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?

I'm shite at changing names. I'm also bugger!

x-post with you Jendall.

Glad to see your son's getting over it (for want of a better phrase). I've no doubt he is hurt but as I said, children can be arseholes. The good news is that other children realise this and usually get over isolated instances fairly quickly. Us adults hold grudges. Our children don't.

Ha ha I was scrolling back to nominate you as head teacher of the year and got confused so Bugger/Mist you sound so sensible and understanding.

Interesting also your comments on state v private parental support too.

Op again good job.

Ah thank you MistoffBugger :D I thought the same as foot reading your last post and thought you sounded like you in the previous post!

That's a really good point about children not holding grudges, my son really doesn't whereas I can stay angry for a very long time after in some cases if someone has upset him.

Not going to go to the police. I'm even now doubting myself about how to explain all this to the Pastoral manager when he calls back, as you mentioned it runs the risk of D and J forming an alliance. Plus DS said last night could I please not say anything and wouldn't settle until I told him I wouldn't so I'd feel a bit like I'm 'betraying' him as silly as it sounds. At the moment we have a trusting relationship and he feels able to tell me things that happen with his friends if he needs to talk, I don't want to do anything to jeopardise that, does that make sense?

You may well be better letting sleeping dogs lie.

If I or my team got an email outlining the incident but with the relevant info (your son wants it left alone) then we'd keep an eye on it but not go steaming in.

If you trust the staff then I don't think it's betraying him by telling (not necessarily involving) the school.

There are a lot of 'ifs'. Only you know your son and the school well enough to make the call but I'm glad it seems better the following day - although don't most things!

Whilst typing this, I think the deciding factor for me would be if I trusted my son to tell me if this happened again and escalated in either frequency or severity. If 'yes', I'd step back for now. That isn't professional advice but personal opinion.

Good luck.

Thank you. I do trust him to tell me if it happened again, at the same time something in me is saying I can't do nothing. I will mention it but ask them not to act on it. Wish you were my son's head! (I guess technically you could be, who knows!!)

If ds doesn't want a fuss leave it for now, but tell him, if it happens again, your going to the HT no ifs or buts.

Think we all would with bugger was our HT.

It has all gone tits up DS is so upset. He had an ok day, he confided in the boy who witnessed all this and D that throwing milk on J as revenge had been suggested. They just laughed. No drama.

Then half an hour ago he got a message from J/Cheeseboy saying he knew about the threats of milk and he'd also heard DS was going to throw stones at his house??? No idea where that came from, Chinese whispers I suppose.

D is staying firmly on the fence with all this, saying it's nothing to do with him and has told DS that J will beat him up if he attempts any stone or milk throwing.

I'm worried out of my fucking mind, DS is so upset and I don't know what will happen at school tomorrow. They didn't call me back today in the end :( Has anyone been through this? Or can think more clearly than me maybe. I really think ultimately DS is devastated at his friendship with D being damaged, he treated him as a brother.

Oh and to make it worse DH won;'t stop with the whole "revenge is the only option here unless you want to be the one who is picked on all through school" eyeroll

Oh God that is unfortunate- your DH shouldn't have even thought about revenge. Phone school again tomorrow. Hope you're okay.

Can you arrange to go into school tomorrow if you get no response by, say, 10.30?

The school should be tackling this as the boys were in uniform. It doesn't matter that it was out of school hours. And tell your dh to stop being a fucking dickhead. He is causing more upset.

I will phone school tomorrow and can go in first thing if needed, will work around it. I just knew this revenge thing would make it escalate yesterday! I think H is projecting a bit as he was bullied a lot and it only stopped when he kicked one of the bullies hard - he got suspended but it never happened again. I think he forsees this exact situation happening here.
It's so hard with kids and their friendships!

Sorry your DH is being spectacularly unhelpful. Understand where it's coming from but he really needs to drop the revenge talk now

I would chase the school up tomorrow. If at all possible back this up in writing? Squeezy-Cheesy-Bully-Boy sounds like he's marking his territory. By the sounds of things he wants 'D' all to himself? So he'll keep pushing, making threats until your son backs off!

D sounds as if he's playing piggy in the middle? If he's feeding things back to SCBB then he's the one fuelling the fire.

So lets get this straight, SCBB smears your son, humiliates him and then threatens to beat him up? Erm, D is sitting on the fence with a poker, stoking the fire IMHO

Can you email the school tonight? They will pick it up first thing tomorrow. Our school always prefers an email where possible.

And definitely do tell the school. They need to be aware of what is happening, and if J is trying to turn it round, it would be awful if school didn't know the history.

J sounds like trouble.

I thought it was another boy who told J about the revenge thing, not D?

The OP's son spoke to J and D together, I think.

It may have been discussed in the school today (the pupils) and perhaps the jokey revenge has been mentioned. It was bound to get back to SCBB (I like that one) and he'll be using it to portray himself as a victim as he may be aware that it's not going to end well for himself.

Sadly, I am also thinking that D is more involved than he is saying. At the very least, he is too scared of SCBB to be of any use to your son, OP

Certainly go into the school first thing tomorrow to get this sorted. Can you pick your DS up so he doesn't have to come home with them?

Sorry for lack of reply, been so manic with various things and chatting to DS to see that he's ok as he was in quite a state earlier. It's so confusing with all the initials sorry about that, really trying to be as anonymous as possible, I've used fake initials too so even confusing myself!

SCBB aka J messaged DS earlier and said he'd heard from D that DS was going to throw stones and milk at him. D denies saying anything about this at all but it was only him and one other boy that my son mentioned just the milk to. So it's come from one of them. D then said SCBB would beat DS up if he tried the revenge trick.

I would email but don't have the direct address for the staff member I trust to handle this right so am worried the email could be seen by anyone. I'll phone the school first thing and get this flagged up, I agree too that D might be scared here or not totally loyal although it upsets me to say that

Thanks all

Good luck Jendal.

It's definitely time to have the school involved as this is starting to snowball. The last thing you want is for your son to come out of this looking badly and that's quite possible if he was talking about throwing milk and stones. Remember, these are young children. J / D (I'm getting confused) is probably legitimately worried that this revenge could happen. Part of that no doubt is that people would find out about the 'cheese incident'.

Ask for the teacher's email address or go in and ask to speak to them or someone else you trust.

Are you sure that their professional email address isn't available? Our staffs' are, as well as it simply being [surname]@[school's name].ac...

I think that you can now see that your son isn't mature enough to deal with this without your help. Not knocking him whatsoever. I called my parents for advice a few weeks ago and they're nearly 90!

Your husband has his own reasons for his reaction but his suspension, whilst ending the bullying, shows his ideas aren't the best. Tread carefully there too but he isn't doing your son any favours. He's showing his support which is wonderful but there are better ways of doing it. Ask him (calmly) what the best and worst possible outcomes of revenge are and how he'd feel if the worst scenario were the one which materialised. I do this several times a day for my own decisions.

Oh no, Jendall this is not good for either of you.
As your DS is not going to throw milk or stones, there should be no beatings-up.
Hope you get a good response from the school.

How did you get on today? How did he?

How did it go today Jendall? I have a son just a little older than your son and this kind of 'banter' is far too common for my liking. It's bullying but with a 'we'r only joking' cover so it looks like the victim is being a grass when it gets taken further. I am so sorry your boy is going through this, I am like you and get so upset for my son in situations but sometimes he surprises me with his maturity and ability to sort things himself without having me step in. I would say he too would beg me not to involve the school as sometimes it makes it all so much worse for them but sadly that's one of the times we have to decide whether to do what they ask or 'betray' them for their own good.

Thinking of you Jendall

Sorry for lack of posts, I have a chronic health condition which flares up when stressed and yesterday was a very bad day for that. I have a daughter too and had some issues in that department (whole other thread!)

I worked out the email address as Bugger suggested and managed to send one last night which obviously is not much use but at least he'll see it first thing Monday morning and hopefully call me.

Ds just avoided SCBB yesterday but he still hasnt had any form of apology and I've told him not to expect one. D is being distant with him, I think his loyalties are torn maybe and he feels guilty being overly friendly with either of the boys.

He's very down about the whole thing it's really affected him and my heart breaks as just a week ago he was gaining confidence and happy that his friendships were going well.

I'm sorry I can't scroll up now as on my phone but I agree with the poster just up who said this is common among teenagers and is passed off as 'banter' and 'jokes' so they're made to feel weak or oversensitive for trying to put a stop to it. Not good

Will update when I (hopefully) get to speak to school.