To think the headteacher is wrong

[LizardVisard]

Long time lurker... DD1 is 12, in year 7 and is quiet, hard-working and has a tight group of friends, mostly girls. She was recently hauled into the headteacher's office, along with two boys, about bullying a boy in her class. The boy in question has no SEN but she says his parents recently divorced and no-one really likes him. She swears she hasn't said anything mean to him, no verbal or physical bullying at all, and the headteacher confirmed the boy hadn't accused her of that (though he did accuse the others) - but he is lonely and wants to be friends with her. She's told me (through her tears) that he stares at her in lessons and she finds him "creepy" and quite intimidating. The headteacher has told her she has to make an effort to include him at breaktimes. She is torn between wanting to do as the teacher has said, and really not liking the boy. She spends her lunchtimes with her girly friends who categorically don't want to have this boy join them. AIBU to think WTAF? Surely at 12 children can make their own decisions about who to be friends with?

Argh. I'm sorry. Really rude of me. But I can't stand it when people boil long and complex stories down to a single sentence that doesn't really reflect what's going on, just so they can make a snippy comment. It makes my face melt.

An entire class sending a child to coventry is bullying.

Where did you get this from?

That poor boy needs CAMHS intervention not the help of a 12 year old schoolgirl.

This.

Right - this boy needs help and the school clearly don't understand the extent of the problem.

I think you need to go in there saying you have information he needs to know about this boy's emotional health - and outline the cutting himself etc, and also the writing on the pencilcase - both "I want to die" and your DD's name. Move from there to the staring and the following about, and your DD feeling so uncomfortable she hides from him in the loos.

You'll then have to tell them that they have a pastoral responsibility for your DD as well, and while you appreciate there are issues there, your DD unsurprisingly feels uncomfortable - point out that under those circumstances anyone would - that the headteacher him/herself would if a colleague was doing that to him/her.

Well read, Cerisier. I hadn't read so well, and thought the Head was sounding like a bit of an "iconoclast". It does sound more like him not being fully informed.

Oh dear, this is all wrong. Your dd should not be expected to befriend a boy who makes her feel uncomfortable. She should absolutely be kind and civil to him, and avoid participating in any gossip etc, but she should not have to socialise with him if she doesn't want to. He needs help, but she isn't the right person to be providing that help.

I hope that you can talk to the head and get things sorted out.

It is way too easy to tell girls to befriend troubled children - we have vaginas: we were born to make nice and care (for no money)

^^exactly this.

SoupDragon obviously you have been ignored by your entire class.

I wish that the head teacher at my secondary school was so pro active in pastural affairs. When I was bullied and self harmed no one gave a shit how I felt. I was eccentric, but I was never nasty to anyone. Year 9 at my secondary school was total utter hell.

Being systematically ostracised by the entire year group is one of the nastiest form of bullying. Human beings are social creatures and need minimal socialisation. Being "sent to coventry" is well known form of bullying and its quite right that it is dealt with by the school.

If this boy is self harming because of his classmates behaviour then the school needs to act. They have a duty of care to all children. No one is asking the children to socialise at the week end. Prehaps they are asking the children to work with this boy during a science practical without making rude faces or have this boy on the children's team during PE. Prehaps they are asking the children to let this boy sit at one of the tables at dinner time without verbal abuse.

I can't imagine the head teacher getting involved in a bullying incident if the class teacher had not intervened first. I imagine that the bullying behaviour must have been witnessed by dinner ladies or teachers or prehaps reported by other children.

Mothers (or indeed fathers ) of bullies rarely see any wrong in their children. They see their teen as a sweet innocent baby who would not hurt a fly.

This boy is obviously extremely unhappy and troubled, and no, it shouldn't be DD's job to sort that out - it seems clear the HT has no idea of the extent of the problem, and needs to be told.

One of my dd's friends was self-harming in y10 and another one went and told the form tutor about it - self-harming friend was very cross about that, but the school did leap into gear once they knew, and I hope yours will too.

As much as I dislike the idea of putting it all on a 12 year old, if that's what's happening, and don't think HT should have called in the bullies and the child named as 'someone I like' to the same meeting, I'm also uncomfortable with the idea that his freaking her out is 'bullying' - and that we should all just use our spidey sense to determine who's a creep and should be avoided. You don't start hanging out and sharing confidences with someone you don't really warm to, of course, but equally you don't just decide that everyone's sense that someone's a wierdo is unbiased fact.

I am nodding with a lot of what ReallyTired has posted - a whole year group deciding you're odd, at the worst extent bullying you and at best being distant but polite, must be pretty miserable. He's a 12 year old boy having a pretty bad time, obviously with some social skills which need work - if he was your ds, what would you want done? (to everyone, that question, not just OP).

SoupDragon obviously you have been ignored by your entire class.

Er... no.

Clearly it is bullying but I don't see the relevance to the OPs DD.

I'm also uncomfortable with the idea that his freaking her out is 'bullying'

If he is persistently staring at her then this is bullying in the same way the OPs DD not wanting to be his friend is. "Bullying" is a term bandied about far too much these days. Not every incidence of less than optimal behaviour towards others is bullying.

This boy needs proper help. That is what I would want for my DS (although I would hope I'd noticed TBH). I wouldn't want another 12 year old child forced to be his friend when there are issues between them.

This makes me extremely uncomfortable. I was in a similar situation at school. We had an 'odd' boy in our class, looking back I would imagine he is on the spectrum for ASD, but at the time he was just the weird kid.

As a nice, quiet girl I was always expected to be kind to him, to include him in group activities, always was the one asked to partner him in class activities.

He would make leud, aggressive and sexual comments to and about me and my friends. He would tell me that he wanted to die and talk about being depressed. He would spit on the table then lick it up because he said he was thirsty, he would blow his nose into his hand and sit and examine it, he would put his hand in his pants in the classroom.

Teachers would never respond to his behaviour, they'd tell us it was 'just Joe' and that's what he was like. I was never aware of any attempts to help him with appropriate social behaviour. We were just told to be kind, in other words, put up and shut up.

And inevitably, he was bullied. And by proxy, so was I. People would taunt that I was his girlfriend, which he didn't exactly discourage, and would say things like that he would bring a rose to school for me the next day. I was mortified and me an my friends weren't confident enough or strong enough or even bloody popular enough to be able to field that.

So yes, we would end up allowing or in some cases joining in what you'd probably call bullying behaviour (telling him to go away, calling him a freak etc) but what the hell were we supposed to do?! We were getting bullied for trying to negotiate ways of being nice to him, all while he was a thoroughly unpleasant individual to be around.

We told a teacher when he called my friend 'the daughter of a bastard whore who deserved to die' during a maths lesson with the deputy head. She just laughed, because 'its just Joe'. Then told us to be nice to him

I'm not saying its ok to bully him, I'm not saying that OP's DD shouldn't be polite to him, but I sure as hell am saying that she shouldn't be expected to deal with it. It takes a very strong kid to be able to fend off bullying on someone else's behalf. Let alone the inappropriateness of 'forcing' friendships.

Maybe the HT doesn't know, but they should bloody well make it their business to know the dynamics before giving out commands like this. And who's to say OP's DD has tried to speak up, like my friends and I did?

Yes, I absolutely agree that OP's dd cannot and should not be expected to deal with this: either HT made a bad call not being in the possession of all the facts, or he's a bit of an idiot.

but Soup I don't see how you can say on the one hand that 'bullying is bandied around too much' and then say also that persistent staring definitely is bullying! I don't think it is, and nor do I think OP's dd not wanting to be his friend is.

Reallytired I think you are projecting what happened to you on to the boy/op DDs situation. Nowhere had it been mentioned about people pulling faces/ being sent to Coventry by the whole class/picked for PE team.

But that's not what I said.

OP does say no-one likes him, he is lonely and he is bullied - I don't think there's too much projection going on there.

soup, that is how I interpreted this - if he is persistently staring at her then this is bullying in the same way the OPs DD not wanting to be his friend is. "Bullying" is a term bandied about far too much these days - in your post. Have I read that wrongly, and you meant that neither is bullying?

Yes, I meant one is as much bullying as the other. ie probably not.

Going on the information on this thread which is all we have and taking it at face value, the OPs DD has done nothing wrong. She is nice to him when sitting next to him, despite the staring, but has no wish to be his friend. This doesn't sound like the whole class ostracising him which seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

We have no idea what is happening as the school cannot exactly put their side across on an internet forum.

It does sounds to me as if this boy is struggling socially and prehaps does not understand appriopiate eye contact, respecting other people's space and prehaps he does not understand subtle social cues or can read facial expressions.

the boy is struggling but why should it be the sole responsibility of the op's 12 year old daughter to be his only support system in school its cruel, unfair and a very horrible position for the head teacher to put her in. the head should get of his lazy arse and involve the boy in lunch time groups and refer to the school psychologist. not pass all responsibility for this boy onto a 12 year old girl itsca massive breach of responsibility.

Trust your daughters instincts and ask the school to find him more appropriate friends instead of helping him to develop a fixation with your DD.

I sat next to a strange boy in school due to alphabetised seating in all my classes. I still HATE high school to this day because the school failed to take my safety seriously and encouraged me to be his friend. It ended up having lasting consequences and I still resent not being taken seriously as if I had been, it all could have been avoided.

You need to trust the way your daughter feels on this one.

Twice when I was younger (at school/college) I received attention I didn't want because I was politely friendly to someone. In that I would say hello to them and make small conversation if we were working in the same group. In the same way that I was politely friendly to everyone else.

And twice it backfired on me because the mistook that politeness to be more than it was ever intended to be. I was followed home, one of them would write and send pictures he had drawn of me (where he always gave me breasts bigger than my head, when one of them found out I had a boyfriend he was angry and called me names. They would both do similar things to this boy, staring at me in a way that made me uncomfortable.

One of them would wait outside the toilets in an isolated, narrow corridor to force me to squeeze past him, my friends were questioned about me, some of my work was stolen, one of them kept ringing my house and eventually the one at college started dating my friend, who lived on the next street, and every time he went to her house he would ask her to call in on me so he could come into my house or have me go out with them.

She realised what he was doing, and she knew I had no interest in him, but it ruined our friendship just the same.

Your daughter should not be forced to have any sort of relationship with this boy that makes her uncomfortable. She's offered the level of friendship she is comfortable with and nobody should ask any more of her than that.

The headmaster may not have realised how she feels, but he shouldn't have spoken to her at the same time as he spoke to the bullies and you need to make him aware that your daughter is not happy. I'd also ask for her and the boy to be separated in class from now on and explain that the attention this boy gives her is making her uncomfortable. You must also tell them about his self-harming and remind them that your DD is too young to take responsibility for someone who clearly needs more professional, adult help and that the pressure of expecting her to do this is unacceptable and may lead to her needing more support herself.

That poor boy could be my ds, who does have SN's. He is 9 was bullied.

Children not wanting to play with him, not wanting to be his partner, not wanting to sit next to him.

His SN is a 'hidden disability' and on the surface 'he looks normal'. His social behaviour is a bit odd or not 'appropriate' in comparison to the 'norm'.

The fact this boy is playing with toy cars, self harming and making animal noises in class, inappropriate eye contact etc would suggest his behaviour is due to a bit more than his parents divorcing. There are lots of children with difficulties who are undiagnosed.

Do you think the other children and your dd would be a bit more understanding if he did have a diagnosis or was classed as SN? its just I notice in the OP you state he doesn't have a SN, as if that would make a difference to how he is treated.

From what you have said the boy clearly does have special needs. Special needs do not have to academic. The boy also clearly needs some professional help. However in the meantime, he still has to attend school and mix with other children. Your dd's school sound terrible for pastoral care.

My eldest boys, when younger and in secondary school both volunteered to be part of the 'buddy scheme' and be 'buddies' to children who for whatever reason had difficulties socialising.

It did them no harm whatsoever, to be compassionate about differences and hopefully helped some of their less compassionate friends/peers by pointing out and demonstrating that you do not exclude people for being different and these children are also human beings.

Maybe the HT has seen some good qualities in your dd. However I would say forcing children to befriend someone is not the way to go and should be done on a voluntary basis.

Maybe you could suggest a buddy scheme to the HT.

Also, sorry to go on! I have just read that he is having suicidal thoughts as well as self harming.