AIBU to ask how to deal with accusations of bullying?

[Whattodowhatodo]

Warning, I will probably ramble and make this long.

So, my DD in YR 4, along with 2 other girls, has been accused of bullying by another girl (I'll call Sally) and her parents. The girl moved to the school last year and this year has been in the girls' circle of friends, but it has been a rocky relationship. Sometimes DD and the other 2 girls (who have all been in class together since reception) just want to do their own thing and according to DD, Sally is often demanding that DD and the others play with her. Because Sally has had a lot of difficulties at home with a critically-ill parent, the teachers often take Sally's side and just tell the girls to be kind and play with her. Which they do, but at one point were rather frustrated from no one seeming to care about their side of the story. It seemed to have settled down in the past month or so, with the girls sometimes playing, sometimes not. Until it all suddenly happened on Monday.

On Monday morning, Sally's parents were in to talk to the head teacher. I know this because Sally was in the office when I had to speak to them about some admin things and she told me. They told the head that they are taking Sally out of school and moving her to the same school where her siblings are (as I said, they moved to the area only last year and had to take places where they could). Partly because it's closer to their home, partly because it's the same school where her siblings are and partly because they say Sally has been bullied.

Right after this meeting, the head called DD and one other girl (the other was out of school that day) to discuss it. They were basically told that Sally was leaving because of them and their behaviour towards her. Of course they burst into tears and were apologetic, but honestly, I think that was because they were scared and it was expected, rather than any actual guilt about it. I got a call after this from the head, who gave a couple of examples of this "bullying" behaviour. The one was that Sally came to sit down at the table with the others at lunch and they all pulled their chairs away from her. The other was that they were in the playground equipment and said another (not involved girl) could come and play but not Sally. None of our 3 girls can remember either of these things happening. Nor can the other girl. I can't believe that all 3 of them would be colluding so much as to lie directly to all their parents at this age, I honestly think it was something that either a) didn't happen b) was misinterpreted by Sally or c) happened so long ago that the girls can't remember.

I don't know Sally well, but one of the other mums from the 2 others accused of bullying does, and says she has a tendency to drama and has often stretched the truth around her. I know my daughter is no angel and probably not the most sympathetic to other's troubles, but simply based on the examples given, and only given by one other student without any confirmation from any adults, I'm finding it all a little troublesome that our girls were called in and blamed by the head without being given any mediation before.

The girl Sally is starting at the new school on Monday, and it's Monday when we have to go in to talk to the head teacher about what has happened and how to go forward from here. I don't know what to expect from the meeting and I don't really know what they want from us.

Feel free to take a hard line with me if you think I'm being one-sided in this. I know I'm more even about this than the other 2 mums, but that doesn't mean I'm completely neutral of course. I would like some advice in how to handle the whole situation, with school and with my DD.

manana maybe read MythicalKings posts though, as she is a teacher and is also saying the school should tread carefully and there could well be two sides.

Also when I was a teacher I know the head teacher and teachers were not always a united front. The class teacher's opinion on this is normally far more valid than the head's, especially if it isn't a tiny school where the head knows every child well, does some teaching to cover non contact time etc. In bigger schools the head is often an admin/ management/ PR role really - I was at secondary but our head would often leap in and blunder about making sure any aggrieved parent wouldn't go to the papers try to smooth the waters with parents, especially if they caught him on the back foot and the parental emotions were running high, without having got to the bottom of whatever the issue was, or talked to the teachers who know the children better about whatever the issue was.

I think the school handled it badly from the off.

I know it's too late for it now, but it's rather a shame nobody tried to foster genuine friendships between the new child and the existing pupils- rather than taking the easier option of saying "Sally's parent is ill, so you've got to feel sorry for her and put up with her."

i don't think expecting other children to feel sorry for someone with a critically ill parent is taking the easy option. Why isn't it the right thing to do for people to talk to their DC about being extra kind to sally when a parent is sick. So if any of you were really very sick, you would say that your DC should be treated no differently? Hmmm.

It's really depressing that so many people think it's not bullying. It's unsurprising it's still going on when so many mothers seem to have the attitude that it's okay to treat someone you don't like badly, or that the victim must somehow deserve their behaviour and be asking for it and the bullying must be warranted. Bullying can have horrendous life long effects and has a huge knock on effect on self esteem and developing character.

I suspect in this case, when 'Sally' is gone, these girls will just move onto their next victim. Possibly two of the three will turn on the third. You'd better hope that's not your DD OP.

manana its doing Sally more harm to teach her that if somebody doesn't want to play with her she should go and get an adult who will then force that child/ those children to play with her though! The kindest thing for Sally is for the adults in her life to help her form real friendships and coping skills, not to teach her to flounce or to refer to adults to make others play with her.

Hmm. It's impossible to tell without having been there. The incidents the HT mentions do seem very likely, and hurtful to Sally. Some girls are very good at that low-level excluding behaviour.

In our school the dc are told that they can't tell someone not to play with them - which is good in one way but then bad, because why should you always have to play with someone you don't want to play with?

Sally's parents should have told the school about these incidents at the time and if they were serious enough, the class teacher should have spoken to your dd and the other girls each time. Seems bonkers the first you hear of it being when the HT tells you Sally is leaving!

I'd definitely ask about this - the timescale, etc. - when you meet the HT.

I'd also do some role play with your dd about how to treat people and being kind and empathetic.

"So if any of you were really very sick, you would say that your DC should be treated no differently? Hmmm."

Well, yes. Even if I was very ill I'd still rather other children played with my DC at school because they actually liked them than because they'd been told to feel sorry for them.

I'm sure Sally is a perfectly pleasant child like any other kid in the class. I find it hard to believe that nobody would have wanted to be her friend had anybody (OP included) made the effort to encourage a real friendship.

Going for the sympathy vote instead clearly didn't work IMO.

Booyaka how is it bullying unless they are influencing others not to play with her though.

Every child experiences these playground friendship problems at some point - in fact it even happens within groups of siblings - parents and teachers need to teach children how to cope and move on and find other friends, not barge in and say you all have to play together! Its not "victim blaming" to help the left out child form other friendships rather than shove them into a group which doesn't want them because that is easier for the adult than helping the left out child cope and find other friends.

If the girls are stopping all the girls in the class playing with Sally its totally different, but there can be few children on earth who haven't experienced the "we don't want to play with you" occasionally - most just feel a bit hurt but move on and find other children to play with.

we're getting into pretty fine distinctions when talking about small people. Just shows how different people are, I would and have asked my DD to be a especially nice/kind to children I know having a tough time at home or going through special needs assessments, sometimes toleration is required, even if some feel that's insincere. I do the same for adults I know are struggling.

liked, I think the answer there is that she had been part of that circle of friends and there was a pattern of deliberate exclusion. When friendship groups are already formed it's often not possible for a child to just go and play with another group. And yes, that does make the group who's rejected them the guilty ones.

But then I think you're exactly the sort of parent I've been talking about. You basically think if your child decides they don't like somebody they have a right to be nasty and exclude and ostracise them and that it's the other child's problem to deal with that. Personally, in that situation (and I have dealt with something similar amongst a younger age group this week) I think my responsibility is to encourage my child to be kind and solve the problem without nastiness. I hope I manage to teach my child that you can learn to manage relationships with people you don't like much without reducing your behaviour to that level.

For all you harping on that not wanting to play with someone isn't bullying, did you miss this?

Sally came to sit down at the table with the others at lunch and they all pulled their chairs away from her.

That is nasty. That, along with the other behaviour, is bullying.

I fully expect someone to try and excuse that behaviour now.

It occurs to me that adult intervention in childhood friendships needs to be done very, very sensitively, especially when SENs and difficult family circumstances are involved. If the excluded child is behaving in a way that makes it very difficult for other children to accept him/her, then this too must be addressed as well as the exclusion. It may well be that 'Sally' was a difficult child to deal with because of the complexity of her emotions and the sad family situation, and that the other girls' behaviour was a response to manipulative behaviour on Sally's part. Not the right way to go about it, and almost certainly bullying, but you do have to see the whole picture to deal with it effectively.

Booyaka that's mad. How does the excluded child learn to cope if the response of staff is to shoe horn them back into the group where they are not wanted by telling the other kids that they will be disciplined for bullying and don't play with the other girl against their will. Friendships shift - there was a thread on here recently where an adult MNer had taken a newcomer to her area under her wing and introduced her to people, but become aware after a short time that they didn't get on and the newcomer was really quite rude and domineering - she was unanimously encouraged to extricate herself from the friendship as politely as possible, quite rightly.

My DD has been in this position - same group of friends since age 3, 8 girls, all went to primary together. All fine till about age 8 when 2 of them started the whole queen bee thing and excluding others - sometimes DD, sometimes another girl. One of the "Queen bee" girls was actually the one with the very sick (but not dying, chronic condition) parent, the other has lovely parents, mum a bit too nice and unable to say no to her DD perhaps... no idea why she's like that but popularity went to her head perhaps...

DD talked to me about H & L doing the "you can't be in my group, you can't play with us today" thing and I told her children have been doing that since time began, it happens to everyone and at least she knows now those girls aren't proper friends she can rely on. I advised her to play with somebody else, we talked about who else would be an option and invited those girls around more often etc. Other girls from the large group of 8 still played with her, and she branched out and made other friends despite having been in the same class 2 years and all the girls having known each other 5 years... kids' friendships do friends, and kids do learn who their "real" friends are through things like this. She's at secondary now and still friends with girls from primary plus having new friends.

I'm very glad I didn't barge into primary and try to insist her teacher force the Queen Bee types to play with her, but rather supported her in moving away from the others and finding new friends.

If school policies label not playing with somebody bullying then I suppose it is bullying by definition but in that case pretty much everyone, ever has been bullied. Its better to teach your child how to move on from it than charge in and insist children be forced to pretend to be friends at school, (a pretty hollow and short term measure that leaves the excluded child stuck in fake, adult enforced "friendships" at school and so far less likely to move on and form genuine friendships, whilst being unable to enforce inclusion in going to other children's houses to play, or parties etc. etc.)

It's the way in which these girls are alleged to have refused to play with Sally though - it does sound very unkind, repeated behaviour and that is bullying. It's also not clear how many children are in the class, and whether there actually were any other girls for Sally to go off and play with. If not, then they knew very well that she would be left on her own, and that is very spiteful indeed. And yes, if you know someone is having a difficult time at home, you should make a little effort to be a bit kinder, and nine is not too young to know that.
I don't think that telling off the unkind girls is necessarily the best way forward. But making them all sit down together, and think about how it feels to be left out might be helpful - that would give them an opportunity to talk about the difficulties of someone calling you a bully if you refuse to be their best friend, and just help to clarify some boundaries all together. Sounds as if the school has handled this very badly.

The colleague parallel only works for classwork

I think it works in the playground too, because much of children's work is playing and a lot of the school day is spent outside formal classroom situations. Equally, I have never worked in an office where it would have been appropriate to exclude somebody from a group lunch.

Clearly there are situations where it wouldn't be appropriate for another child to join in a game, but the vast majority of the time, if they are willing to play the game as it is being played, they can be included.

I think SallyMcgally is right. A key aspect of the situation is whether or not the class is small and ‘Sally’ is left with few opportunities if these girls refuse to let her join in. And even if the class is a larger one, the girls might be the ones who decide who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. The influence of such dominant children can extend to the whole class and sometimes even to the classes above and below. Nobody wants to play with the child who is rejected by the top dogs.

My DS ended up spending a lot of time being Playground Daddy, as he put it, to the Reception kids when he was in Y5 –Y6. It was either that or talk to the rabbits.

There aren’t always a lot of options for the child with the persona non grata label.

I'm uncomfortable that you interpreted my comments as you did, Iliked. You seem to have inferred that the child at a disadvantage - no current friends at the school; worries at home - should be giving all the compassion to the other children who are making her school life more difficult than it needs to be!

Tiggy's post is almost word-for-word what I wanted to write, drawing an accurate comparison with starting a new job as an adult. Don't try and tell me you wouldn't be bothered if colleagues deliberately & obviously left you out.

Liked, you are confusing having a tiff with one or two members of a friendship group on an occasional basis with a sustained campaign of bullying of an entire friendship group on one person.

And your view of 'they need to learn where they're not wanted, it will be character building for them' etc, etc, etc are a massively worn out set of cliches that schools stopped subscribing to I the 80s because they realised that is was just justifying bullying.

Bullying is doing something nasty to someone because you don't like them. But that seems to be your entire justification for it. If your child doesn't like someone they can be as unpleasant as they choose, because you think that dislike automatically gives them a right to treat someone badly. Actually, I don't tend to think children should be encouraged to dislike at all. Then can dislike someone's actions if they're nasty to them, but personally I really don't think they should be encouraged to go through life treating people on the basis of whether they 'like' them or not.

Honestly, this sort of thinking is responsible for a hell of a lot of shitty behaviour in adults too.

so what if all parental parties weren't fully informed at all times?

If a child is saying they have been bullied on several occasions...of course the parents should have been informed.

I don't think that is that controversial

I have found this thread illuminating.

My DD has two friends who are best friends with each other and go through periods of being quite mean to her. Examples would be telling her she isn't allowed to do certain Brownie badges or that a lunchtime club she goes to has been cancelled when it hasn't.

I always suggest when they do this that she ignores them and plays with other people instead. However if she tries this they usually come to disrupt the game she is playing. I assume it is more fun for them if she doesn't have too many other friends.

I always advise her to tell them to go away but she says she can't do this because it's against the rules to say you don't want to play with someone and that they will complain to a teacher about her.

So I can see that children with an appreciation of the rules will be able to use them even if objectively speaking they are the ones being mean.

OP go with your honest gut. Do you feel your DD was probably a bit mean to Sally? If so you should speak to her firmly about it and not draw her attention to too many mitigating circumstances.

Well said Boo. Some of the parents have blanked DH and I and gossiped about us because we dared to speak to the school about their children's behaviour. Clearly the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!

However if she tries this they usually come to disrupt the game she is playing.

Which would be breaking the rules of a properly thought out and monitored 'you can't say you can't play' policy.

The point of this kind of policy is to encourage children to think and solve problems, not to enforce blanket rules with no teaching - that is just as bad as a policy of assuming that children will be children and bullying doesn't exist.

Hear hear Booyaka

I think some of us adults have skewed views about this because we were brought up in the 70's and 80's (and earlier) and absorbed these messages about toughening up so we aren't really clear about what constitutes bullying, unless it happens to our child.

Also - of you go into a playground/dinner hall at school and you see this sort of behaviour in action there's no confusion - it's upsetting to witness as an adult, and no wonder it does so much damage to the child recipients.

Again - It's not about labelling a child as 'a bully' - that is too simplistic (although I've met a few of them), it's about naming behaviours.

BTW

Good schools talk and talk and mediate between children to address all of this. By reporting bullying, you are potentially helping the perpetrator.