour and it’s all coming out.

Do an internet search ' young carers' and see what comes up. I don't think school has to refer you as such.

At ours (which my DC don't attend but I know others who do) they have regular sessions so children can meet others like themselves, and subsidised activities, trips to panto etc.

I would send an email and insist on a meeting this week.

Thanks for all your help and giving me a place to cry this last night as day, and unload. I’m carrying too much right now and I didn’t realise how close to breaking down I am.

I’m going to attend the parents evening in person as I’ve arranged carers for this afternoon already.

But I won’t go into detail, I’ll bring up the problem (again) and ask them to make an appointment in which we can discuss what they can do to help DS.

I’ll also point out that it being anti-bullying week is a really good opportunity here to ignite some general ideas about the way to treat people... but it cannot be the limit of what happens, otherwise it becomes empty words for poor DS to sit through knowing it’s not true / it’s only true this one week of the school year.

Sounds like a plan. Hope it went well.

How did you get on?

You have had very good advice op re how to deal with the school. But you haven't done what was suggested. You should have made a phone call or email separate to parents evening. Before parents evening. But you didn't. Was there a reason why not?

The medical issue and them losing your notes of 8 years and thinking of you as a new patient is also not ok.
You need to phone and sort that. Insist calmly and quietly that this is simply not acceptable. Ask for it to be escalated. Do you need help, someone to advocate for you? Do you find those kind of situations very stressful?

Oh OP I feel for you! I am in a similar situation (bedbound, carers in throughout the day although my own personal carers) albeit I have my DH to support me and our two DC.

What helped most for me, was contacting my local advocacy provider. They are set up to protect people like ourselves who are in vulnerable situations, particularly in any dealings with Social Work. I found that with my advocate involved, things suddenly moved swiftly and everything was taken seriously! I would type in Advocacy and your local area to find details.

Unfortunately, I have been told that my two dc do not qualify for young carers support, due to my having carers. So despite the great deal of anxiety and distress that they feel due to my health, there is no support for them. It seems very wrong to me!

When I have to deal with bullying/ any issues regarding my daughter, I call the school and ask to speak with the head/ dd’s teacher. The school are aware of my difficulties and have been very accommodating.

I agree with other PPs that a supportive advocate would be very useful to you. It's easy (and totally understandable) to become overwhelmed by life when you're in good health, never mind dealing with a chronic illness and a small child!

There are a number of good advocacy charities out there who will be able to advise you and hopefully put you in touch with somebody local - however, you need to take the first step in asking for help.

I know it's disappointing and hurtful when people we perceive to be in positions of power let us down, but taking that power back and securing the help you need can be extremely empowering.

Good luck and I hope things work out for you.