Bullies - Who do teachers know who to believe?

[DoomGloom]

Long sorry.

DD (9) has got an appointment with CAMHS next month to discuss her anxiety & possibly depression & ocd, she’s had a rough couple of months and a big trigger is fall outs in friendship groups. There seems to be so much bitchiness and manipulation going on for them being so young.

In the couple of weeks leading up to xmas she was coming home some days upset with how ‘Jane’ was acting towards her & her friends. It just seemed to be squabbling so I told her to try not get involved etc.

The last few days it ramped up though and her & another friend were in tears because Jane had been spreading lies about them and turning people against them. Jane had said to DD if you’re friends with X then I’ll tell everyone you ruined my life & hurt me etc. Her teacher sent me a message saying she’d sat the girls down and told them all to get on, which they said they’d do.

On the last day of term though dd came out tearful again saying Jane had said if she was wasn’t best friends with her then she’d tell her mum to message me saying dd was spreading lies etc.

Low and behold her mum messaged me asking for our version of events, Jane had told her the exact opposite of what I’d been told.

We’ve both spoken to our dd’s and have said we are going to see how it goes next week back at school, but I don’t think it will stop.

So if I have to speak to school about it, who will they know who to believe? What can they even do? They’ve separated them in the classroom so that’s a start but it seems to be happening more in the playground.

Dd is dreading going back because of it.

Sometimes it's quite obvious and the bullied child is visibly different.

Other times there's more information (other children, reports from playground duty).

However.

Y4 and 5 girls are the worst. It can be absolutely impossible sometimes to say that someone is the bully and someone is the 'victim'.

That’s the thing with dd & Jane there doesn’t seem to be an obvious bully. Both never usually in trouble in school as far as I’m aware.

Dd insists ‘everyone’ knows Jane lies and threatens etc but I don’t know if that’s true, dd’s best friend backs her up but naturally she would.

I’m guessing they can’t ‘interview’ the classmates to get their version. My main fear is she starts refusing school because of it.

I 100% believe dd, but I know that she can have a sharp tongue when she gets defensive (with her brother anyway) which won’t be helping.

The girls used to be very close friends, until Jane started upsetting dd’s other friends, so dd has said she doesn’t want a fake friend who spreads rumours. And she’s really worried what she will be saying about her to her other friends.

The problem is that without knowing what went on in the first instance there is no way of really knowing who is bullying whom.

There is a hug amount of what you have posted (in just two posts) to unpick.

I think you now need to stop using the word bullying (as it is clearly not applicable in this situation).

What you can do

• encourage your DD to keep calm. I know this is easier said than done, but she needs to understand that being 'sharp' with other girls is not helping the situation and is likely making it worse.
• teach her strategies to use when Jane says something unkind- take a book, take colouring, maybe a few calm phrases.

You will need to find a balance between checking what sort of day she had and encouraging her (i.e. trying to cut down on the 'I'll tell my mum' nonsense).

I agree, so what can the teachers do? Just keep an eye out?

Isn’t it bullying though when she’s spreading rumours to turn people against her?

She insists she is ignoring Jane at school rather than snapping back, I just know what she’s like with her brother.

We have coping strategies to manage her anxieties and when she feels like self harming, so I can make sure she uses them in this situation too.

Emotionally obviously she’s quite fragile, I’m hoping it all blows over & dd can manage her feelings a bit better.

No, it's not bullying. It's two little girls who are struggling to get along.

If Jane's mum phoned you, it sounds like she is hearing the exact same story from her DD.

This is how it usually goes in Y5.

Jane makes a sarky comment to Emma, who says something mean back. They fall out and various messengers get involved in the drama of it all.

All girls end up in front of the teacher. Four are crying. After twenty minutes no-one can remember the initial fall out and everyone is in a bad mood.

This repeats for most of Y5, with various girls taking up Jane and Emma's roles.