DD is 12 years old and in her last year in primary school. She has been bullied for over four years now and nothing productive or preventative has been done to stop it in the longterm. They lay off for a few days but it all boils back up again when the storm blows over in a matter of days.
The most recent thing is exclusion by the whole class without sayin why so rather than have her go through every break time on her own I've removed her from the school, lost the plot with the principal (who I've been calm with for four years!) and told him he fixes it or I'm going to take it to the police, the health authority and the national papers.
Here is what she has endured during those years:
*property has been emptied from her bag onto the floor
*she hung her coat every morning - every lunchtime it was on the floor
*constant nasty comments and names regarding her appearance - she had prominent ears and
teeth but has had corrective surgery and now wears braces
*property stolen
*property damaged/defaced
*nasty remarks written about her on the desks and on the walls and doors in the bathrooms
*Her clothes have been written on and uncapped markers left in her pockets staining them.
*she was hit so hard on the head with a pencilcase it broke her hairband in half
*her lunch has been taken from her in front of her while the child taking it laughed at her daring her to challenge
*she is hassled for her lunch and called names when she refuses
*she has been set up to be riduculed - pretending to be her friend and laughing at her when she falls for it
*lies told about her to other children to turn them against her
*they have told lies about me so the other children will not play with her because her mum is horrible (Thankfully proven to be a lie now, devastating at the time and even when the truth was outed she was isolated for getting the other child in trouble)
*Treated far more roughly in a game than the other children but ridiculed because 'everybody else can take it' even though she has been physically hurt)
*her hair ties have been pulled from her hair and disgarded
*physical/verbal threats but when she stands up to it the whole class take the side of the bully
*whispering/sniggering while pointing at her
*kicked/pinched/pushed to the ground 'in the game'
*ridiculed at sport
*isolated and ignored during break times/walked away from when she asks why
*lies told to her best friend to turn her against her
*cyberbullying/prank phonecalls calling her names
These are only what I can think of off the top of my head. It has been relentless. We obviously wanted to move dd to a different school long ago but she won't have any of it because of the friends she does have and also because the secondary school she'll be going to will be attended by all of them anyway so she feels better not to leave and then have to return next year and face them again anyway. I also feel it would be a further punishment, making her suffer the loss of friendships, a final blow from the bullies. The other parents refuse to believe their angels are doing anything and that dd is misunderstanding them!
I've recently found that dd has searched suicide on the internet and been asking me about death and what happens when people die. I'm scared out of my wits.
I want to keep her out of school until something official is done but dd is so far behind the rest of the class academically that I'm worried the time out will only make things worse and increase the gap so much that she will have to repeat giving more fuel to the bullies who taunt her for being 'stupid'.
What would you do? Send her back and hope that the principal will do his job this time even though he has let us all down on several occasions in the past or keep her out and try to keep up with the work at home which won't always be supervised because we'll both have to work and she'll be with grandparents who won't be able to assist like we would.
Mil has just walked in, better go make her a cup of tea. Be back shortly.