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 can't stand bullying and I have spoken up when my dsd new trainers were thrown into the sea and when a teen threw a cigarette in her face and burnt her cheek, I was livid. I drove down to the park and told the bully if she so much as breathed in dsd direction again I was coming for her. Not my finest moment, she did apologise afterwards and we never had an issue again.

Sometimes it's really hard to say nothing when a vulnerable person is being bullied. Perhaps we should speak out more so it's vocalised more often how unacceptable it is.

@KarenNotAKaren completely get why you’re at the end of your tether, but I didn’t say I’d launch a child into outer space with the boom of my screams, only that I’d confront them if they were bullying my daughter!

Either way, I hope you get a resolution soon. I’m a primary school teacher, and even at a young age children can so cruel.

I'm a teacher and a parent if a year 5 dd who started having issues with a very clever lovely to all but horrible to my dd child. I raised it at parents eve, then escalated with HT, governors next. Ultimately I spoke to the child- in front of class teacher and told her if her behaviour continued would she like the police to cone to the school or rather home instead? She literally crosses the road when sge sees me in dd now. I quite prepared to go to police and ask them to visit her (it did fet physical ) I was also prepared to go into school to speak to HT abd report to governors each meeting I did email trail and followed up every conversation like this so everything was recorded. In my school unfortunately unless a parent is serious about making trouble about a bully nothing would happen. You do need to fight for get its schools responsibility to keep her safe- move her out of class if she continues etc. Ask about bullying policy, write repeatedly to governors, contact safeguarding lead and report each thing report to social services anonymously- that often works wonders at its coning from an outside source and is logged separately- gp appointment about daughters anxiety from bullying also works.

@KarenNotAKaren

You need to report this to your school Governors about this school bully's behaviour and you don't think 🤔 it's being dealt with properly taking seriously appropriately,

I would also demand that the school bully's parents also have to see the headmaster or headmistress,

Threaten that you will be reporting this to the police and do this

Just wondering also cause also its child safeguarding issues involved

Your child being mistreated and the kind of upbringing the school bully comes from report to Social services as soon as possible too,

Believe me school bully's family they will soon start taking things a lot more seriously if social services are involved that's for sure,
in more ways than one,

I ment to say typo omission word, enough *

To the person / people who say moving the child won't make a difference at this point, how do you come to that conclusion? If you were being bullied at work, would you be happy to deal with it for another 7 months at least? Or would you prefer to go to work somewhere else where the bully wasn't there?!

@MyopicBunny i don’t think anyone is suggesting just sitting back and letting it happen.

But moving her at this stage is likely to unsettle her a lot, and it will mean she’s likely to be more vulnerable when she does start secondary because existing friendships won’t be as strong and any new friends she makes won’t have the same bond as the old ones. In other words, she’ll start secondary without the benefit of strong friendships from primary and that can put children in a vulnerable position.

She’s also likely to be grilled as to why she’s moved school, the bully will feel she’s driven her out and she may well feel punished.

sometimes a fresh start is best for everyone but in this case it is worth staying.

Hopefully @KarenNotAKaren has some useful advice re best approach to take with the school.

@Beansandcheesearegood

Totally agree with you 💯 per about your post

You've nailed it spot 👌 on
with your insight emotionally intelligent post...

I confronted them at their house. Ended up in a physical altercation between me and their mum but nothing ever happened to my child again.

I caught DS’s bully in the act. It was at drop off and there were no staff around. I calmly told him I would be speaking to his mother.
He was suddenly taken ill and had to go to the school nurse.
He never bullied DS a gain.
I was totally transparent and a number of other boys were there who witnessed the bullying and my reaction.
I had a number of other parents congratulate me. Apparently he had been bullying quite a few boys ( very controlling personality with zero sense of humour) despite many complaints school had never seen his behaviour so had taken no action.
DS had bruises down his spine from being slammed against the wall of the changing rooms. I couldn’t work out how he was getting them, then I did a safeguarding course and it is one of the classic signs of physical abuse.
I had to confront this child’s parents because most of the bullying was at an activity outside of school, again in changing room where adults were not allowed ( due to safeguarding ironically).

If you child has bruising that cannot be explained, photograph it and then escalate. If she is being slammed against a wall the bruising is classically over the spine. It is almost impossible to get this sort of bruising any other way.

I’ve read some of your replies and I do think the school could do more. And you’re also wrong to think this will stop in secondary. It is likely to get A LOT worse (I work in secondary). You need to go back to governors and ofsted, write a letter. The fact one already has been sent is good as it is even more evidence. I would also agree about going to the police. The school have a duty of care towards your daughter. The school should have behaviour and bullying policies. E.g at my place there is a specific route they would follow which would involve reports, meetings, then progress to respite moves to other schools, temporary days exclusion. They should be following that to the tee! I can imagine the school are thinking it’s only 6 months to get through and they are just saying the right things to you! Unfortunately bullying usually massively ramps up in high school especially for girls. Some of them can be so so nasty and turn people against each other. If your daughter has already been an easy target i can imagine she will continue.

Look, I know you're not meant to and I had tried the official channels to no avail. I just said to the child, who was always nice as pie to me, you wouldn't happen to be being mean to my daughter would you? And she said wide-eyed,no! And I said, that's good because otherwise I'd have to get you in a lot of trouble.

Not a moment's bullying from that day on. In fact, she soon invited my daughter and my daughter's friends to a little party at her house. Her new stepmother was trying to help her make friends. All the girls and mums went and it was a turning point.

We had similar in year 7. After a few weeks, DD (similar temperament to OP’s child)came home injured from being shoved over. School had no appointments to discuss and no one had informed me she was coming home visibly bruised.
I emailed in ‘Sorry to report that my child has been assaulted by another student in your care. None of your team have been available to inform me how this occurred. I believe I need to inform the police and if so which teacher shall I tell them to contact?’.
Phoned in person by the deputy head ten minutes later who had gained a surprisingly comprehensive overview of the situation in that time and come up with an action plan.
Good luck 💐
Edited to make it clear I wasn’t accusing the staff of assault, sorry 😊

If you know the parents of other kids who have been hurt by this child, can you not band together and call a meeting with the school?

Actually, I think there is no reason why anyone should not confront their child's bully as long as you don't threaten them. The police are not going to caution someone unless you made a threat.

Jesus, is this another MN thing?
Like how some women can feed their family of 4 from a medium sized chicken for a whole week?
Are all the mothers on here fully trained in all the martial arts and built like a brick shithouse?
Marching round to people's houses threatening violence like it's nothing!

OP - I feel for you and your daughter. I probably wouldn't approach a child on the school playground, because if it gets back to the school then you are going to come off worse.

Do you ever see the child outside of school? On the walk in/home?

What have school done about the non attendance of her parents when they've tried to organise a meeting? Have you considered calling the non emergency police to see if there is anything they can do?

Yes it's interesting how stressed schools get when you involve the police. My dd (11 at the time) was pushed over when she was walking home from school by some year 11 girls and arrived home, bleeding. I took photos of them and reported them to the police and the school. The school had to deal with it then.

Sometimes this is the only way to protect your child. Not physically of course but a few chosen words. Failing that I would go to the police.

Sorry people are being such dicks OP. I can't believe the amount of people having a go at you for not being able to magically force the school to expel her. Or saying you should threaten a child, as if that would go down well! 🙄

At this point, I'd go to the police. Some harsh words from them might be the thing that scares her out of this behaviour. Good luck.

I am sorry this is happening to your daughter. Do escalate up the chain at school as others have suggested. Record every incident in writing with times, dates, location, what happened. If you don’t see rapid and effective action, involve the police and tell the head that’s what you’re going to do.

I was confronted as a child by a parent about bullying. I hadn't bullied anyone but a friend had spun a pack of lies to her mother (I wasn't the only victim) who then decided to "take matters into her own hands". It was honestly bizarre. She left me and another girl crying in the street. Obviously we had to get our parents to sort it out. But even had any of it been true, it was such an outrageous and inappropriate thing of the mum to do! I wouldn't recommend it.

I absolutely wouldn’t have an issue confronting my child’s bully. I grew up in a very rough area and the only way to not get picked on is to show you weren’t someone to mess with. I absolutely would approach her on the way home, tell her you know where she lives and you’ll make her life hell if she continues to target your DD.

@Malarandras

No a parent who speaks up to the school bully cause their child is being abused tormented by the school bully is not unhinged mad,

It's only natural to want to protect your flesh and blood from a child who is inflicting their issues onto your child,

usaully when a parent stands up to the school bully
on behalf of their child,

It's often the last resort they have reached the end of tether and are raging 😤 royally pissed off,
with either the school slow action head stuck in the sand can't be arsed to take it seriously enough,
as it means making an effort and admitting they have got an issue with bullying and of course it does not look good reflect well on the school
Ofsted school inspectors

@KarenNotAKaren

Don't forget to threaten the school you are going to get in touch with social services as its extremely serious safe guarding issues

Also threaten the school you are going to report them to the school inspectors Ofsted
if they don't take your daughter suffering school at the school bully seriously enough

Watch how 🤔 quick the school takes it more serious your daughter issue with the school bully

When you threaten to report school to school inspectors and social services are involved,

the school and school bully's parents will be quaking in their shoes with fright 😱

Allmost Pissing themselves in fear and they deserve this kind of shit 💩 too.

No more softly softly approach anymore !

they need a kick up their Arses this school

I am 😠 angry just reading about what your daughter is going through and amagine how i would feel if my daughter had this kind of crap to deal with ect..

Actually the main reason that schools don't permanently exclude children is that it costs them money to do so.

I think the OP has already done all of the right things in terms of documentation and reporting to the head but it isn't working because the bullying hasn't stopped.