Unsure if I should tell my husband!

[Jammydodge2]

Hello guys, I need to tell my husband something but I'm unsure if I should because of the potential backlash!

So a little back story, my husbands younger sister was bullied at school for a good 5 months, she never mentioned to anyone that she was being bullied, until the day she ended up in hospital because she tried to take her own life, my father in law at the time was in the military, and when he found out who the boy was, he went to pay the family home a visit, after he had gone to the house the boy never bullied my husband's sister again!

So this is my dilemma, our own child had been getting bullied, but between me and my husband we decided to try and let the school deal with it! We had a meeting with the head, and at the end of the meeting my husband said to the head, if the school doesn't deal with the bullying, he will sort it himself!

Fast forward a few months, and the school seemed to have dealt with it, our child had told us the boy hasn't done or said anything to him! Until today, I had to pick our child up from school early because he was complaining he felt sick, I picked him up and he seemed fine, until we got home, and he broke down and said the boy has been bullying him again for about a week now!

So now I'm sat here contemplating telling my husband, because he is a man of his word, and he will go to this boys house and confront the parents, we have argued about this before, but he simply reminds me about his sister and how his dad had dealt with it!

My husband is not a violent man, I would describe him as a gentle giant, he is a soft touch with me and the kids, but he is very protective! He does boxing 3 days a week at the gym, so knows how to handle himself!

Just worried about the backlash from the school and possible police

@ThirdElephant

If a random bloke came to my house to confront me about my kid's behaviour at school, I'd be calling the police and refusing to discuss anything.

I have seen people end up with criminal records this way.

The only people I’ve seen get criminal records in such a situation where the victim’s parent has just wanted to talk, is the bully after the police decide they have grounds to prosecute. It’s always better as the bully’s parent to be open to discussing and correcting your child’s behaviour when someone complains, not try and cover it up.

Tell him

I don't think your child being bullied is something you should hide from your husband.

Imagine if he did this in reverse?

If you don't like what he'll do with the information then should should be robust in explaining to him why.

Disclaimer: when my DS was bullied we did everything "properly" through the school and nothing changed.

We'd go through a cycle of it stopping for a few weeks and then it would start again. Back to square one and with no escalation or consequences for the bully whatsoever.

We kept pushing through the process, going to the Head, then the Governors. No change. Essentially the narrative was this child had a difficult life and we should be understanding.

Yes he did have a difficult life but that didn't excuse my son getting punched and kicked as an outlet.

Cut short after my son came home with multiple massive bruises on his legs we'd had enough.

DH rather than me took him to school in the morning and after the drop off spoke the the boys father outside the school gates and very calmly told him that we were done being nice and letting the school deal with it.

Next time we'd be calling the police and if that didn't work DH would pay back every punch/kick inflicted on my son on his father to see if that improved his resolve in teaching his child there were consequences to bullying.

Funnily enough my son was never targeted by the bulky again - something I'm sure the school took credit for....

How did it go @Jammydodge2?

Hey guys just an update!

Spoke to my husband about it, I've managed to convince him to go down the school root again, if this doesn't work we will go down the police route next!

His not very happy, but we are gonna speak to our son and ask if he would like to go to boxing/karate lessons!

My husband would never go round the house to start a punch up with the kids dad, he would just want a simple conversation with the parents, I only mentioned the boxing because he can handle himself!

Maybe the way his dad dealt with this sort of situation wouldn't work anymore, but was kinda hard to convince my husband as he had seen it work!

Can I ask why the fact he does boxing is relevant to the story? Or that he can ‘handle himself’ does this mean if a fight were to break out? My child hasn’t been bullied but are parents expected to have fisticuffs about about this kind of thing?

Do you know what his family is like?

If my child had been bullying someone and the parents came and told me, I would be marching my child to the victims house to apologise and be grounding / taking away luxuries etc because I would be so disappointed in them.

I'm conscious though that if his family are a 'our kid can do no wrong' family then it won't be particularly productive and would likely cause more issues than it solves.

@Itsnotdeep

Oh come on, there are all kinds of inferences in the OP's posts.

If it's just about having a word with the bully's parents - go and do it yourself. It's clearly not though, she talking about a big burly boxing type to go round instead. To sort it himself! Because he knows how to handle himself!

Totally agree. This has got disaster written all over it.

I agree, send him doing to have word. Some kids are little shits. No kid deserves to be bullied at school

round

Tbh neither your husband or the school will be be to fix this issue.

You need to tell/teach your son to stand up for himself in self defence, and make sure he knows that you will support him. (No matter what the school etc threaten).

I was bullied, the only thing that stopped it, was fighting back.

Sadly...even though I was only defending myself I got in trouble a few times for this. But in reality, what am I supposed to do when someone slaps me on the face or physically touches me? (Tell the teachers...lol, it only got worse or bullied differently later on).

The only way to stop the bullying is for your son to physically stand up for himself.

Sometimes you have to take your own action.
Schools cane be awful about this.
My nephew was being bullied. Me (just over 5ft) went to his house and told his mum what her huge son (6ft?) had been doing to my nephew (similar height to me at the time).

His mum dealt with him and my nephew was not bullied again

I not sure there is a single correct way to deal with bullying - it depends so much on the child who is being bullied, the bully and the situation it happens in. DS was bullied twice. At cubs we spoke to the group leader who denied it was happening and refused to deal with it. So we took him out of cubs as it was a social thing and we couldn't sort it out without the group leader's help.

When he was older, he was bullied at a sports club. DS wanted to deal with it himself, so we spoke to the coach and warned him the DS was being bullied and at some point was going to retaliate. A few weeks later, DS floored the bully with his stick. The bullying stopped immediately and the coach did not come down too hard on DS as he knew what was happening. DS was punished, but he knew he would be and decided it was worth it to stop the bully.
I've also had a call from a mum in my son's class saying he was bullying her son. Spoke to DS who admitted it, DS was suitably bollocked and (to my knowledge) never did it again.
Three bullying situations, three different solutions. And don't get me started on the ways we've had to deal with girls bullying my DD!

So my advice is to talk to your son and agree a way to deal with it by discussing the options with him. It's his life, so he has to have some control over the solution. Adults wading in and trying to solve stuff on their kid's behalf might make the parent feel better, but might not help the child.

I got slated on Mumsnet a few years ago for this, but here goes...

My DS was being bullied at school. This bully was making DS's life a misery. The school did not deal with it. I have known bullied children that have been scarred for life and I just couldn't take it anymore.

One morning at school, all the children were sitting on the grass waiting to go into class. I saw the bully, he looked at my DS and the expression on his face made me see red. The bully headed over to my DS but I intercepted him. I pointed right at his face, my finger was literally 1 cm away from his face and I said, "You stay away from my son. If I hear of you bullying him again, I will burn your house down."

The bullying stopped. I know I could have been arrested, but I had to protect my DS. Now I wouldn't suggest your DH saying that, but if he wants to go and talk to the bully's parents, then I think he should.

Essentially the narrative was this child had a difficult life and we should be understanding.

@BreadInCaptivity this is such a load of shit. IME, most bullies are spoilt brats whose parents have no boundaries and let them get away with murder. This whole "Oh, she's so spirited!" narrative as their child willfully misbehaves and attacks other children. I have seen it so many times.

Please don't put your husband first before your child. Tell your husband

@MrsCardone

Essentially the narrative was this child had a difficult life and we should be understanding.

@BreadInCaptivity this is such a load of shit. IME, most bullies are spoilt brats whose parents have no boundaries and let them get away with murder. This whole "Oh, she's so spirited!" narrative as their child willfully misbehaves and attacks other children. I have seen it so many times.

It certainly felt shit at the time.

In our case the bully did have a very troubled home life.

It wasn't quite as "simple" as permissive parenting.

His parents knew there were issues and were struggling themselves in various (significant) respects. In that sense I simply think my son and the impact on him wasn't high on their priority list - until DH made it so.

This wasn't helped by the school not striking a balance between the needs of both children - it made it ok for the bullying not to be a major parental focus.

In my situation the bully (and his family) needed far more support and positive intervention than they received, in the sense that constantly excusing bad behaviour with minimal consequences wasn't a solution to a number of quite complex family issues/circumstances.

It was a pretty sad situation if I'm honest, but not one as parents, DH and I could let our son become collateral damage in as a result.

I don't understand why you don't let your husband speak to the parents. Shouldn't you be protecting your son?

In my experience, schools do absolutely nothing

Yes tell your husband and decide together what to do. Speaking to the parents seems entirely proportionate.

My school failed to deal with bullying, repeatedly. The school would have a quiet word occasionally with the bully but actually there was a lot of victim blaming that went on too. I wish my parents had done something to stop my bullies torturing me for years, my life was hell and it affected me for two decades.

Tell your husband. He isn’t going to be violent, right?! That kid thinks he’s getting away with bullying your son. I think it will stop. I confronted my son’s bully right in front of school employees at after school care. I got right down on that boy’s level (He was sitting down in a time-out for bad behaviour!) and told him I’d had enough and if it happened again, I would be meeting with him and his parents. It never happened again.

You’ve said half a dozen times it would just be to talk- I don’t understand what’s controversial about talking to another parent. That seems an adult way of handling it, and I’d wave my husband off cheerfully.

Nothing wrong with talking to the parents, you could do that yourself - but that your mentioning your husbands boxing skills is concerning. Is the husband going there to threaten the kid or their parents - if so that may work out well or terribly.

If he’s talking to the parents about their kid to make them aware of the kids behaviour and stop it that’s one thing, but if he’s grouping the kid and parents together as both responsible for the bullying and is going to try to scare them out of it then that’s another, riskier thing. Maybe the kids dad knows how to handle himself too, it’s not like your husband is the world champion of boxing or anything. Your husband may seem big and strong to you, but there’s probably plenty of men who are the same or more and aren’t reasonable at all.

I think you need to accept that the school is not going to do much about the bullying. Bullies are sneaky and unless an adult actually witnesses the offence the school will do little to help. So it comes down to the child having to defend himself or the parent putting pressure on the school and bully. Expecting the school to solve the problem is a fantasy, unfortunately.

You only know one side. These are kids. Kids need to learn how to deal with one another. If your husband goes round there are three possible outcomes.
1 the patent says oh yes you must be right. I will immediately tell off my offspring.

1. They get aggressive

3 they complain to the school or the police.

Think about how you would react if someone turned up on your doorstep. Report it to the school. There is also a chance that your child has said or done something unkind.

@Jammydodge2 why can't you do both - go to the school and go speak to the other kids parents.
Is the bullying physical yet?
Personally (and I know this is a very unpopular opinion) I would also have a chat with your DS and make it clear that even he is being bullied to not be afraid to punch the bully. Worst case he'll get suspended but it will stop the bullying if the bully thinks he's not going to get away with it.