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 did not say that you are scared of a child. I also wasn't rude - I was pretty frustrated though. I think you are angry at me because I suggested that you should move your dd to another school and you don't want to do that. That's your choice.

You have collected plenty of evidence of what has gone on which would enable the police to help you and your dd.

I have not been abusive or rude to you and I don't think I deserved to be called names by you, OP. I genuinely hate the thought of any child being bullied because I know the harm it inflicts. I'm not the enemy here, even though you seem to think I am. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I've also acknowledged the complexity of the situation because the two are 'friends'. And that's why I said if it was my daughter I'd move her away from this child in any way possible.

I'm going to hide this thread now because it's giving me a headache. I genuinely wish your dd all the best and I hope the situation resolves.

Your thread is entitled 'Has anyone ever confronted their childs bully? People have answered this in varying ways but you have singled out the people who have confronted them. So why did you start the thread? Just to tell those who have that they are wrong?

122 posts that the OP has written

and about 90% have nothing to do with concern for her daughter or exploring options for one nano second that don’t fit with precisely what she has already done. Just arguing.

And i find it odd how the Op repeats how she’s been dignified on this thread rather than passive. She’s been neither. This post alone, calling posts pricks, “your doe eyed shit” etc.

and the softly softly approach with the bully making the OP’s daughter’s life hell because of her difficult home life is unfathomable to most of us.

I am just relieved the OP’s daughter only has two more terms to endure. Because the school and the OP seem to be happy that it’s “all been logged”

Im really not as worried for secondary - it’s a large school where they’re unlikely to be in the same sets and I’ll be insisting they aren’t in the same form.

the op not worried despite then going to the same school? i can’t say i’m too surprised. Planning on “insisting” they’re not in the same form but at current school .pinching her under the desk - they sit next to each other.

I was bullied at both primary and secondary school. Awful. Was determined that my kids wouldn't suffer in the same way I did.

My DD was bullied at primary so I decided to equip her to handle it (as well as getting the school involved). The strategies included:

Doing role play where she was bully, I was her. We practised assertiveness and personal protection. We then reversed roles and tried it again. It gave her skills so that she could handle the situations better. It boosted her confidence a lot.

I encouraged her to have a quiet one to one chat with the girl herself (who also had a less than ideal home life). Explained to my DD that the girl was probably angry about other things and taking it out on her. Said that this wasn't acceptable but maybe by talking to the girl they could open up a dialogue. It worked. The bullying stopped.

The mother, however was a piece of work and then she started threatening me in the playground and making abusive phone calls. We dealt with that too.

I hope that you can help your DD through this. In your shoes I'd be challenging the school a bit more though.

@PuffinJilly this is the road I'd be going down.
Come on op wake up and put a stop to this. If anyone ever shoved my daughter over it would be the first and last fucking time. I'm her protector, you are supposed to be yours!

Why are school letting them sit next to each other? Sounds like school aren't putting much in place to stop it then.
If it was me I'm not sure I'd go down the route of speaking to the bully without someone else there just in case they accused me of something as I'm a childrens nurse but I definitely would go down route of reporting to police and social care and also outing the parents on WhatsApp group or whatever you have

fgs don’t “out” on the class whatsapp group 🙄

You're being naive about secondary school. This bully will absolutely target your daughter still. The bully will see this as an instant opportunity to alleviate her own feelings and there'll be fewer teachers to see it.

Change her secondary school. Call the police.

If you continue to do very little, it'll only get worse.

Please do stop making things up. I have never said “I’ve been dog Isidore on this thread”.

You go on about how many posts I’ve made (well it is my thread afterall) yet you seem to be obsessed and quite titillated that my DD continue to be bullied. Coupled with the fabrication of what I’ve said on this thread it’s just…weird. Very weird.

I did confront a bully, yes. For about three years, one boy had terrified my two sons, to the point where they wouldn't go out to play with their friends - who were also terrified of this boy.

I spoke with school, to no effect, then spoke to his mum, who seemed shocked, and said she'd speak with him. Whether she did or not, I don't know, but it didn't change.

Finally, when my youngest came home crying, I'd had enough. I went out and found this boy, who smirked at me when he saw me approach. Red mist!

I literally grabbed him by the collar, got right in his face, and told him quietly, but through gritted teeth, that if he ever went near my two again, I would come down on him so hard, he'd wish he'd never got out of bed.

Looking back, I am ashamed of how I behaved towards him (this was 20 odd years ago). But it did the trick. He did leave my sons alone. Sometime, you need to fight fire with fire.

and here we go. Just more arguing. look forward to you hitting the 200 mark

and then it’s monday again

and your daughter heads off to the same awful situation she has now been enduring for 2 months

I think you're being naive about secondary school, she has been given no consequence and will likely target your DD again. In my experience bullying is worse in secondary than primary, practically on the walk/bus home when there's no adults around to witness it.
I know you've said your DD would be embarrassed if you confront this girl, but she doesn't need to know. Something needs to happen to make this girl back off. If there's no change then I would send DD to a different secondary school.

Good on you

@HurdyGurdy19 I think you were right, you say it was 20 years ago and you are ashamed so I think you are saying you wouldn't do it today? That's the problem though isn't it, as adults we are afraid of everything and the bully fears nothing. The only consequence is telling tales.

My DS1 was not quite a 'bully' but could have been perceived as one. He never targeted anyone but would laugh if someone did something wrong at soccer or didn't know an answer etc and he was disruptive in a smart ass way. The school policy was to tell me so I could 'talk to him', yet take no action against him. Extended family and coaches were the same. I was living with his difficult behaviour 24/7 constantly choosing battles and all anyone ever did was push their issues onto me to deal with, even as they knew i was struggling as i never made it a secret. Yes as a parent he was my problem but I was doing everything I could and it was absolutely exhausting. I did parenting courses, read book after book, tried so many approaches and that was just to make life at home manageable. How was i supposed to change how he behaved in an environment i knew nothing about when i wasnt even there. My point is I wish someone had taken him to the side and given him an earful with threats, either the kids or their parents or the teachers. One neighbour had no qualms about it and would let out a roar when he was out of line and this became the house that he was well behaved in, I also had a good relationship with this family. I think as a society we need to deal with bullies personally instead of tip toeing around and empowering them.

It’s interesting isn’t it how many of us had parents confront bullies years ago or we did it ourselves many years ago, and aggressively so - I think a good reason why this is probably less common and more unacceptable now is because literally anyone could (and would) be filming and suddenly your actions are out of context and on Tik Tok! And also we live more in an age of accountability (sometimes over-accountability when you see people getting sacked for saying men can’t be women on Twitter). I don’t work with children anymore but if I was seen threatening a child or worse, or filmed, I would 100% kiss goodbye to my job and career!

Me too OP I work with children and am very conscious of how I behave. This fact, and my difficulties with DS1 led me to being too passive I think when DS2 was being picked on by some boys. I worked with a sibling of one boy and organised for my colleague to take over because I was nervous that there might be a confrontation with the parent. The other boy who is the ring leader treats DS2 terribly and I delayed taking action because I felt sorry for the Mum, he sounds exactly like my DS1 and I have seen him misbehave at activities and parties and I see her stress and embarrassment which I relate to so much. It took a while for me to realise that my past experience clouded my judgment and my only priority should be the wellbeing of DS2. Like your DD, he sometimes hangs out with his bully so it makes it tricky for the school. Its so hard.

No they wouldn't. They are just stirring the pot just like school gate mums would . Then stand back and watch the drama erupt . I've seen it happen when my kids were at school and the Head and Caretaker had to separate two fighting mums .

Well apparently despite the fact it could land parents in hot water, end in an arrest or a ban from the school yard, if you aren’t taking lumps out of another mum, or child, you are passive and not trying hard enough 🤪

"I haven’t let it go this far - what do you expect me to do, go in at playtime and follow them around?!"

I pretty much did do this when my son was being horrendously bullied. Smashed glasses, punched etc the lot. His school was next to our local cemetery and I would be there 'visiting the dead' everyday until I eventually got him out of that cesspit school with the useless bastards who call themselves teachers. Teachers who would talk the 'we don't condone bullying talk' but could never be arsed to walk the walk.

useless bastards who call themselves teachers

Delightful.

Yes. Because that's what they were. Hateful, nasty horrible people who couldn't have given a shit about my child. If I'm honest 'useless bastards' is being kind.

Every single one of them?

Yes. Every single one of them that my son came into contact with at that school. Every. Single. One. Including the head. Who, thankfully, was removed from her post.

When he was eventually moved, he went to a school where the teachers were fabulous.