to ask why, if it's generally accepted to be the behaviour of a twat, do parents exclude a couple of kids from class parties?

[Chippedrippedandstinking]

Inspired by Lappy's thread, we all agree it's wrong and yet it happens. With flame amnesty, will abuone admit to doing it, and if so, why?
And if it happened to you, did you call the parents on it?

I've only seen it once, the mother was taken aside and an invitation was issued.

They are the ones posting hot or not videos, they are asking for likes on how pretty am i, they justify themselves on the best bags or lastest music.

At primary school? Age 4 or 5?

And this is a TAAT about somebody being excluded from a party for reasons other than bullying.

No older, under 11, where bullies dont exist. I have sympathy, but it ran out when DD selfesteme was in the gutter.

sally I'm not assuming the bully is always also a victim. Just stating the fact in many cases they are. It's also not very nice to dismiss the real horror some children's home life is as not being served breakfast in bed. Despite having other advantages that meant I personally had no motivation to bully, that was the selfish attitude I had up to mid teens about victims of peer bullying, as an adult I can see both sides are miserable and deserve sympathy without needing to belittle either.

In my experience mean girl behaviour is most likely to result in the victim rather than the perpetrator being excluded - not just from parties, but from every aspect of life. Intervention is required from both parents and teachers.

However, it has been argued on this thread that a child should be allowed to obviously exclude somebody and no questions should be asked, and no responsibility taken by the parent - yet teachers are being blamed for bullying?

Of course there are many forms of bullying, however, in the context of this thread, excluding a child from a social event, is often a form of bullying.

Having DD in a class of 30 kids, being excluded every day, from games, working groups, pe, etc to not inviting said bully for 1 party .. does not balance the equation.

I've noticed quite a few of my questions haven't been answered yet. One being this:

'At what point is it okay to exclude them? My bully also sexually abused me at school by grabbing my boobs and vulva. Is that too far? yay, nay?'

Excluding someone who's treated you badly is not bullying. It's ridiculous to suggest it is. So all these poor people who have to go NC with their families, they're bullying then Repeatedly excluding someone for no reason or because you simply don't like the look of them is

sally no, if you want to compare individual hardships like its a game, it doesn't balance evenly with being bullied for all the out of school hours by the very people who should love you. But with children we as adults shouldn't be making comparisons between them to see who might possibly have it worse, because for each child it's a shit and horrid position to be in, and as children each has every justification to feel their circumstances are the worst. Its beyond me why it's not possible to sympathise equally with both, rather than playing misery top trumps.

How about being bullied in school, and out of school, being isolated (by your parents' choice of rural home), and being brushed off by your mother when you tried to tell her how bad the bullying was - brushed off so effectively that you didn't think it was worth telling her again, or your dad, or a teacher, because you don't think anyone cares. Oh, and when your mum doesn't bother to ask even once if the bullying had stopped.

So yeah - shit home life and shit school life. But I should feel sorry for the bullies. Who felt sorry for me?

STGD - did your bully come from a poor home back ground? Do you care? If so, does it make it more acceptable that they abused you?

My bullies - because there were never less than half a dozen, came from pretty ordinary homes - as far as I know, they had a working parent or parents (then never seemed short of money or material possessions - as far as I could tell).

And why should I think it was acceptable that they bullied me? That is a shitty thing to say to a victim.

Lurker suggested that if the bully is from poor parenting/home then its more acceptable and we should be more understanding. I take it, its not!! Bullying is Bullying ... no excuses.

Do you think that when a child is being physically, emotionally and sexually assaulted, knowing they bully comes from a bad background makes any difference? Do you think it makes the punches hurt less?

Ah so now the victim of the bully is the bully because they don't want the person that bullied them to come to their party. I've heard it all now ....

I understand that itsmine but how you do pin point who's being genuinely bullied and who isn't? And at what exact point does it constitute bullying and not 'bickering'.It's difficult isn't it.

sdt nobody felt sorry for me either. Because nobody knew. Being mc brings massive scope to cover up just how much your failing as a parent. The 14yr old me would have considered being brushed off by your mum or her not bothering to ask as fuck all and a none problem, due to the idea of even considering mine as someone who should care a wildly hilarious idea. By 10 I was fully aware confiding in anyone was a really really shit move. Because as a kid I would genuinely thought you had it easy. Not because I was stupid or nasty, but kids are often selfish, and sometimes can only compare situations to their own and therefore make incorrect judgements on what is bad and deserving of sympathy. I was like that anyway.
My point is I'm not that kid anymore, I'm an adult. I can say truthfully I think you've had a really shitty time you didn't deserve and as an adult fully sympathise with anything you've posted and I'm sure with the many details you've not posted. Because like I say, both are miserable and horrible and shouldn't be compared to see who deserves sympathy, because they equally do. As does anyone else who's been either bullied themselves or has a child that has.
Maybe though because I neither bullied others nor was bullied by peers, but simply have a shared experience with why some children bully, as well as the experience of being a victim of non peer bullying, it's easier for me to see both sides, so I'm sorry if it's coming across as a judgement on those that can't, I'm not judging anyone for struggling to see it from the middle.

In my experience mean girl behaviour is most likely to result in the victim rather than the perpetrator being excluded - not just from parties, but from every aspect of life.

This has been my experience too, not only from my own kids classes but also my friends' kids and kids I have nannied for's classes. My experience has been that often the parents are reinforcing it, sometimes deliberately to make their kid the popular kid.

sally you've got entirely the wrong end of the stick if you think by bad home I mean poor. Wealth or its lack doesn't feature in what I call a bad home.

Poor parenting ...

Exactly and poor parenting isn't always easy to spot.

On an intellectual level, I can try to understand why the kids who bullied me did it. I find it hard to accept that every single one of them came from a bad or abusive home, but maybe there were other reasons.

The problem is that, being bullied has, to some extent, left me stuck at that point, that age, and the hurt child is struggling to see past her own pain. At that age, they didn't give a shit about me, and the part of me that is stuck back there is struggling to see why she should give more of a shit about their pain than they gave about mine.

As I have said earlier, I have tried to contact some of them - I have commented on photos, sent messages on Friends Reunited and on FB, but none of them has, as an adult, found the guts or the principles to reply to me, or get in touch, to explain their actions or apologise for them. If they had, I might find it easier to forgive them.

But their lack of response feels like they still think what they did was OK, no big deal - even though I have told them how much it hurt me, and what damage it has done.

SDT I doubt they will want to apologise, sadly, because they wouldn't want people knowing how vicious they were and they probably did not see they did wrong. Apologising to you would be an admission and they aren't prepared to do that.

I had dinner with a girl from school a few months ago. She was part of a gang of 3 who would regularly put me down (not bully as such but would always say I wasn't fashionable/skinny/pretty enough etc, but next minute being all nice to me). I was surprised to hear from her and tbh I delayed responses because I was unsure of her motives, although the curiousity was there. When I did respond, I was honest and said I did not know why she wanted to meet with me, as she pretty much emotionally damaged me at school (at one point she got her parents to go to the school about me because once I retaliated back to her, only once mind but god there was not half a kerfuffle over it and sadly I wasn't believed). She did not answer directly but insisted we must meet up. So we did. I will admit to feeling slightly better that whilst I am way slimmer than I was at school, she on the other hand (having the figure of a matchstick at school which I always envied), she had ballooned to twice the size of me Petty I know to feel that way but I did. I confronted her over the the things that were said and she basically said that I was just as bad so I should apologise too!! I looked at her and realised that she was never going to take account for her actions and because I really did not want huge row (which I could feel bubbling), the coward in me changed subject and we talked about every day life and left. She has suggested meet ups many time since but I have not responded. I still now do not know why she wanted to meet.

As some of the posters have said, hidden bullies are the worst and she was one of them. Because she was in the "popular" gang at school who all the teachers liked, it was impossible that she would be anything other than nice. Me, on the other hand, a quiet wimpy non confrontational child was of course responsible for causing her upset because just once I dared to stand up to her.

I agree that certain things do not mean "bullying" as such. I work at a school like some of you and indeed every day see parents saying their little darlings are being bullied, when I see it is the other way round. That is why sometimes I agree schools should have CCTV!

It is such a tricky sensitive subject; some schools and teachers do not do enough, neither do some the parents of bullies. From the inside I can see that some parents refuse to acknowledge their child has done anything wrong, even if proved, which basically leaves the school hands tied, short of expulsion or suspension but to me, that child will go on perhaps to do it in another school. I like to think if DD was ever to be a bully (god forbid) I like to think I would take as much action as possible. Nobody wants to hear their child acts this way, but we are doing our kids far more justice by pulling them up on their behaviour, rather than blaming others or simply brushing it under carpet.

Every situation is different and we as parents, do the best we can for our DC.