To think that bullying is rarely as black and white as it’s made out to be in here

[PorkFlute]

For context neither of my children have ever been accused of bullying or subject to bullying so I have no personal bias.
I have worked in a lot of schools though and come across many situations where parents are adamant that their child is being bullied or excluded when what is actually the case is that other children don’t want to play with their child because they are excessively bossy, mean or spoil games. Not playing with someone in this case isn’t exclusion imo and social skills support for the child who is behaving in a way that puts other children off is what is needed. There are also cases where children are ridiculously over sensitive or there is unkindness on both sides.
Obviously bullying does happen and it’s awful but on here people seem to jump straight to the conclusion that bullying is taking place and schools aren’t acting often only on the word and interpretation of the accuser.
Aibu to think that actual bullying ie purposeful and persistent victimisation is actually pretty rare with young children at least?

Mother - these are the arguments that the teachers used to justify them not helping my daughter. Yeah but hey, its not all black and white is it.

Staples i think you have misunderstood me.

What i mean is that your daughter had a genuine problem and was not helped. Would you be angry if you were to learn that instead of helping your daughter, staff were diverted to dealing with issues that were not bullying?

staples dd had a friend in primary she regularly clashed with. It never involved others joining in, or involved any spite or cruelty. And nearly always over the most petty none issues. Most fall outs lasted a few hours, the most was 2 days.

Luckily both I and the other mother were equally open to the truth, that they were both as bad as each other. And both girls were very honest about exactly what their part was. And both were mature enough to be civil even when they were 'never speaking to you again'.

But if one of us and our child were less honest, and falsely claimed bullying, do you honestly think that it would be fair to claim they were a victim like your dd? Or to label the other a bully like your dd's persecutors?

Or as wurzel mentioned waste everyones time with false accusations?

So its best if teachers DONT believe kids being bullied, just in case they are wasting time with false accusations?

Mother - my DD had a genuine problem and was not helped because people in authority came along and said exactly what you and hog are saying. Completely disingenuous.

I think some people on here seem to think that I am saying that their experiences of being excluded for no reason, hurt physically and emotionally isn’t bullying which isn’t what I’m saying at all. Obviously those things are bullying and no-one would suggest otherwise.
I just think that a lot of people on here are keen to label any difficulties their child has with others as bullying without knowing for eg if their child is behaving in the same or a worse way. No child should be forced to play with another child who is consistently unkind to them for fear of being labelled a bully for not wanting to play with them. Being a bit different is no reason to exclude a child but if a bit different means making others lives miserable then children should have the right not to play with someone like that. And if a child is mean to everyone then yes they’ll be left out. That’s not bullying - it’s the consequence of their own behaviour.

So its best if teachers DONT believe kids being bullied, just in case they are wasting time with false accusations?

Nobody is saying that.

What is being said, is that children need to learn to reflect on their own behaviour and parents need to reflect on their children's behaviour so that false accusations don't happen, and teachers can spend their time on genuine cases of bullying like your daughters.

Staples what was it that they said? Did they believe that it was fallouts? In which case they were wrong and she should have had more support. I have not disputed that.

I have said upthread that all allegations should be properly investigated and dealt with appropriately.

staples not at all. But if one in my scenario had claimed to be bullied it absolutely wouldn't be ok to agree and unfairly label the other, just because in other situations dc are bullied.

The correct response would be to find out why they feel bullied, and at primary age discreetly observe what is happening. And then in my situation for school to disclose to both parents that there is no bullying and both dc are equally to blame for fall outs. In your case, observation would prove there was bullying.

What if one of your dd's bullies had gone to the teacher first and accused your dd of bullying them? Would you think it reasonable if the school had blindly believed them and hauled your dd in to accuse her?

right I've been re-reading the thread and I can see that there are many thoughtful and considered posts on here by people who have been bullied or seen it first hand with their kids. I don't see why the OP started this thread at all unless it was to try to minimise and trivialise others' experiences particularly as she has no experience of it herself. Those who keep coming on and saying "oh but its not all black and white" - can you try reading your posts out loud and see how you sound?! You could literally start a thread about ANYTHING emotive or otherwise say "oooohhh but its not all black and white eh?!" and then become mortally offended when people say well yes I think it is.

I wouldn’t even say that it’s a case of children making false accusations. Maybe a child has poor play skills - they always want to be in control of the game, they’re a poor loser, over sensitive and maybe lash out when upset. Other kids will likely avoid them but that doesn’t make them bullies. And equally the child may feel victimised and go home saying x won’t play with me or everyone’s being mean. Then parents rock up at the school saying their child is being bullied and the school needs to act. The other kids don’t complain because they have the sense to keep out of the difficult childs way and play with others so the situation isn’t having a big impact on them. It happens all the time. And unless situations are properly investigated there is always a risk of victim blaming as the supposed victim may well be the one who’s behaving inappropriately.
I don’t think any teacher should automatically believe what a child says about another. They should monitor the situation closely but some children won’t be aware that others are avoiding them due to their own behaviour and of course some may just be trying to gerbil others into trouble. Any accusations should always be investigated.

No idea why that autocorrected to gerbil!

And absolutely false accusations of bullying can be a form of bullying. It would be so wrong for a teacher to blindly believe what they hear without investigating.

Staples i have made every attempt to make my language as clear as possible and i have repeatedly stated that;

Bullying happens
Bullying is unacceptable
Bullying must be dealt with properly.

Perhaps you are of the view that every tumultuous relationship between children is bullying in some way. Perhaps you do not believe that a bully could manipulate a situation to paint their victim as being the bully. That's your opinion and you're entitled to it.

I truly believe that while the word 'bullying' is used inappropriately then important time, attention and resources are diverted away from real situations such as your daughter's leading to poor responses.

As a pp said, had your daughter and the bullies been subtly observed over a period of time, the staff would have seen what was going on. Why was this not done? Was it because they were dealing with less important issues in the class? Was it because they were crap and didn't care? Obviously i don't know the answer to that.

Either way it was unacceptable.

It's so easy for schools not to spot who the bullying victim actually is. I was a bullying victim many years ago at school. I wasn't physically bullied but I was called nasty names for years, and then I was the one who ended up lashing out and being punished. The bullies just knew how to press my buttons to get a reaction and I fell for it constantly.

It's obviously not easy to get to the bottom of who is the bully and who is the victim, but it's not always the case that the one who lashes out is actually the guilty one. I'm not justifying kids lashing out btw, and I certainly wouldn't ever tell my DDs that it's the right way to respond. But if children feel that nothing is going to change then they will respond by lashing out or in some other negative way.

And I do agree that it's often not black and white, bully and victim, at least in primary school, I've seen that with spats between my 2 DDs.

I have definitely seen my own child say he is being bullied when basically he wants to play one game and everyone else wants to play another and I do see this at school as well.

I also see some situations where its been 6 of 1 and half a dozen of the other but only one person says they've been bullied (or more to the point the parent hears their child has been hit, but doesn't hear their child hit first ).

And I have also seen children be purposely really horrible to another child often over months at a time. and children that are generally a bit mean to lots of people

This thread makes me sad. I was lucky st school; I was always popular and didn't get bullied, but I saw a couple of kids who did, and it was soul destroying for them. And that was really mild stuff in the scheme of things - nothing physical or threatening.

Bullying can leave such scars, and i think it can change a child's personality. Why some people have to put others down to make themselves feel better, whether they are 6 or 60, I just don't know.

I remember one incident many years ago when my DB, 2 years older than me, stood up for me, which he did regularly at that time. At this time we were aged 7 and 5. A boy hit me and my DB stood up for me, hitting him on my behalf. Later the boy's father spoke to my DM to complain that my DB was bullying his son. My DM replied, 'And did your son tell you that he had hit my DS's 5 year old sister? He got the point, 'Oh, that puts a different spin on it then.'

These days you're not encouraged to speak to other parents, as they're so likely to refuse to believe their children could do anything wrong. But this shows that things are not always how they first appear and there do need to be questions asked.

So its best if teachers DONT believe kids being bullied, just in case they are wasting time with false accusations?
Nobody is saying that.

They are correctly pointing out that kids being on/off friends isn't bullying and that when kids (and parents) start rebranding normal fallouts as bullying it is a monumental waste of school's time when they could be dealing with actual bullying instead of Holly and Sarah's latest fallouts over who liked what on Instagram.

But then some parents do seem to think thr smallest hint of a difficult social situation it a falling out must be bullying and their child should be wrapped in cotton wool.

Bullying is awful.
Some friends falling out is not