If your child was bullied (primary), what was the outcome

[Bullying]

DD (6yo - Y1) has been bullied for over 3 months by another girl in her class. This girl used to be her friend. We didn't realise at first what was going on but the teachers have noticed in the last couple of weeks that's she's become increasingly anxious coming to school or going to the playground at breaktime.

She's finally opened up and we were horrified. This girls has been pushing DD, nudging her with her knee, calling her stupid, silly poo poo-ish, chasing her down the playground to shout abuse at her, telling her I hate you, pulling her hairbands out of her hair without DDs permission, gossiping to other girls about her, telling them DD is silly stupid and so.

I raised it with the school on Mon and they did take it seriously. The head of pre prep and the head teacher got involved, I believe they called the parents too. This girl admitted that's she's been 'unkind' to DD but that this won't happen again.

I had a meeting with the head of pre prep on Monday and although she said they took it very seriously and they have informed all the teachers/lunch staff and so on, they still encouraged them to play together and teach the other girl how to be kind.

It's Wed today and DD is still very anxious to go to school (she adored her school before this happened). She said that on Mon her 'bully' approached her and told DD that she shouldn't have told the teachers about it, it was a very 'bad thing to do'. Yesterday, during a lesson, this girl started tickling DD and playing with DDs hair, disrupting her basically. DD told the teachers and this girl was moved to a different seat. I should say this girl has no SEN, she's very bright and very popular in the class.

I'm devastated that this has been happening, DD is like a different child now. I asked the school that they keep this girl away from DD but obviously they don't agree with it.

I'd like to hear if anyone has had similar experiences at school and how you deal with it.

Thank you

Yes, it ended in us moving schools after 6 months

The school was very invested in getting them to be friends again, not understanding or wanting to understand that my DC was frightened in school every day.

We should have moved them sooner, but it feels like a big step to pull a child out of their friendship group etc...in the end I realised I wouldn't continue to go into a workplace with taunting / name-calling/ pinching etc and neither should my DC.

Moved them when it was clear the school didn’t give a flying fuck

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that 😢. The last thing I want is moving school as DD genuinely loved her school up to this point.

Hope you DCs are in a better place now x

We also moved schools due to bullying.
I burned the bridge too during one very frustrating meeting with the school.
They felt like my DC should forgive, forget and want to be friends with the bully. My DC just wanted to be left alone.
I said that trying to force my child to be friends with their abuser is like expecting a woman to date a man that has sexually harassed her at work to solve the sexual harassment.

I said it’s child on child abuse and they should accept that most people are not going to want to be friends with their abuser no matter whether they are children or adults.

The room went ice cold and so I said I don’t think this is the right school for my DC and withdrew them and did a mid-year transfer to another school.

So sorry 😞.

What is this thing about encouraging friendship with the abuser??!! 🙄 I'm absolutely furious!

Makes me feel a little better that we are not alone. I'll write to the school at the end of the week asking them again to not let this girl anywhere near DD.

I’d reframe your your language around this. Your reaction to it is going to make a huge difference on how she deals with it and her view on school.

My dds are in prep and they are usually very quick on the ball with any issues.

Girls though can be an absolute nightmare so this is a good opportunity to teach dd how to respond because honest to god - this will happen many times through out her school life.

Tell DD that every single time the girl does something that upsets her to tell the teacher.

Tell DD that it’s good she is telling you.

Tell DD that sometimes we have to be strong and brave and tell the other person to ‘stop and go away’ - if they don’t then go and tell a teacher

It’s really important your dd starts to develop skills that enable her to feel able to defend herself or shut down silly behaviour- because if she doesn’t this is going to happen a lot.

My girls go to an all girls prep, the last couple of years have been not great for my dd2 (11) and we are looking forward to her joining a mixed sex school in September.

We left our child in the school. Big mistake. After primary she went to secondary and instantly became a different child. The constant anxiety disappeared and our confident, happy child reappeared. We should have left straightaway and not wasted her primary school years.

Ours have ensured the girl is placed in the other class each year. When it's relentless like that it's unlikely to stop, if told off repeatedly it will just become more subtle like nasty looks.

Have a conversation with your daughter about how children who aren't very happy at home (such as if their parents are very busy and don't have time to spend with them, or older siblings say mean things to them) often act unkindly to others, and that it's nothing to do with the person they're being mean to, it's just because the bully is sad and sad children often find it hard to act happy and kind.

My best friend’s son went through something similar in reception. It was only sorted after her DH called the Headteacher and advised he would be removing DS from school unless he could change class. It seemed to work.

Sadly, the outcome id often dependent on the child step parents/aprents etc

Good luck and I hope the bullies parents/srep parents are decent people and if that is the case, the bully often stops

It is infuriating, and we are supposed to be teaching children that they have a right to say no to any unwanted attention/relationships and that includes friendships.

Friendships are the basis for future romantic relationships. If girls are taught be kind, forgive abuse and make friends with abusers when it is for friendships, then that totally messes up their ability to say no and have boundaries against predatory and abusive men when they are women.

I agree keep supporting your DD and praising her bravery and strength for telling you what is going on. She should not have to appease and be friends with her bully. The school should keep them apart.

If this school won’t support your DD and it isn’t enjoyable any more, it’s ok to move schools while your DD still likes school in general.

It’s a good life lesson in a way because schools can be toxic and as an adult jobs can be toxic even if you like school or your work. (I view school as a child’s job/work.)

Sometimes it’s better to cut loose and get another school/job than try and repair dynamics and relationships. Often bullies have zero interest in getting along with their victims and attempts to patch things up just create more opportunities for the bully to further erode a persons mental health. Removing yourself from the situation is a perfectly valid solution. It should not ever be the victim’s job to rehabilitate a bully into a nonbully and that goes for school and workplaces.

Have you read the school's bullying policy? Are they following it? If not, you need to challenge, why not?

Ask your child to tell you everything incident. Keep a written record of the incident and the impact on DD. is it affecting her sleep, mental health ect.

Write to the head with what's happened so far, What's happening now. The impact on DC. How they are failing to meet their own policies.

Link it back to the every child matters agenda and the schools own policies.

Its main aims are for every child, whatever their background or circumstances, to have the support they need to:

Be healthy
Stay safe
Enjoy and achieve
Make a positive contribution
Achieve economic well-being

Thank you, great advice.

DD has been terrified for all this time to tell anyone 😔. This week the school have rewarded her for telling on, however she still feels bad for doing it just because the school still encourages this friendship, so it must be very confusing for her.

Thank you.

They said they are keeping a record of all this and the head of Pre Prep and the school head are involved.

They've spoken to the girl who admitted everything, not sure there were any consequences for this behaviour. Not sure whether the parents were informed, I hope they were.

In my meeting I felt like, even though they said they take it very seriously, they tried to downplay it (just unkind behaviour).

Also they didn't like me calling this behaviour bullying.

I was the bullied child at school - parents flagged with school and it was dealt with to an extent. When it was particularly bad, Mum took me out of school for a few days to have some treat time. When it came to secondary, when to a completely different school from most of the other children.
Now parent of a child who isn't exactly bullied but only ever issues when around a certain child - have to flag this with the school that they need keeping apart.
Go back to the school and insist that the bully is kept away from your daughter. The bully has owned up but your daughter should absolutely not be being forced to be friends with her. Really awful approach by the school.

Dd (8) had huge issues with a boy in her class. School just didn’t care at all we had so many meetings they were useless dismissive and minimised it. He was chasing her, grabbing and pushing, teasing.

We then got called into school one day about a ‘serious’ incident. He had pinned dd against the wall-she had then told him she had eaten peanut butter at breakfast and if he didn’t get off her she would make him allergic . He was then distraught and dd got in serious trouble. She told us that it was the only thing she knew would get him off her and that he was always telling everyone he was allergic and she didn’t know what else to do. The school were dreadful about it so we then moved to a different school

It ended when DS completely lost it and completely beat the shit out of the kid. Of course the school were then really keen to do something despite ignoring the bullying (physical and verbal) over the last few years. DS was 9 when that happened and bullying had been going on a year maybe.

Well done to your DD for standing up to him!!

DD is usually a very assertive child but at school she is trying to be perfect for fear of getting into trouble so she's really not doing anything apart from telling the bully to stop, which hasn't worked so far.

Well done to your DS!!

Dd was being bullied by a boy in primary.. Initially school denied anything was happening.. Until he jabbed dd in the eye with a pencil so hard she had daily appointments at the eye hospital before they ruled out long term damage after 10 days. The school said it was an accident.. One evening after school I saw the df (had been the dm so far - divorced). I mentioned to him dd's eye was improving.. He had no clue about it. I was called into school and 'told off' by the head for telling him what his ds had done.. I took all 3 of my dc out of that school soon after...

It’s horrible isn’t it. My dd had kept quiet put up with it, cried at home and then just snapped suddenly

That's appalling!! That makes me so angry!

Schools protect bullies and facilitate bullying. Bullies tend to be widely admired in society now and victims seen as weak and deserving of such treatment. If your dd is unable to basically punch this little beast in the face then she's on a hiding to nothing and you'll need to change schools. Don't ever believe the school is on your side.

We had to change schools twice in primary as autistic ds was bullied. On the second occasion the teacher helpfully joined in which encouraged the class to turn physical so we removed him for his safety.

Schools can be like prisons. Only the strongest and most psychopathic survive.

@Daisymango and @AnneElliott I enjoyed hearing about your DCs standing up for themselves!!

I think sometimes this is the best way if schools are not doing enough. In fairness sometimes their hands are tied. I often think if I could wait outside the school and threaten violence against DSs bully the problem would be solved.