To call out these kids in front of their parents who’ve upset my son?

[KeepYourDistanceFFS]

DS is 9 and struggles socially as he’s quite shy and finds it hard to assert himself. He is well liked but doesn’t have a firm friendship group, not invited for play dates etc. As such he hasn’t had any contact with his school mates over lockdown. He has older siblings though so hasn’t been too lonely.

Anyway I encouraged him to set up a Zoom meet up with his classmates just to chat and have some peer interaction. Only 3 kids joined, one disappeared after a few minutes but two of them sent him messages on the chat function calling him a dickhead and telling him to fuck off before leaving.

He was quite shocked and upset. I am furious on his behalf that he found the courage to reach out and got that in response .

He has a day next week where he has to go into school. There’s a big chance we will see both the kids and their parent's while queuing up to go in. I know he won’t stick up for himself as frustratingly he worries about getting other people into trouble, and one of these DC has been very mean to him on lots of occasions since they started school, the mother seems to be oblivious.

WIBU to loudly call these kids out on what they said to DS in front of their parents and demand an explanation?

I've been down this road many times, sometimes I've been the furious parent like you, and sometimes I've been on the receiving end of another parent's anger, it never ends well. One mother rang me up ranting about a group incident that my son was involved in, I spoke to the teacher who confirmed she witnessed the whole thing and it was not my son. As I was the only person whose phone number the other Mum had, I got it both barrels. She apologised but I gave her a very wide berth after that. What I'm saying is, don't let emotions take over. What is best for your son here - it's not about you. Focus on him, try to work out what he needs to feel more secure at school and form better friendships, let this one go. Children are horrid a lot of the time and your son has to learn to roll with it. Adults are horrid too, you won't be able to help him then. Don't micro manage any more Zoom calls he's better off being on his own at home with his own interests than being in an artificial situation like this, he's only 9 - people change and grow, he will be fine so just give him what he needs but let him deal with the friendships.

I was bullied at school and I would have died of shame if my parents got involved, I learned to cope and got through it, the bullies would not have cared one jot if they had been called out on their behaviour they just would have hated me even more. He can do this.

EggBoxes Tue 07-Jul-20 06:22:57
How did the messages “disappear”?

Also, I’m not sure it’s helpful to call a one-off incident, bullying.
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I doubt any of the kids remember much about it now. A lot of boys say vile things to each other at that age; they don't mean it and don't expect an adult to find out.

I'd wait and see ow things are when he goes back in to school - and encourage him to play it cool and be independent.

I would phone the school and contact the parents.

No it's not a good idea. I can see why you would want to, but firstly, the school will probably have a huge issue with it and secondly, the bullying he will get about Mummy will be unreal.
You need to conduct any discussion via school. They will hopefully contact the parents on your behalf, they really don't like inter-parent kick offs now.

I would inform the school. It is cyber bullying.

I overheard an angry parent loudly slagging of my DS to anyone who would listen to her. I contacted the school and the teacher confirmed that she had witnessed the incident and it was just an unfortunate accident which for whatever reason her son had decided to exaggerate when he got home. For this reason I would never punish my DS off the back of another parent or child's say so without hard evidence.

If I witnessed another parent go directly to a child and have a go at them I would quite honestly assume that the parent was batshit crazy and I would be a little wary if my DS was friends with thier child.

I was bullied at school and it is so shit. If my parents had gone up to the children involved I would have been beyond mortified and I think an incident like that would have made the bullying worse, either through the bullies taking the piss out of the incident or ramping up the abuse in retaliation. The best thing you can do is contact the school and ask them to monitor the situation and to just build up your son's self esteem at home.