Has anyone ever confronted their child’s bully?

[KarenNotAKaren]

I’m at the end of my tether.

Year 6 DD - who has always been one to be an easy target because she’s quiet and kind and doesn’t cause a fuss - is getting bullied by a so-called friend in her group of friends.

The bullying includes:

• Pushing her up against a wall and pinning her to it. When DD tells her to stop this girl says “shut your fucking mouth”
• Pinching her under the desk - she sits next to her
• Calling her fat (DD is skinny, this girl is on the bigger side), stupid, weird
• DD has learning support for maths as she really struggles - this girl makes fun of her and calls her a disgusting r word that I won’t repeat on here.
• Knocking DD over, pushing past her and generally being physical - for context DD is a titch and a good half foot smaller than this girl
• Making fun of her height.

The teachers have been amazing but they can’t force this girl to change and they have 28 other kids to keep an eye on. Her parents don’t give a shit. I have worked in child protection and her behaviour sets off so many red flags for living in an abusive household - especially the wall thing. I assume the school are dealing with safeguarding and whilst it must be awful for her to live that way my concern is primarily with my DD and how she is affected.

This girl’s parents don’t even turn up to parent’s evenings or for meeting about their DD. We had a joint one planned and I sat there on my own with the teacher as they were a no-show. I never see them at drop off or pick up as this child walks home. It would be pointless anyway - they clearly don’t care!

Im at the point now where I am seriously considering saying something to this girl. DD came home in tears again today after being pushed over on the ice and the teachers did bollock the bully and take her break times away for a week but she will just carry on regardless. At pick up the bully passed me and waved and cheerily said “Hi Lucy’s mum!”. Took all my night not to bloody say something. But I don’t know what else to do - I only want to say you need to stop picking on my daughter, I see what you do and it’s cruel, stay away from her. Which is of course nuts but my god seeing my lovely confident girl being pushed to breaking point is more than I can bear.

I don't understand why you're being so passive OP (reading your replies) given this child is still being allowed to sit next to your child and pinch her. Stand up for your daughter please. Bullying has very serious psychological implications on people, especially children and it sounds like it has been going on for far too long

Why does she have to do anything to DD in front of you? Surely DD telling you should be enough?

You are very forthright and fiesty on this thread Op and you have invested a huge amount of time and thought in to dozens of lengthy posts

why don’t you channel that energy in to addressing this issue in RL. Rather than farting around the edges as some kind of spectator to the serious abuse of your daughter

About 2 months

what you regard as a great response from the school Op

I regard as a pathetic response from the school

😞

Can I just say, @KarenNotAKaren, you've conducted yourself with exceptional dignity on this thread. It's a horrible position to be in, very emotional distressing to support a child going through this, but you've not lost a grip on the bigger picture, unlike those keyboard warriors who come on and spout off about killing or hitting children who themselves appear to be in potententially profoundly distressing circumstances themselves, as though that was any kind of answer. You have received some awful replies, lacking in humanity and compassion.

I hope the institutions with responsibility for keeping your child safe, step up and do exactly that, and you and your child can heal and move on.

@KarenNotAKaren

And yes I’ve contacted the rest, it’s in my posts.

I know you've contacted them but my question was whether you are you willing to contact them literally every time anything happens. Even if that's every day?

There's a difference between letting them know once or twice and contacting them every single time. That is what people have suggested and what I'm unsure whether you've done / will do?

The Op.can't press assault charges ,that would be up to the CPS and horrible as bullying is I think it would be unllikely the CPS would charge a year six child
This is on the school they had a duty of care to all children and to keep them safe

So, at school pick up when she’s giving you cheek, how did you respond? Smile and wave? Ignore her? Why didn’t you say something then? You don’t have to scream and shout but she must absolutely think she can run rings round your daughter if she can openly challenge you and you don’t pick her up on it.

having read couple more updates from op i think what may be making situation more difficult is because op dd still likes this girl when not bullying

still refers to her as a friend

they still sit together

so are they still talking, hanging out together etc? because it doesn’t seem like they have been separated which is what needs to happen.

if you’re wanting them to continue being mates but just without the bullying that’s probably not possible and to be honest, asking too much of the school in terms of expectations - they can’t monitor fully when they’re hanging out together as mates.

your dd has to help herself too by staying fully away from her

the fact your dd doesn’t want you intervening suggests your dd still wants to be mates with her

ime this makes situation much more difficult to solve. In this situation your dd needs to decide to put up or stay away from her.

Thanks @AmyandPhilipfan that’s definitely a good approach in how to speak to her!

So I just dropped DD off - to put you in the picture the teachers met with the bully yesterday to talk about her behaviour specifically towards DD and was told her parents were coming in today to discuss further.

DD was worried that this girl would confront her about ‘snitching’ so we practiced last night and this morning what she would say - essentially along the lines of “If you don’t want to be in trouble don’t bully people, you have caused this no one else”. She was all fired up and ready to say this this morning - and I dropped her at the door and said “good luck for today” to the teacher who said that the parents have emailed to say they aren’t coming in and the bully is being kept off today too!!! Nice for DD infuriating for me.

<sigh>

Hi OP I’m so sorry this is happening. It sounds like you’ve tried every reasonable thing to stop this.
Apologies if someone else had suggested this I don’t have time to read through everything right now but wanted to reply to you.
There will be a PCSO linked to your school. I would request a visit from them to school to talk to bully. She is at 10 at the age of criminal responsibility. They should take it seriously (from my experience PCSOs are fab at this kind of thing!) Especially as you have your paper trail. She sounds like she is at high risk of becoming an offender so they could well get involved.
They might speak to bully at school, they might request meeting with parents at school, they may visit her home. Family may be known to the police?
You could also contact SS anonymously and say you have concerns about welfare of bully and they will check up on the family.
Sending hugs OP you sound like a Supermum to me!

My name IS Karen and my username eludes to me taking it back from the insult it has become.

I haven’t seen any “women standing up for themselves on this thread” - just shitty advice to me and being infuriated and victim blaming my DD when I say I won’t behave like a violent thug

If my DD asked me why a bully was picking on her I would tell the truth, and that's not because they are jealous or because you are pretty or whatever rubbish was stated below, but because they see you as weak and you don't fight back. I would be working on her confidence constantly until she stood up for herself.

Well firstly i didn’t say her bully picks on her because she’s pretty - you’ve completely misread that. And I’d NEVER ever in a million years use the time when my little girl is opening up to me and looking to me for advice and support to make a criticism of her character. EVER. DD is placid and she’s perfect as she is, I’m not going to essentially victim blame her FFS

I’m “being passive” because this is an internet forum and effing jeffing and throwing things around isn’t really conducive to what I’m after which is advice.

I am standing up for her and will continue to do so. As I’ve stated, luckily I have had good advice on the thread!

Hence my point in the thread

My point in that comment was to assure those who think I’m a drip or wet lettuce that I wouldn’t stand by and tolerate anything I see.

But as PPs pointed out me constantly going up to her to bollock her would more likely result in me being banned from the playground than it would stop the bullying

I assure you I’m a feisty PITA IRL the energy doesn’t stop, I have no idea why people have decided “I’m a spectator” be wise o won’t assault child

I didn’t say they’ve given a great response?

I said the teachers have been great and done all they can with their very little power. And I stand by that - what else should they do, start secretly tripping this girl up?

My male friend was bullied really badly at school back in the 80s. His mum picked him up one day from school with his nan, left him with his nan and said I'll be back in a minute. She went and found the bully, and whispered in their ear "If you go near my son again I'll hunt you down like a rabid dog and I'll burn your fcking face off". He was never bullied again.

Now, obv I am not recommending that strategy but it was the only thing that worked. The school was pathetic and did not deal with it as back in the 80s we didnt have bullying policies or anything. It had got to the point where he was self harming as a result of the distress.

Sorry Op my impression is also that you have been passive about the whole thing.

The school have absolutely not done a great job. It’s clear that removing her breaks isn’t working. They should be removing her breaks for the rest of the school year and keep your daughter safe. You seem to have gone from one extreme of just having a word with a teacher, to the other extreme of approaching the kid. Ther are lots of other things to be done, and continuing to send your daughter into this situation is also shit.

I don't believe this
What bearing would you knowing some social.workers and a housing officer have? Social workers are not going to get involved because you tell.them too.
And housing officers are concerned with anti social behaviour within social housing not kids bullying other kids in school.

I just wanted to say I’m so sorry your DD is going through this op, bullying at school is absolutely horrible and I think girls can be another level of nastiness.

I have 2DC a boy and a girl. My DS is very quiet and he was bullied in secondary school. We actually sent him to boxing lessons to build his confidence. In the end he ended up being able to stick up for himself when the bullying got physical and he was seen in a different light from then on. I should say he only defended himself and restrained the other boy it wasn’t anything big but because none of his friends at school knew about his boxing and they definitely had a respect for him after that and he managed to get through the rest of school unscathed.

My DD was bullied last year and I ended up having to get quite firm with the teachers in the end. It started off like you doing the polite dance with the teachers and it was just ineffective so I printed off their anti bullying policy and had a meeting with them pointing out each point and how it had been broken. I quite firmly told them enough was enough and my next step was the police (it was moving into messages etc. so cyber bullying and the police seem to take that more seriously) not that I thought the police could do much but the school obviously didn’t want this involvement. The girls were separated as much as possible and teachers were informed of what was going on and everything was reported. It has stopped now but honestly it was heartbreaking picking my DD up from school and her bursting into tears. I wanted to move schools but my DD loves her school and really didn’t want to and let’s face it there are bullies at every school and it’s better to help them deal with these kind of people instead of shying away from them (they also exist in our adult life).

in short, I would say keep doing what you are doing. It sounds like the schools are ramping it up a bit now (they do have a process they have to follow) and if that means the girl and her parents are avoiding school then let them.

Standing in front of you and telling you once isn't bullying, doing over and over again would be.

You might not care for he police ,but the police won't tolerated adult abuse against a minor
Jesus some of these responses are ridiculous
Bullying is awful
But the Op cant take the law into her own hands having a criminal record isn't going f to.help..her daughter