to be angry about how school is handling bullying

[deliverdaniel]

I'm having one of those moments when whenever I talk to the teachers school I feel as if I'm being totally unreasonable and overly precious about my kid, and then when I step away from them adn think about it I feel angry all over again, so would really appreciate some perspective.

We have moved abroad to a place that is very 'progressive' in educational philosophies. DS is 3, nearly 4 and has just started near the end of the academic year in a new preschool. He is the youngest in the class of 20 and all the other kids have been there since the start of the year (last september.) he is having some understandable problems settling in, which is normal and to be expected, but one thing is really bothering me. There is one kid who is constantly hitting him and taunting him (the kid is nearly 5 and quite big.) When DS first told me about it, I assumed it was normal kid behaviour, jsut a little overly aggressive, and mentioned it to the teacher. She said that this kid was always like that, and they had been working with him on his aggression issues all year, and that I just had to tell DS to handle it better/ tell him to stop etc. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, DS went from being a confident happy independent boy, to a wreck- constantly crying, desperate not to go to school, very clingy with me, telling me that this boy was hitting him and mean to him at school. I mentioned it again to the school and asked them if they had a no hitting policy, how they were handling it, and what was going on. They said that such a policy wouldn't be effective, and that they didn't want to make this kid feel like he was a bad person, and so they preferred to try and help him understand why he was hitting rather than stopping him/ telling him off/ using a firm tone, which they said was counterproductive. This seems very odd to me and I am devastated for DS who is losing confidence quickly and retreating into himself. I saw the other boy at a school picnic and saw him corner DS, start pushing him and laughing and taunting him in a systematic way until he cried, and then carried on laughing with his friends at DS.

AIBU in thinking the school should be taking a harder line? Any advice? I'm desperately worried.

[SixImpossible]

'Best practice' is for the staff to prioritse the victim and leep him safe - that is their responsibility, not his.

They should be actively preventing the assaults.

They should be giving the victim attention, rather than rewarding the bully by giving him their attention.

They should be pro-actively explaining that assaults are unacceptable.

There should be consequences for assaults, and rewards for appropriate behaviour.

All this can be done without 'making the kid feel his is a bad person'.

[deliverdaniel]

SixImpossible
Thanks so much- this is incredibly helpful. I think the attention thing really sticks out to me here. The boy in question gets tons of attention for this behavior as the teachers 'work' with him to work out why he is behaving like this. Which I feel sends a really bad message to DS and the other kids.

I've got a meeting with the principal tomorrow, so I'll see what she says.

[gimcrack]

Don't try and do their jobs for them. They have a duty of care towards your son, and they're failing. Draw a line in the sand - this behaviour is having a detrimental effect on your son and needs to stop.

[shoppingbagsundereyes]

Advice for how your child can help himself - I taught my dcs to shout as loud as they could 'stop hurting me ( insert bully's name)' if a bully touched them. It draws the adults' attention quickly and makes clear who is at fault. Practise a big loud shout.

[Andallmyhopeisgone]

OP, I really hope the meeting goes well for you tomorrow. The school should not be allowing this to happen. I agree, take him out if nothing changes, at least until he moves classes next month. He's only 3 and if it carries on it could really affect him, now and in the future.

[ILovePud]

I struggled when my son (y1, so 5 or 6 at the time) was having some problems with another boy in his class, I was giving him advice about staying out of his way and telling the adult on playground duty if the other boy was hurting him. Unfortunately when he did this he was often getting messages to that he should just go away and play with the other boy, I told him to say to the staff member 'my mum says I don't have to play with people who hurt me' and this seemed to work well. I also wrote to the head and got a very positive response.

I think the other boy was lacking in social skills and the school was trying to make sure he was included, which was fair enough, but he would quickly become aggressive and hurt the other kids and the school seemed to be very laissez faire about this. I think if they know that a child is really struggling to manage their behaviour and lashing out at other children all the time then they need to be more proactive in helping them socialise appropriately.

Later on they did organise for this boy to stay with a member of staff but pick a few friends to play a game with and this worked really well. It was giving him extra attention but pro-actively and for improvements in his behaviour rather than in direct response to him acting out. The most important thing for me was he wasn't being aggressive to my son anymore.