son who is 9's diary entry. advice pls

[StephoooH]

Hi. Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this. I was googling and came across a post on here about bullying and seemed to be in the right spot but then I saw what the site was about and thought it would actually be good to ask about the actual situation.

My son is 9 sorry about the writing far too lazy to type all out!

I found this on his draw next to his bed which is where all his current stuff he uses is and he has denied all knowledge! But his face was like an absolute tomato. I have promised that I'm always here for him etc etc but he still denies. It's sad to se my little man wrote that :( I can't just leave it, surely?? Help

Definitely take it into the teacher. And pray that he/she isn't of the persuasion that "oh it's just a bit of light hearted teasing" - no it bloody isn't. As a natural ginger (and not even that bright!), I had a horrible time of it at junior school - not before, and not after, but in juniors - because of my hair (and glasses).

And then again by some halfwit who thought it was amusing to take the piss out of me being ginger-haired in my 30s (although it wasn't very ginger by then, more medium blonde with a bit of a red reflex).

Considering how many people choose to dye their hair red when they want to change colour, it staggers me that this is still seen as "ok" by some people. It's not ok!

shawnhitchins.com/gingernation/ is someone trying to bring redheads together.
[[

Excellent idea, Pasta.

Poor little boy.

I hope that his teacher is helpful when you speak to her. In the meantime, cuddle him tight.

My god-son told me he was being bullied at school because he's ginger. I felt really ill-equipped to respond but we had a look at some of the anti-bullying websites. We ended up talking about bullies picking the stuff that makes us stand out. The next day I took him to the Science Centre and he got picked to go up on the demo stage. They said something like "the boy with the red hair at the back". When he came back down grinning ear to ear, I pointed out how his red hair had worked in his favour that time.
Good luck. I hope the school deal with it well, but I'm sure you'll come up with ideas to improve his confidence now that you know about it.

This really gets my goat. If racism isn't ok and so widely talked about and prevented, why is singling out one colour hair and being nasty/making rude comments etc? My little girl is also ginger and it's beautiful. Hugs for you and him OP. Get straight down for a meeting at the school. And look very cross and the little buggers who've been doing this to him

What a good way of getting his feelings out and sharing them with you, even though it was embarrassing for him.
Kids aren't good at telling us about the things we need to know - such as being bullied. I suppose they think that they will get into trouble or something, but now you can help him see that bad situations can be resolved and people will stand up against bullies and get results.

His school will want to know, so they can do something about this. If there's bullying going on, it won't just be about hair colour, it will be about any kind of difference, and it's poisonous behaviour. The school will have an anti-bullying policy in place, and they, the Governors and the LEA are responsible for making sure this is stopped straight away.

As for your son, I love the idea of helping him find famous redheads he can look up to. They are almost endangered these days, and should be celebrated!

some absolutely gorgeous redhead men here:
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/dec/01/the-beauty-of-a-red-headed-man-in-pictures

not sure all the pictures from that exhibition would be age appropriate though, might pay to check first :)

OP Yes definitely ask to see teacher on your own & show diary. Don't be fobbed off. It is serious. The beat bullying websites are helpful. Hope things work out & I love your son's hair!
Please do pop back to let us know how it is dealt with. 💐

for you. I hope that your ds is feeling better soon. I have ginger hair, and I remember how tough school was. I hated school, and I hated myself even more. I wanted to dye my hair black (I'm sure that would have looked fantastic with my pale skin and transparent eye lashes )

Any way, I can also relate in a 2nd way, because my ds was being bullied at school a few months ago. It was quite physical though, he was being pushed over in the playground, ganged up on, they would push hold him down, push back his head and put their hands around his throat. He would scream at them to stop, but they kept doing it. The school handled it poorly, and did not inform me when ds reported it. It was a big incident involving many children, and the main culprit was "dealt with", probably by being excluded for a day. But he came back to school and thought that it was ok to do it again and again. When I went to a meeting at the school, this teacher tried to pass it off as "normal playground rough and tumble". My ds was in the meeting, and she spoke to him like he was in trouble and over reacting. It was probably all "a silly mistake". I asked her to follow the school bullying policy, but she said that this wasn't considered bullying by her, but "a series of individual incidents". I was furious. It was the weekend by then, and I could see that he was still bottling things up. I encouraged him to phone childline to speak to a counsellor. I would definitely recommend this, as it helped a lot.

I wrote everything down, and put it to the school on Monday. I included in the letter the message from Childline that they would contact the school on my son's behalf if they continued to not take him seriously. Funny enough, they then took more serious action, and it was sorted. They set up adult led meetings with my ds and the bullies, so that they could all speak about what is unacceptable behaviour together, and my ds got apologies from the bullies. Things have been fine since. This all happened over a period of about 2 weeks, but I definitely wanted to nip it in the bud and stamp out bullying.

Sorry for the long post. I would definitely recommend that you put everything in writing with dates you found the letter etc, and insist that serious action needs to be taken to stamp out the bullying. Show them the letter. Hopefully the school is better than ours, and doesn't try to pass you off from the beginning, but keep going higher if necessary. I would also recommend that you encourage your ds to call childline to chat about the bullying. They were brilliant and made my ds feel much better to have someone to listen to him, and support him.

Well done for taking action. My parents and school would just tell me to ignore the bullies, which was great but it meant that I had to just sit there and take it when they gave me shit.

Sorry again for the long post.

and well done to your ds, for finding a way to tell you. It's definitely good to encourage children to reach out and talk to someone if they are having difficulties, especially boys. I have 2 ds's, and we all know the CALM campaigns to try to encourage men to talk about their issues. Childline really were great.

That's gorgeous hair.
The school should treat this just like any other kind of blatant racism - zero tolerance. Go in all guns blazing and make sure they take this seriously.

Poor little soul. That note is heartbreaking.
DS has a pal who has a ginger head of curls, it's awesome. But I know back at school (18 now) he suffered with name calling. Makes me so angry.
Get your son interested in the invictus games, created by that gorgeous red head Prince Harry!
And defo tell the school, this needs to stop.
His hair is amazing

Also a redhead (well aside from the grey). I was lucky it was never an issue for me but bullies pick on whatever makes you stand out sad little cowards that they are.

I do hope you and school can sort this please come back for advice if school crap about it.

There are lots of famous, successful gorgeous redheads. Great idea to discuss them with your son. Especially as they're likely to have experienced and discussed being bullied themselves.

Good luck

Please do not compare teasing/bullying because of hair colour to racism. It shows total ignorance about racism, the relevance of power, the history, impacts on a people, and generations of that people. I don't want to divert attention from the purpose of this thread but was tsken aback by the repeated comparison.

What is happening is totally wrong and I hate all forms of victimisation no matter the reason for it. Best of luck today OP.

Donethat...

Agree...to a point, but remember redheads are also descendants of oppressed people. Irish and scots certainly know how it feels to be disparaged and oppressed I would think particularly Irish, in the 70's there were still adverts for rooms to rent that said 'no blacks, no Irish'

Op

What are your sons interests?

Perhaps you can find a redhead in a field of interest for him that's a strong personality to give him some confidence?

Eg I love the Tudor history and rock music, Henry viii, Elizabeth I and axl rose are all strong redheads!

Not all Irish are redheads and not all redheads are Irish. If you see what I mean, Irish is a nationality.

I also have redheads so hate to hear about this sort of thing. My daughter who is stunning (doesn't take after me!) only told me recently that she hated her hair when younger due to the teasing.

We overhead ds's friends saying something about "ginger" recently and were worried it was negative but it turns out they were complementing him by comparing him to a red-haired famous footballer.

So agree that maybe pointing out famous redheads is a good idea.

But I would also go to the school.

We had this. We are white but Dd has Afro type hair in a mono cultural school. We went in. School sympathetic but useless. So I wrote polite letters to the parents telling them how their little shits were behaving and how it made Dd feel. Caused a hoo ha, the parents were upset (boo fucking hoo) , head rang me to say I shouldn't have.

Bloody worked though was years ago no issues since. I wanted to go so nuclear that it wasn't worth the bullies targeting Dd.

I just want to add that children very often say they don't want parents to do anything, and beg parents not to tell the teacher. Children feel humiliated and disempowered, and they worry that "telling" will just make the bullying worse. I think parents have to do the right thing, which involves telling the school, even against the wishes of the child.

By telling the school, parents are sending an important message to their bullied child: this is wrong; this is not your fault; when something bad happens we can work to fix it right away.

Teachers are in a position to tackle bullying very strongly without betraying a child's confidences.

He has very good handwriting for a 9 year old. Why does he not use joined up writing, which is national standard? Just wondering.

Tell him if no body liked 'gingers' why are Ed Sheeran and Adele two of the most popular best selling and well liked artists of all time. Not to mention why is Prince Harry fancied by so many?

Errrrm so your son's hair looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I wish I had hair like that.

Please speak to his teacher.

That also made me so sad to read :-( , from how it is written, I think he wanted you to find it. Sometimes it's easier to write it down than say it outright. Is definitely go see his teacher and make her aware

Seeing a teacher before school is always difficult as they have a class to go to but I would ask the teacher if you could see him/her tonight after school or arrange an appointment time within school hours.

Children often feel the situation will get worse if a parent intervenes. If a parent doesn't intervene it tells the bullies is that they can get away with it.

Sometimes we have to do what is right and over rule our children's wishes. I have done this for Ds and he is 12. Again bullying but by the popular kids. Why are they popular when they are such arseholes?

Give your son a big squeeze and sort out the situation.