Son so upset WWYD

[JendallKenner]

Hi, DS is 13 and walks home every day with his best friend(D) and another boy(J). For background this other boy often likes to be a bit touchy feely in the way of little pushes, punches and 'playfight' type things. DS is not like that at all but plays along usually because he worries about losing these friends (he took a long time to get to know people at current school). I've always told him if he's not happy with the interaction between them to tell this boy and tell me, so far it's been ok and they've all been friendly together.

Also, DS has eating issue (SED) and certain foods absolutely repel him.

He came home from school today absolutely distraught, in fact ive never seen him so upset. He could barely breathe. J found a tube of soft cheese (think Primula or similar) and picked it up and squeezed it all over DS. It went all over his blazer, trousers, hair and face.

His best friend D laughed, J laughed and after DS asked him to stop he carried on doing it rubbing it right into his clothes. The two of them found it hilarious and when DS started crying laughed even more.

He is mostly upset that D stood and laughed instead of sticking up for him, and now I don't know what to do. DH says tomorrow he should take butter into school and rub it all over J

My thinking is we go round this evening to speak to parents as not only is it a shitty thing to do when someone doesn't like it but his blazer is a nightmare to wash and it's disrespectful to do this to someone's clothes.

One of the foods he has issues with is cheese, he absolutely can't bear it being all over him right now and is currently showering it off crying.

OR - do we all need to get a grip? Is it just 'lads banter'? DS is a very sensitive boy, he doesn't get involved in fights and things do upset him easily, mostly as I said D laughing at him.
If I go round to the house any ideas how to approach this?

...to speak to...

Your poor Ds

My Ds is very sensitive too (has ASD) and it boils my piss when he's told he's a victim because he's an easy target.

I've told him no one has the right to assault him - and I always use the words assault and that he has the right to speak to police anytime he's been assaulted. He has seemed empowered by this and seems to accept this behaviour less. (On the flip side I've told him others have the same right it he touches them!)

I would tell your Ds he doesn't deserve this - that as J was the instigator he only has to report J at school. Tell him he knows D and the other lad will back him up. I explain to Ds that if he doesn't say something he's not helping these kids who will think it's ok to do it again and again. That he's lucky he knows right from wrong and needs to tell teachers so they can teach the kids right from wrong.

But I may find it easier because Ds is only developmentally 8 so gets simple cause and effect and is in no way bothered about grassing anyone up

Shocked at some responses here about not reporting to the school

This isn't 'grassing'? It's reporting an unwanted physical attack! They were in school uniform. At my school if a member of the public witnessed this and reported it the kids involved would be in trouble for bringing the school into disrepute at the very least.

Your son needs to understand that incidents like this must be reported. If it happened to his friends or siblings he would want action taken. Letting it go is a green light to the perpetrators to carry on. If something similar happens in the future the school will ask why on earth you didn't report it first time round.

edna are you a teacher and a parent of teenagers?

You sound exactly like my lovely sister who follows all the rules of the adult world but hasn't a bloody clue how teenagers actually react/interact.

At 13 only very serious things are black and white and should involve adults.

This is about the best outcome for the ds not the best outcome for the adults/policies/procedures/how life should be.

The kid has to go to school for the next few years with all sorts and types of kids and needs strategies and support to cope as we all did.

Awful. I can imagine D was shocked and laughing but not knowing how to make the situation stop. He's just a child too so dont expect too much of him. I think its enough that he was remorseful to your son.

As for J, he is obviously not a safe friend for DS. I hope he feels better for having support from other friends.

Sorry meant to say in an ideal world you'd totally get the school involved and they'd come down like a tonne of bricks on J. But I can understand DS's reluctamce. Agree with others that you should review the situation in the morning and decide together.

bacon sorry if I was rude but it really pisses me off when posters pile in and urge the parent to go to the school when it's the tricky teenage years.

You really can't deal with things like this as you could with younger kids.

High school can be a mine field and teenagers need very careful navigation and support through it. Involving 'authority' needs to be very carefully thought through as this age need to start self policing and self reliance.

I have total sympathy with the op and her ds but the whole situation and the path through high school is paramount.

I'm shocked about some of the responses too - that it's not OK for a boy to cry for one. How sexist is that? That he needs to "toughen up" too - yes, resilience is a skill everyone needs - but why is it OK for a child to accept being assaulted in the street and have food rubbed on his clothes but not for an adult? If someone came up to you in the street, pushed you around and rubbed food all over you, what would you do? You sure as hell wouldn't shrug it off and write it off as banter. The police would treat it as assault. All kids need to learn resilience, but they also need to learn that it's not OK to assault someone and they won't learn it if the victims are told to toughen up and not tell anyone.

Your poor son

I don't have anything constructive to add, but just wanted to say that I hope you are ok, I would be so upset is this happened to dd or ds

oneWay yes we all know that but high school kids unfortunately don't act like adults that's why they are teenagers.

Yes if you had cheese rubbed into your face by s stranger you would call the police! However these lads are school 'mates' and unfortunately the ds needs to go back and interact with these kids day in and day out for years to come.

And no one has advocated not telling anyone!! I advocated to listen to the 13 year old and see if he can navigate this through.

You do need to assimilate situations not trot out what should happen in a perfect world

Lets hope squeezy-cheese-bully-boy rolls up to school incurring the wrath and disdain of all?

Definitely get the school involved and stay well away from social media. The school has a responsibility to handle this sensitively and it will be them whom contact J's parents.

Talk to the school and explain what's happened. You can Be the grass rather then your son becoming a grass. You had to wash the jacket, so you sorted the issue. The pastoral team are best placed to deal with it. Get them to get the boys onside. Give them permission to discuss your sons needs/condition.

If the boys are tackled individually and in the right way, getting their compassion/understanding rather then discipline.

OP I cannot recommend Choi Kwang Do highly enough if you have one in your area. Unlike some martial arts it is largely non contact, they use shields, focus mitts etc instead. There is such a positive encouraging ethos, alongside the discipline you'd expect from that sort of class.
It has done my now 12 yr old DS so much good in terms of confidence, co ordination, and just progressing through the belts has given him a real boost. I was having a chat with one of the instructors last week about how he loves it so much, and how although he's not needed to use his moves to defend himself as yet, he's had no problems with bullies this year (lots of problems last year). The instructor commented that an awful lot of it is to do with how they carry themselves, and how they give off the air of 'I am not someone to pick on'.
I think the transition to Senior School can be really hard for some children. It was certainly a shock to my DS to find out that not everyone behaves in an appropriate way. They do have to learn how to handle themselves.
Good luck OP.

I think your idea if chatting to his pastoral manager is a good idea. More telling him how 'banter' (hate the word - it's basically bullying) got out of hand - keep it light. You don't want any action BUT you would like the school to keep an eye on the fiendship dynamic.

I think you could do with tackling your anxieties, too.
You are modelling stressy behaviour, unfortunately.
Can you do an martial arts together??

This is sadly true Bluetrews and I get upset with myself often about it. But I'm doing a lot to tackle my anxiety and on the flip side am hopefully modelling compassion and empathy to him. Martial arts together would be great fun! Mortifying for him I'd imagine...

Thanks for so much great advice and understanding, I'm so grateful. I've read through every reply. Posie it sounds great, there is one not too far from us so going to show DS and enquire tomorrow about it.

Foot thank you yes the things you say make sense, it's a sensitive age because like it or not he WILL be seen as a grass and it might make his friendships that much more awkward and that's not what I want at all, far from it.

However I've decided I'm definitely going to speak to the pastoral manager tomorrow and the reason is, if I saw this happen to another child in the street I'd be disgusted and would contact the school if I recognised the uniform. I'd want help for the child and want the boy who did it to be spoken to about it. So my reasoning is if I'd do that for a stranger then I will do that for my boy who is the most precious person in the world to me.

My worries though are about the repurcussions for DS, he has begged and begged tonight for me not to say anything, I feel like I'm going against what he feels is right for him, I do feel really torn and it's awful. I honestly don't know how to approach this, he's been bullied before but by boys who were definitely not his friends and I've gone straight to the school with it and he's been fine about it. In this case D is his (supposed) best friend and J is a sort-of friend who he usually gets on ok with.

I will update, thanks again.

Revenge is a terrible idea - it will make the whole thing escalate. I understand why your DH is upset, but it is irresponsible even to suggest it to your DS - who sounds more mature than your DH.

It might be worth seeing how J is tomorrow, before you decide what to do. I am not for a moment excusing what he did - it was cruel & horrible - but teenagers do do stupid things that get out of hand. D has already apologised, J may be feeling remorse too. I would give J a chance to apologise before doing anything else. You can involve the school if he doesn't.

Well I am glad my son goes to a school where this sort of behaviour is stamped on very quickly and very harshly.

If they are wearing uniform and walking home from school then our school wants to know of any incidents. Their reputation counts for everything.

We are teaching children how to behave and how to treat people. If you allow someone to cover you in cheese spread and do not report it what's next? That is not banter, or gently jostling but seriously crosses a line.

The very reason we chose the school we did was because the discipline was strict. Ds1 is in year 9 now but is introvert and we didn't want low level class disruption or incidents of physical violence to go unpunished.

If my child came home and told me they had witnessed the cheese incident I would tell them to report it.

There was a spate of stamping on frubes in the playground at our school resulting in yoghurt splatted up trousers and jumpers. The school dealt with the perpetrators very harshly. It sets an example to the other students that silly behaviour resulting in stained uniform will not be tolerated.

My worries though are about the repurcussions for DS, he has begged and begged tonight for me not to say anything

Don't saddle him with the reputation of being a grass for the rest of his time in secondary school. If you want to speak to the pastoral lead, do it by phone so you're not seen going into the school and make sure s/he knows that your DS doesn't want anything done.

Yes misery it's perfectly possible as kids do self police. Let's hope the bully gets the 'it's not cool to be mean' by his peer group. That's the best result for all.

Yes second talking to pastoral head if you are sure he will tackle this with a watching eye but deffo by phone.

Again op good on you love and your ds and keep us posted as we all invested now. Xx

Shiny yes agreed, calculated revenge is not the answer here I don't think as I can see it escalating quickly into actual fighting. Hoping J is remorseful, he hasn't contacted DS all night though to apologise which would have been nice. But he probably doesn't think he did anything wrong judging by how he was acting earlier laughing constantly.

Sounds like a good school for your son WingedSloath and I agree with you, this kind of behaviour could be see on the surface as just messing around but not to the extent where it's going all over clothes and making someone cry.

I agree with every word Footinmouth says

They don't need to be friends anymore if he doesn't want btw. He can choose to reduce this friendship and do that under his own steam. If he wants.

What may happen is the other boy apologises tomorrow if he gets wind others thought it was horrible. Peer group regulation and much more powerful than teacher intervention at this age.