to think teaching a child they are entitled to defend themselves isn't horrendous?

[lastnerve]

I know things have changed since we were children.
But surely if adults have the legal right to defend themselves shouldn't children??.

And I'm talking about defense here not condoning violence

I know I'm awaiting a flaming. hides

piglet, if they are being kicked & punched on a daily basis, then the parents need to make a choice whether they allow their child to go to school or not. If the school isn't doing anything about it, the parents need to be proactive.

There ISN'T another school to send them to! The nearest one with space is 30 miles away, inaccessible by public transport, and I don't drive due to having a disability that bars me from legally holding a driving license.

I have put in complaints to the Governors before, they have been 'lost' by the office. As have complaints to Ofsted inspectors - it's only been recently that parents have been able to contact Ofsted directly.

I have complained by telephone to the LEA. I have tried to take legal action against the school, only to discover that you can't get legal aid for education cases.

I haven't been sitting on my backside 'happily' sending my DC's to school. But my LEA does NOT like HE, and my DC's would suffer just as much in another way by being HE, because I JUST don't have the money to get them to HE groups, so they would get NO socialising. And as one of those DC has Autism, I don't know that it would be the best thing for him.

Also, I might be able to HE the two that are already there, but I won't be able to HE my youngest DC, because when he starts school, I need to be at work but that's a whole other issue given my disability as my benefits will stop.

Also my LA have told me that given my disability, and that of one of my DC's, if I HE, they will open a CP case against me.

Rock and hard place spring to mind.

At least this time, the letter of complaint actually GOT to the complaints Governor, mostly because I handed it personally to the Chair of Governors. Now that it is a new one and I actually know her, I am able to do that.

There are days when I have been in tears thinking about having to send my DC's to this school the next day. But what the hell else can I do?!

I am taking this complaint as far as the DfE this time, but I don't know where else to take it if that does nothing.

You tell ME WTF else I can do?!

Oh, no Parent Partnership Officer in our area of the LEA either. So no-one to accompany to school meetings. And HT won't allow a friend to go in with you, only yourself and a Parent Partnership Officer that he knows our area doesn't have. If you turn up to a meeting with a friend, he refuses to attend the meeting unless the friend agrees to wait outside.

Not allowed to record meeting on a dictaphone, and am not allowed to take notes either. Despite having memory problems caused by my disability.

Was telephoning because writing causes me pain, have fibro and can only type not write. I type letters now.

Even firm and assertive with no raised voice gets me a letter accusing me of 'threatening behaviour' and a threat to be banned from the school premises.

I was sitting in a chair, with my hands in my lap, holding my handbag. I VERY calmly told the Deputy HT that I will not be leaving without seeing the HT, and my DS1 will not be coming back to school without the meeting. I have witnesses to this. Every last witness states I was in no way threatening, one even said that they had seen nothing but assertiveness.

Given the situation, assertiveness was needed.

Would you believe that, just two weeks later, the school asked that I be a parent helper on a Reception school trip as i had already had a CRB check at the school as i helped out with the reading? Hardly the actions of a school that feared that I was capable of 'threatening behaviour'...

It doesn't help that when I am trying to stay calm rather than angry, I have a propensity to cry rather than shout, as I can't hold my emotions in.

What angers me even more is that the Chair of Governors has told me that the HT has said to her how impressed he is with how much I care for my DC's, and how much I stick up for them when it is needed. So why the fuck does he not do something about the bullying at the school so that I don't HAVE to stick up for them?!

I also cry when I am frustrated. And no matter HOW hard I try, I can't stop it. I sometimes cry when I can't get a bloody jar open in the kitchen, through frustration.

So the frustration I encounter at the school often lands me in tears. It was through the tears of frustration when I was telling one friend about the latest incident and the teachers' reaction that the Chair of Governors saw, that she advised me to PLEASE make a written complaint.

I can only hope that the Chair of Governors being a 'friend' of sorts might make a difference this time. It certainly seems to have done something - I at least have a preliminary response from the Complaints Governor.

And the thing is, Hesterton, WHAT exactly DO I ask them to do? Stop making allowances for the violence of a child whose father died of a heart attack on his birthday (one of the two DC's that is hurting DS1)? They don't punish him AT ALL, saying that DS1 shouldn't antagonise him by disagreeing with him EVER. Even if it means that DS1 has to play with him when he doesn't want to as he knows he will get hurt...

Do I ask them to supervise 1-2-1 the child who has no boundaries at home and keeps bullying DS2?

What exactly do I ask the school to do that is 'reasonable' to keep my DC's safe without keeping MY DC's off the playground and field permanently (their only offered solution...)

God CouthyMow that sounds dreadful.

this is the point though dinner ladies especially but teachers too, do not want to make work for themselves and turn a blind eye so the only option is the children to physically deal with it.

The "shout no" and "tell a teacher" solutions are great as a first line of defence, but anyone who thinks that they solve all problems is dellusional.

Where a dc is being bullied, the agressors do not care how often "no" is shouted, they are not listening and, often, niether is anyone else.

There is not always a member of staff to run to and sometimes the bullies run faster.

Getting an adult to sort it out each time can make the bullied child appear even weaker and more vulnerable.

I saw my child being systematically tormented and turn from an outgoing ray of sunshine to a moody child who is afraid to sleep because as he sees it, if the school cannot stop the bullies, clearly authority is worthless and who will stop him being murdered in his bed?

Ds is very large for his age, so he learned to flip the bullies over and sit on them until a member of staff came to help. We made it quite clear to the school that we endorsed this and if they did not like this, they had to implement another strategy to protect my child.

I will not allow my son to grow up as a victim.

Plenty kids deliberately provoke other kids, give all sorts of nasty verbal, then as soon as they get hit they run off & tell an adult, get the hitter in trouble. It's an easy trick to do daily. Its own form of delightful bullying.

The kids I know who engage in that sport most often are the ones who were told never to hit back. Coincidence, hopefully. Unless you read Nutureshock, which explains how determined kids find their own ways to be aggressive, one way or the other. The don't hit back rule just makes the aggression a little more sneaky.

Supervising adults can see a thumping across the playground but there's no proof of the verbal, which can easily be mutual, anyway. How do you sort out guilt then?

Hey, my DS1 has been punished for taking a defensive stance to stop himself from being pushed over, and because the other DC fell over when he tried to barrel into my DS1, and he told the teacher that DS1 had pushed him, despite the statements of the other DC 's watching the incident, who do you think got given a detention? The child who tried to knock my DS1 over by running into him, or my DS1 just because he stood with his legs apart, one leg forward of the other, with his arms crossed in front of him?! Even a meeting with the Deputy HT didn't get any result on that one, as the Deputy HT told me that due to my DS1 being so much bigger built than his aggressor, he should not take a defensive stance as it could injure a child that ran at him?!

Even taking clearly defensive measures results in my DS1 being punished. And I only find out about it AFTER the event. I can go in to complain, but that doesn't change the fact that my DS1 has already BEEN punished, does it?!

"The kids I know who engage in that sport most often are the ones who were told never to hit back. Coincidence, hopefully. Unless you read Nutureshock, which explains how determined kids find their own ways to be aggressive, one way or the other. The don't hit back rule just makes the aggression a little more sneaky."

I agree very strongly. DCs need to be taught how to defend themselves appropriately or else they resort to other means of aggression. Passive-aggressive behaviour often has its roots in families where conflict was not allowed.

My DS1 ISN'T like that. Last time he was hurt, his 'crime' was to answer the bully, who told DS1 that he couldn't play with his friends, and DS1 responded by saying "It's a free world, and you can't tell me who I can and can't play with".

Hardly sneaky, underhand or nasty. Just a plain stating of facts that this boy cannot control who he (my DS1) plays with.

And as for my DS2's latest incident, all the witnesses stated that he was playing with a group of 3 girls, not involved with the bully at all, and the bully came over to him, without my DS2 saying a word, approaching my DS2 from behind, where my DS2 couldn't see him, and pulling his trousers and pants down, then dragging my DS2 halfway across a massive school field, and through the long jump pit, injuring my DS2 in the process. According to the other DC's that witnessed the incident, the ONLY thing that my DS2 said during the whole thing was "Please stop hurting me you are upsetting me, please leave me alone".

How the hell can that in any way be construed as aggression through language?!

My DS's are both easy targets, but for different reasons. DS1 because he is very geeky, top of the class, and obviously do as he goes out of class to have lessons with a specialist teacher, and represents the school in Maths Olympics, and he is also head and shoulders taller than his classmates and has been told by the school since Reception not to fight back due to his size.

My DS2 has complex SEN, and was borderline for Mainstream school when he started Reception, and his differences are very obvious and marked, and it is also glaringly obvious that he is PHYSICALLY unable to fight back OR run away.

WTF do I do? When this happened to DS2, I literally had to hold back DS1 from killing the boy, which he probably would have done, given the age and size difference, as DS1 is over 10yo and can get in trouble with the police, and also because it would wreck his future by preventing him from getting into Grammar school.

DS1 constantly stops himself from letting rip because he is afraid of the consequences to his future education.

It's a bloody awful situation to watch your DC's go through as a parent.

Up until now, I have always taught my DC to think first, run away second, tell a teacher third, and don't resort to violence as the adults will deal with it.

My DC's have NO confidence in that working now. My 10yo DS1 asked me why if you can have a 'vote of no confidence' for the CEO of a business, then why can't you have a 'vote of no confidence' against your school's HT.

Both my 10yo DS1, AND my 8yo DS2 have begged me, in tears, not to send their 18mo brother to that school.

What they don't realise is that it is the ONLY local primary that their brother, my DS3, will have any hope of meeting the allocation criteria, even if I don't put it on my application form.

My God, Couthy . Can't you move?

KickTheGuru

Are you being serious? "If Little Johnny hits mummy, mummy should thump him back" I'm actually appalled that you think parents should be thumping their kids.

I don't know anyone whos parents ever told them to hit back, shout loudly or push them away yes but never hit back. We knew that was probably the attitude amongst some of the rougher families but not any of the middle class families I knew. I'm truly shocked that this is the attitude on mumsnet.

I've only read the first two pages so maybe the attitudes changed and maybe someone already pulled up KickTheGuru, i hope so anyway.

hard boiled - I can assure you that in my case, the bullies didn't come from the rougher families initially, they came from the middle class ones who thought that their little angel couldn't do any wrong so therefore it must be someone else's fault. Shouting and telling and pushing away does not resolve anything if the behaviour escalates and certainly does not do anything when the bullying becomes the snide remarks, the general intimidation and the exclusion - those hurt just as much for kids and are harder to deal with.

And the comment about how parents allow it to go on for so long don't really understand what happens, it's not like every day they go in there is an incident, it comes in spells and at times you truly think it has stopped only for stuff to come back up......and most kids who won't tell a teacher, rarely tell the parents either and you get to the point when it is getting better where you stop asking every single day and it's only when something else triggers them getting upset that you get to the bottom of the issue again.

I don't think your DS did anything to bring on what's happened to him, Couthy, I am so sorry if it read that way.
My comments were addressed to the general principle of whether "Don't hit, Shout and tell an adult" was the only good strategy (which it obviously isn't).

amck5700 Maybe I would feel differently if it was someone thumping my DS but honestly I think I would jut move them to a different school at the first sign of violence. I don't remember anyone ever getting hit at my primary school, occasional teasing but never hitting. We were all taught that it never ok to hit or hit back and it seemed to work.

Not hitting back does not work where there is a sustained campaign of bullying. It just prolongs it.

couthy yes you do ask the school to discipline the child whose father died on his birthday, my DS3 shares a birthday with his father who committed suicide, and I would be livid if he used it as an excuse to misbehave, I would see it as incredibly disrespectful and disgusting. A bereaved child needs to know that their world continues as normal, DO NOT let the school use that as an excuse not to tackle the issue. I am actually shaking at the thought that any school would think that appropriate. I wish I was near to you so that I could accompany you and see your HT try to exclude me from a public building. I'm going to try and think of some solutions for you and will pm you if I can find anything at all to help. I also have fibro and a child with aspergers, you must be exhausted, sending un-mumsnetty gentle hugs and

We have always taught our 4 that if they feel threatened physically, even if they havnt been touched, it's ok to punch, hit or do whatever needed to avoid or fight off an attacker either adult of child.

I would be amazed if any sensible person living in the real world could or would do anything else.

I think its a poor stereotype to assume rougher kids are bullies actually its mainly indulged children who become bullies.

It saddens me to say it, but quite a large percentage of my cases would have probably been prevented had the victim hit back the first time an incident happened.

I have tried to teach my children that in most instances things can and will be resolved verbally BUT if they were bullied to the extent of violent occurring then the principle " hit back twice as hard" would probably come into play.

Things have changed since I was younger. I remember the old lady down the road dragging me by the ear to my mother because I picked an apple from her tree, and I do miss those times where people weren't terrified to discipline someone else's child.

If a situation gets physical then I do believe everyone has the right to defend themselves.