Have you ever spoken to another parent about bullying/being mean to yours?

[georgedawes]

Before anyone tells me it's a bad idea and leave it to the school, I do realise this and would no doubt say so if a friend asked me their opinion. However I'm wavering! Have you ever told another parent what they are doing? Did they believe you? I'm put off by the fact that they're unlikely to believe their child capable of what they're doing; but wonder if a "tell your child to keep away from mine" might work.

School wouldn't step in with my ds's bully as it was mainly online and only a few incidents at school

So I had to speak to the mum and had to be rather blunt as she thought it was all a fuss over nothing. Once I showed her the evidence she was mortified and invited DS round for tea (erm.......nope). It stopped for a bit then started again so I spoke to the kid directly. No issues since.

You don't know what tale she could forward on though. She could make out she was threatened /her dc was threatened. She won't stand there and discuss her dc being a little twat will she?

I wouldn’t as the school should be able to investigate it properly and get to the bottom of it otherwise it ends up a bit he said she said type of thing. Plus you need to tell your child to raise it with a teacher straight away so it can be investigated straight away and dealt with. I would listen if some parents talked to me about my child but It would depend who it was e.g. are they sensible and reasonable.

I have had one set of parents approach me about my son - based on their past history I’ve said that I fully support the school in their approach. There have been a number of issues with that family including the parents denying that their child and been involved in ganging up on and hitting my child and one of them even approaching my child in the playground and asking him why he was being so mean. He hadn’t been and had actually been on the receiving end as had other children. I don’t value their opinion at all and I was not impressed when they approached me about it. They don’t consider that their child is in the wrong at all. If there was one bully in that situation it was the parent who made my child afraid to go into their school playground.

If you are going down that route, make sure you are absolutely correct. There is no room for mistakes here.

I had a text alleging DS had been bullying another child- an old friend. School had mentioned some low level issues and I was working with them to resolve them. DS understood that he was in trouble.

However, the text and next allegation made no sense. DS had people around who backed up hid version. More texts appeared from the other parent.

Long story short, it was proved a few days later to be fabricated by the other child. An incident had occurred- a one off for which DS was punished- the other child had taken it as a real slight and had made further complaints leading which were not true. By the end I complained that actually DS was on the receiving end of a campaign of calculated bullying which could have resulted in his exclusion from school without evidence that it wasn’t true.

Suffice to say I have never been able to speak to that mother again. We used to go out for drinks etc.

@BloodyHellBeryl
That could have backfired spectacularly though....police could have been involved, all kinds😮 how did you get away with that?

I’ve approached someone I thought was a friend about her sons behaviour. He denied everything and she chose to accept that.
More stuff happened I approached her again as I was livid, once again she believed her sons version of events. Both times school were informed. Her son is a git.
I no longer consider her a friend.
Would I do the same again? Yes. It can go either way and is very dependent on the circumstances involved.
If you do, speak to the school and let them know. I think it is part of a teaching job to have every child feel safe in school and the laissez faire attitude that your class teacher is showing is not ok.
Wishing you luck & hope your dc is in a better situation soon.

It was a long time ago @mmmm. I don't think the police would have been interested back then. I used to see her out and about after that. She'd just say hello before trying to climb into the nearest hedge.
As far as I'm aware, it put a stop to her daughter's bullying ways.

I have and massively regretted it after, it was a friend I spoke to about her son being mean to my son, it had happened before and I didn't say anything, she was mortified (as was I) marched her child over to apologize there was crying, denial, embarrassment. I felt terrible and cruel and wish I had just left it, I ended up thinking I had overplayed what had happened and then felt guilty I got the wrong end of the stick.i doubt I would ever do it again

Once. It was met with a flat denial. “No he wouldn’t do that.”

So I reported to school and repeated the things my child had told me had happened. School has a chat with the child who admitted everything and then got the parents in and by all accounts, bollocked them, about what bullying actually is (they seemed to think it was thuggery and stealing lunch money) and just what a snide their child was. The mum was in tears.

It's really difficult.. we had a situation with my dd who was being picked on by her friend. I'd dealt with it all through school despite being friends with the mum as it's just too mortifying to bring it up and that seemed more professional. When they mixed the classes when the kids moved into juniors the school mixed the classes and separated them as the issues were still on going. The mum went into school and complained and sent me a string of awful messages alleging I'd orchestrated the whole thing!! (I hadn't!). We tried to talk about it after but she didn't believe what I was saying and got really angry..

So I don't know the right way really... I think mostly people hate finding out their dc is being unkind and will react badly however they find out.

Yes. After going into school several times about the same child picking on dd and generally making her want to move school and very miserable. I spoke to her mother and she obviously didn't believe me. I advised her in no uncertain terms that it was to stop and fast.
Needless to say she never spoke to me again and my dd from then on was left alone.

Mess with my kids and I go into full psycho mode. Take no shit!

Of course her dd is now a chief bitch kind of bully and mum still thinks she's a princess.
Glad they haven't moved up to high school together.

I have also spoken to kids directly. Walking past the school at break time to see dd being picked on and called names. Good job that fence was up really. No adult supervision apparent at all. I called this kid over and gave her a real roasting about being a nasty bully and if I see or hear one not thing il be knocking on her door to speak with her parents, and she knew I meant it!

Hate bully's. 20 years ago I was a older teenager and my friends sister was getting bullied on the school bus. She was 11 and the bully was 16. So I caught the school bus one day and laid in wait for her to start. She did of course and I spoke to her in to only way folk like that understand.
I was 2 years older than her as a pose to her 5 years older than the victim.

Maybe it's wrong, not too fussed. They got the message loud and clear.

The Mum was a friend so I went to her house to talk about her DS calling mine names and leaving him out (same social circle out of school). He would invite all the other kids from their social group to his birthday party and make sure that mine would know that he wasn't invited, that sort of thing. His parents were very well off, and he used the fact they could afford good parties to gain popularity. Also called my DS names, talked over him and put him down.

She absolutely wouldn't believe he would do such a thing, but said she would talk to him. Came back and said that he said he was really shocked that DS would say such things, and of course he wouldn't do anything like that. I said I'd heard him say it too, and so had one of the other children in the group, but she said we must be mistaken/misheard.

I encouraged him to move away from that situation and find new friends, although he kept in touch with a couple of the nicer kids on a one to one basis. He now has a really lovely group of friends. A few months later, I heard from one of the other parents that he'd started on her kid.

Yes I have. I went to the school several times and absolutely nothing happened to sort it. I arranged to speak to the mum (I knew her fairly well) and we had a coffee and a chat and she said she would speak to him.

She came to me the next day and said that had spoken to him and he said it was all lies so she believed him. She said that he was 'incapable' of lying as he knew that 'God didn't like lying'. I knew from that point I was on a losing battle. Her non lying son has been shown to be a thoroughly unpleasant young man (now a young teen) and is now on his third school after being permanently excluded from two others. For violence and bullying.

I haven't so far. Ds is only in reception but there is one boy who has said some awful things to ds. I have brought it up with school and things did seem to improve until the last 2/3 weeks or so. Last week ds came home with a filthy coat after being dragged in the play area by this boy. I have made it very clear to school that this is unacceptable and they say that they are a dressing it but if it doesn't stop I will talk to his parents about it. I'm just getting sick of hearing the same name over and over again followed by 'hit my face' or 'knocked off my glasses'.

I have a couple of times.
One was lovely said she would speak to her ds but as she didn't know anything about it she couldn't comment. Either way he stopped.
The other was more concerned that I told her child he was a horrible brat and they should go and play nicely
It did stop though.

Funnily enough I'm now quite friendly with her dh who tells me they have 0 control over him and he's so so close to being expelled. She still insists he's perfect.

I did once as the parent was a friend of mine. She refused to believe me and absolutely slated my daughter.
I only deal with it through the school now.

Don’t! Two mums have done it to me! It severely ruined our friendships because they were unable to see that previously my child had been victim to their child! I just never said anything. And then when they held my child responsible, I did mention that my child had suffered to their child, it just looked tit for tat. In one instance the mum knew my child was seeing a clinical psych about it!

This child is still mean to my child. They are just different in outlook and that’s it. The other child desperately wants to be ‘cool’ and my child is quite nerdy.

In the other instance happening now, the other child is really having a very rough time and I have no doubt my child has played some part. I have spoken to my child and this week has been a good week. My child has ASD and previously her child has teased my child for this and I’ve had to manage v difficult situations, but I said nothing. Feels a bit unfair but I really like this child but I think it’s part of the usual fall outs of kids. Having 4 dds and also being a TA, and a parent if kids with SN, I do really get that.

I did ....the mothers response was if you are going to accuse my child of doing something he hasn't done then he may as well do it.

I wouldn't unless I was friends with them and it was out of school too.

The school should talk to the other parents and they constantly beseech us to let them deal.

If the parent is receptive and the school agree there is an issue etc then a teacher speaking with them should help, if they are the "my child never does anything wrong" sort then they won't respond to a parent well either.

Plus if it's going on at school the parent should be informed by them in the first instance.

If another parent came to me I'd initially go into school to get to the bottom of before I could do anything.

I have, because the mother was a friend of mine.
Note the past tense..

....the parent who responded to me with that shitty statement above is a school teacher herself

9/10 the school don't take it seriously so you have no option but to take it into your own hands.

Wow, wasn't expecting so many responses, thank you. It's really sad to read about schools not taking bullying seriously (still!) and parents not believing their little darlings capable of such nastiness.

Spoke to school, and to give them their dues, they were very good and said they will deal with it. No question that it is bullying and that DD is not at fault, so I am going to give them a chance and see how they handle it. I was so mad when I wrote this yesterday, other children picking on yours hits your buttons like no other, especially if you had a tough time with bullying yourself at school.

Here's hoping school deals with it. I can see why people have felt forced to talk to the other parents when they haven't though!