To try and help my 11 yr old ds sort out a friendship problem?

[Bluebell99]

My ds has just gone up to the local high school in September. He is very shy but was part of a group of four good friends. One of them now spends alot of time with his older brother and has made friends with another boy.
Two weeks ago my ds fell out with one of the other two, because his friend got sick of my ds asking if they had any science hw (?!) Now the other two aren't speaking to him and are saying he is no longer their friend!

It all sounds a bit of a todo about nothing but my ds has been friendless now for two weeks!!

I know the other boy's mother, and am wondering if i should ring her and see if she has any idea why her ds is ignoring mine or if my ds has done any thing to upset him.

They have been friends for about four years.

I don't like seeing my ds so unhappy.

Are you absolutely 100% sure that DS has been friendless for 2 weeks? Sometimes what 11 year olds say, isn't quite what is actually happening.

I don't think you should get involved either and if you do, you may end up with egg on your face, because what you've been told, isn't all together true.

It is so, so difficult, but you really must not get involved. Obviously, at home, you encourage and be interested in what he has to say, but that's it.

Pound to a penny, they'll be knocking about in the park again by the weekend and when you question it, he'll say, 'oh yeah well, that was last week', leaving you feeling exhausted with the amount of time and worry you've put into it!

My DSs situation was rather similar, Slambang. He had had a best friend for several years at Primary school, so much so that I became friends with the mother because it was so handy to take picnics out etc together in the summer holiday. DS was devastated but he had to look for friends elsewhere. As it turned out it was all for the best as his friend was a cheerful, popular boy but he was easily led and spent his time messing about, whereas DS made friends with boys who were keener to achieve. I am still friends with the mother, we go to the gym together but we never discussed the rift in the friendship, I would imagine that she took the same view as me, they don't remain static.
I am surprised that people see it as bullying, I actually think that it is good for DCs to learn how to deal with the situation by themselves and it makes things easier as an adult to deal with the bigger problems in life. If your mother has sorted things out so that you never have any problems where on earth would you start when the girl you love breaks off the relationship, a colleague at work gets promoted above you etc etc? They need to sort out problems for them selves, by all means support and suggest but don't interfere.

Hmm wasn't online last night so have just returned to the thread this morning. He is interested in joining some clubs at school and thinks he may have missed the joining date so may talk to his tutor about that.

He has been playing with a couple of other boys so sorting things out for himself in a way. I have been encouraging him to seek out new friends.

But I do think they is an element of bullying to this anyway, because of course it is fine to move on and make new friends but you don't have to say "You are not my friend" One of them said he had sent my ds a text message saying he wasn't his friend, but my ds just brushed it off saying he had deleted him from his friends list on his phone, and we couldn't find evidence of the text message.

He is a nice lad even if i say it myself! I am sure he will hook up with someone else. I wish he wasn't so shy though. And a bit concerned that he is off on a school trip abroad in June, and don't want him to be friendless for that ...

I think that he sounds absolutely fine and handling it in a sensible way. I think that you need to take a step back, now that he is secondary age. If he is willing to seek out his tutor to ask questions, willing to go along to clubs and been looking for other friends I wouldn't think he is that shy, probably more a reserved type.

It' not bullying. Really it's not.

It is only bullying if he starts a campaign of unpleasant text messages or stops others being friends. One text message is just stating a fact, which your DS has handled in a mature manner.

It is not bullying. At this age, they are rather unsophisticated in managing social relationships.

Learning how to communicate "you are not my friend" without saying "you are not my friend" will be one of the tasks they learn in the coming years (and I'm sure many adults still struggle with: it's easier to drop a partner than a friend, even if you start to hate your friend).

Do not communicate to him that he is a victim or he is being bullied. If he needs to make sense of this by talking with you, fine. Talk to him about friends you had in the past that you no longer have and how the end of that friendship came about; keep encouraging him to try out new means of making friends etc. June is AGES away! Don't let your own anxiety cloud his understanding of this situation. He is just getting on with it, from the sounds of things..

op- the trip abroad may be the making of lasting friendships. my dd went to germany with a group of people in her year she hardly knew and came back with the 7 friends that are her closest pals now. They were all in the same position so all got to know each other without any of the worrying about who knew who if you see what i mean!

wise teacher who arranged the trip said in the letter to parents "if you are picked for the trip dont turn it down because your best friend isn't going, you will make new friends whilst you are there"

and he was so right!

It is also important that they learn how to manage social relationships for themselves, these types of situation are valuable learning experiences and I would say that he is doing really well.I agree with working9, don't turn him into a victim with talk of bullying, much better to encourage and empower.

Ok he came home today and said he hadn't been able to eat his sandwiches because one of these boys had "kicked" his sandwich box over "by accident" and his sandwiches had fallen on the floor. Still convinced it's not bullying?!

That is bullying. I would log the incidents in the view that you may have to go into school and get them to sort it out.

Sorry Agentzigzag for coming back to this so late; I missed your post. I don't think it is necessary to label something as bullying when a parent talks to the school.

The school handbook labels 'unhappy with friends' as a separate issue to 'bullying.' Bullying is meant to be reported immediately to the head of year or through the report it button on the school website. Unhappiness with friends is meant to be sorted out by 'contacting the form tutor or head of year urgently to nip the problem in the bud.'

The school's response would be to talk to the child, talk to the friends, and also look at other children who could spend time with the child. There is no way they would leave a child with nobody to spend time with for two weeks. If children are the same form group, they are expected to talk to one another in a friendly manner and be considerate.

I think the reason the school has time to sort it out is because it is made clear to the children that it is unacceptable, so they are less likely to engage in teasing/bullying/excluding behaviour to start with. If children treating each other poorly is endemic in a school, then the new year sevens will think it is allowed. Because it is not tolerated by the school, fewer children engage in this kind of behaviour so the school doesn't have many problems to sort out.

If you look back to my first post, the first reply you got, what I didn't actually say was when the 'new friend' caused the split he did it in a bullying way. Although I didn't interfere in any way the school picked up on it straight away and had it sorted and phoned me to tell me before DS got home. They didn't tolerate bullying. DS had to find new friends, it didn't alter anything there but there was no more bullying behaviour.
See the school, don't let it slide and don't tolerate it. No one can make someone be friends, but they are entitled to eat their lunch and go about their daily life in peace.

That is different. Ending a friendship is not bullying, that was an unacceptable act of aggression to your son.

Please take earlier comments as relating to your initial posts.

Nice of you to take the time to answer my post millyr

As I said above, I had trouble at secondary school and at times walked around on my own at breaks, and my DD1 who's at primary walks about on her own sometimes, so I'm saying this as someone who knows how hard it is.

DD1 has a 'buddy' system at school, any probs and older children intervene trying to sort out rifts between the little blighters.

But it's all very well to implement schemes like this, but it's very hard to measure the effects of them, and monitor how they work.

She still has problems with children and was pinched so hard today on the chest for not getting out of the way, that she's got two bruises

The buddy system doesn't stop DC being nasty to each other, it just mediates when there are problems.

I'm afraid I'm of the opinion that you can try and stop bullying and have some sucess, and you can try and stop the darling children being horrible to each other and have even less sucess, but what you can never do is change the very nature of children, which in the end can be very cruel.

And the reason you can't do it is because they're always 'new'.

I think we're all too caught up in whether or not it is bullying. What is important is that a school should be informed if a pupil is unhappy at school for some reason. It is then up to the school to see if they can address the unhappiness, and if there is behaviour which the school finds unacceptable, they can sort that out too.

I do think it would be a huge mistake to contact other parent's about this. It never ends well.

AZ, I think it is hard to know how schools manage children's behaviour, and how they can do it successfully.

Both mine have had times in primary school when they have walked around on their own and I don't think it is any great deal if it is only for a short time.

I can only base it on personal experience. I moved quite a few times as a child and so attended 5 different schools. There was a huge difference in levels of bullying and general civility of the children between schools, and I do think that was to do with what was tolerated by the school and what kind of example was set by the teachers.

When choosing a secondary for DS, the feel of the school was really important to me, and I felt I could make a judgement on that from having such a varied experience myself.

So I don't think a lot of bullying is inevitable, but I do think it can be tricky for schools to really build up a decent culture within the school.

Sorry to hijack thread OP.

Even though they can be cruel sometimes, children can also be spontaneous, dynamic, funny and loyal.

So I think at the same time as trying to tackle unacceptable behaviour in school, we also have to be careful not to micromanage them and foster a reliance on other people intervening to 'make everything better'.

DD1s school is bloody lovely, but there can't be someone around all the time, and they have to learn to maneuver the smaller stuff themselves at some point.

my sons also 11 and hes also in a close group of 4 friends though other kids play with them to, they have been having fallings out since they was 4 and still at it now.its horrible when you see your child upset but one thing i have learnt over the years is they always make friends again without me interfering.

all you can do is listen to your son let him know you are there for him and also encourage him to make new friendships. if things get really tough have a quiet with his teacher they have ways of pairing them back up again so they have no choice but to speak.

There are two things here.
Children's friendships are not always easy, they can cause upset, but they are a learning experience and they need to settle it for themselves and learn how to cope with conflict, rejection etc and move on and this is not bullying.
If DCs are deliberately targetting another DC with the express purpose of making their life unpleasant, this is bullying and needs to be stopped.The school will have an anti bullying policy and need to implement it. Log the incidents,his sandwiches could (giving the benefit of the doubt)accidently fall on the foor once, but not twice and not if followed up by a similar incident with pencil case etc.

Yup. Still convinced. But if the sandwiches thing kept happening, then it would be.

Thanks everyone. It helps discusing it to put it in perspective. I did ring yesterday but was out when his tutor called back. Hopefully I will manage to speak to her today. Ds has a bit of history with the boy who knocked his sandwiches over. When they fell out at primary school, the headteacher rang me because thelittleshit had pushed my ds into a wall causing bruising to his face.
MillyR your advise was very helpful, and makes me feel better about talking to his tutor. Just hope I don't get all emotional talking to her

Mmmmm perhaps you could have put the backstory in the OP bluebell?

Well for most of their school life, they have been friends. Then of course, there was the incident in the very first week of high school, when the older brother of X started picking on the other two (including my ds) and knocked my ds to the floor! School took that very seriously. Anyway tis all getting a bit confusing. The one who he fell out with isn't x, but x has taken his side, and it is x I am a bit wary of as he knocked ds's sandwich over yesterday, and pushed ds into the wall.

Have spoken to his tutor now. She seemed very on the ball, so hopefully things will improve for ds.