AIBU to expect a teacher to respect my wishes that my child does not play with a bully

[nofunanymore]

My ds had major problems with another child last year. The child in question is a bully and very domineering. After a big blow up last year I told my ds not to play with the child in question. All was fine but now a year on the bully's parents have complained to the school that their child has no friends and wants to play with my child and so the teacher has told my ds he MUST play with said child. Surely you can't FORCE someone to play with another child, especially given the circumstances.

It has developed into a mad thread, go in have a chat and find out what was actually said.

:) Seeker, I didn't want it to come across in an accusatory, hoity-toity, "So what are you then, a teacher or sumfink?" type of way and of course you just can't get tone of voice across on a forum.

What I meant was inclined to point out to the OP and some others that your advice was coming from a position of 1st hand knowledge of how these things would be handled as opposed to how the DC has relayed it to mum but I didn't want to order them to "Listen to Seeker FGS!" in case I was wrong.

Well, I am a parent helper, a school governor and the parent of a child who was bullied.

Does that help? Oh, and I've been a parent of primary school children for 12 years!

Tried to make appointment to speak about it today, but normal teacher not there til Monday. Shame, as I wanted to get it sorted before the weekend.

What did ds tell you happened, exactly?

I do think that children who have bullied other children in the past need help in making friends/participating in playground games. But if this involves their previous victims then great care needs to be taken. Depending on the nature of the bullying and the impact it had on the child, forcing them to be friends with a bully could be very damaging.

There is no way if these were adults we would put pressure on someone who has experience abusive behaviour to be "friends" with their former abuser. OTOH if this was targeted at a group ("Could you boys let X into your game") then its a more reasonably request for the teacher to make.

Yy to going in to see the teacher-yanbu!

My ds was in the same situation as yours so I went in to complain and educate the teacher to the background. She was acting on the other child's wish to be friends with mine. The teacher hadn't given my son's pov any consideration. She had assigned my son as "the one who will look after the other child" when my son was not the right choice for this role. (Should a child even be resposible for being a punchbag to a bully?)

After our chat, other child was told to avoid mine. I told mine to be polite to other child if they are in the same group at school and only play with other child as part of a group and not one on one. (Mine usually played footie or tag at break so easy to play together "politely".)

Other child ended up mellowing and getting along with the other boys in the class and I'd say it was because he had been seeing the school counsellor and made significant changes to his behaviour. He did not have friends for about 6 months and went through a lot of anxiety and stress but he's a much nicer boy now and not considered a bully any more.

It's such an emotive issue. I know a child who had serious anger management problems and had been labelled by adult playground gossips as a bully before he even arrived at the school. As it turned out, a number of children did fall victims to the child's temper, which was unsurprisingly not acceptable to the parents of the pupils concerned. Over the years and with a lot of help the 'bully' has been behaving in a much more civilised fashion, and is gaining some friends, but there are still parents who encourage their own DC to ostracise the child, who, by the way, is 8 years old. The instinctive response as a protective parent is that we want anyone who assaults our children to be punished, not pandered to; it's hard to remember that it's a complex problem that needs sensitive and experienced handling. (And sometimes the school doesn't provide that.) Parents have to be careful not to become bullies in their turn as a way of solving the problem.

Brecon, most parents do handle things in a sensitive way, however it's important to remember that the bullied person is just as important as the bully. By being over sensitive to the bully's issues and problems, there is a danger the victim will get overlooked.

I suspect that this year's teacher probably didn't know about or didn't remember that this child had bullied your ds last year.

I'm not a teacher but I'm guessing that while you may be aware of friendship groups within your class/year, you probably don't always remember the history of every child's interaction with other children, particularly things that you weren't a part of actively being involved in (like the teacher from last year). Even if you were told about it, you might not necessarily remember.

If you are busy and stressed, and you have some parents come in concerned that their child doesn't have any friends, but that the child has mentioned that xx and yy are nice kids, then you'll probably think 'poor kid, I'll get xx and yy to play with him at break time and see if they will give him a chance to be friends'.

What are the chances that the parents told the teacher that the reason xx doesn't play with their son is because last year he bullied him? Pretty minimal I'm sure (were the school involved with sorting out the bullying at all or was it just you telling your ds to stay away from the bully?). So the teacher would have just had a one-sided conversation with the parents and thought he would do something about it as the parents had asked him to.

I'm not trying to condone the teacher's actions, I'm just saying that I can understand that he got caught up in the moment of trying to help a child after his parents had been to see him.

However...
He certainly shouldn't have asked your ds to play with him exclusively - he could have asked him if he and his friends would have minded playing with him for one break just to see how it went.

He certainly should have given your ds a chance to say no if he didn't want to - with or without an explanation.

And once you talk to the teacher, he should certainly say that he won't ever ask your son to do this again, regardless of what the other child's parents request. You need to decide before you speak to him whether or not you want your conversation with the teacher to be relayed back to the bully's parents - ie do you want the teacher to tell them that he has spoken to you and as a result of your child being bullied by their child last year, you have requested that your son is actively kept apart from their son. Or do you want the teacher to gloss over why he is not forcing your son to play with their son?

Also sounds like a good time to bring up how the school deals with bullies in general (it's not good that your son felt he had to play with someone who bullied him and didn't know how/who to talk to someone in order to get out of this without feeling that the teacher would be angry with him) and also how they deal with people who don't have people to play with at play time (things like benches where people who want to play with someone can go and where kids in the top year take it in turns to be play buddy monitors etc) can all help.

Do you think that their son is socially awkward, has always liked/wanted to play with your son and his efforts to become friends with your son ended up with your son being bullied (maybe because he has no good role models at home, or isn't good at doing the friend thing, or gets jealous and wants a friend all to himself or whatever) - which is why this time he has requested that he wants to play with your son rather than any other kid in particular? Or is there some other reason that he might have picked your son (smaller so easily pushed around, very popular so he wants some of that popularity for himself, etc)

Sorry lots of questions and being devil's advocate, not so many answers.

Hope you manage to get it all sorted for your ds on Monday, sounds like you will be able to speak to the teacher and hopefully it won't spoil your weekend...

Thanks for all that food for thought. Probably just as well the teacher wasn't there last week, as these few days have given me a chance to calm down. We've been away for the weekend so have been keeping busy rather than dwelling on it! Just to clarify some points, DS insists that his teacher told him he HAS to play with the child in question (though, yes, I'll clarify with teacher what was actually said). It's an average size school, so plenty of other chn to play with. I think I'm safe in calling the other boy a bully as he still regularly kicks and hits children who don't do as he wishes. The odd time, my DS and this child do play in the same game of football at break, which I suppose can't be helped. My DS is pretty good at football and a popular boy, which may be a motive for the other boy wanting to play with him more / more exclusively, although to be fair I can't be sure that my DS is the only one the teacher has put pressure on to play with the bully.

Zipzap, on reflection, I suspect you're right about the teacher simply forgetting about the problems we had last year (or at least the severity of them). I also think you make an excellent point about the school's approach to bullying, which I will certainly bring up with the teacher, so thank you - hopefully something good will come of this.

Spoke to teacher after school and got a massive apology and a promise DS will be under no more pressure to play with the bully. I explained about the bullying last year (for the second time - we had already discussed it in the autumn term, albeit much more briefly), and she said it had completely slipped her mind (house point to Zipzap). It had been 'brought to her attention' that the boy in question felt he had no friends, and my DS was one of a couple of children who the boy wanted to play with and be friends with. She said she asked my DS and the other boy to play with the bully, but was very evasive when I mentioned that my DS thought it was an order rather than a request. She agreed in the end that you can't make children be friends, it has to be a matter of choice. Apparently the bully has immaculate behaviour in class - to my mind this means that if all his bullying goes on in the playground, then presumably rotas mean that it's not picked up as a pattern of behaviour (the boy is regarded as a bully among many of the children in the class). All in all, I think she thought she was doing good, but was totally misguided. A lesson to check background first and not take things at face value (I.e. poor little x says he hasn't got any friends, so I'll do as mummy and daddy ask and get him some). Incidentally, his father is a governor. I told her that the bully needs to change his behaviour to win people over, and that in the meantime he has to live with the consequences of his actions, which she agreed with. I totally forgot to bring up the problems with their whole system for handling bullying, but will do so next parents' evening. Thanks again for the words of advice.

Well done! A good example of why it is always better to start with a friendly chat rather than storm in 'all guns blazing'.

So what should the teacher do so that children aren't forced to be 'friends' but also a child isn't left friendless?
How can the 'bully' learn to behave better and be a friend if he's not given the chance?

NannyOgg - does the "bully" not need to show he is behaving better?

if he is going out into the playground as the OP comments and still hitting other children it will take a long time for the other children to want to be his/her friend?

or should the children he is hitting just forgot about this and try and be friends?

No.
It needs work on both sides and I don't see the school doing any appropriate work.
But he can't just be left to get on with it on his own.

Well done nofun, glad it went well.

Glad to hear the discussion went well nofun - and good luck with the bigger picture sorting out the school and their handling of bullies next!

No I don't think you are being unreasonable. I had a similar problem with my DS who had been tied up by a boy who had learning difficulties. Their playground game got rather boisterous and my DS was upset. I said to the teacher that I understood he had learning difficulties, but that my daughter did not need to apologise to him. Similarly, my son was a favourite in nursery of a boy who also had learning difficulties and the teacher said my DS was "very good with him" as if my DS had to play the role of his helper - I made it clear that my DS's needs were equally as important. I work in a college with students with learning difficulties, so am NOT unsympathetic, but as educators their responsbility as teachers is for ALL their pupils' needs to be respected.