Complaining to the school about this child

[Burnt0utMum]

DD (year 3) has been complaining about a boy in her class since September. He kicked a ball at her (purposefully) and was calling her names in class. I spoke to the teacher about this and DD seemed ok for the next couple of weeks. Then it started again with name calling and taking her pen off her. He sits in front of her so turns around to bother her. Yesterday he took her bookmark out her book so she would lose her page. She came home upset and saying she didn't want to go to school when he was there. I've messaged the teacher and will be having a call with her today to complain that she is having to put up with this at school. AIBU? Any ideas how I can handle this best?

@lottiegarbanzo She's 7 years old, I don't think she even knows what snitching is. She does tell the teacher but I don't think it's fair to say a 7 year old has a duty to report it. If that's the case, then shouldn't there also be a duty on this child not to behave that way in the first place?

Also can't see how this child can be called a good person doing a bad thing. This is repeated and sustained behaviour. In this situation she is the good one and he is the bad one. Or should I be telling her it's ok to be nasty to one person as long as you are nice to other people?

@Burnt0utMum

Also can't see how this child can be called a good person doing a bad thing. This is repeated and sustained behaviour. In this situation she is the good one and he is the bad one. Or should I be telling her it's ok to be nasty to one person as long as you are nice to other people?

Please remember that the other child is 7/8. I teach Y3 and some of them make the wrong choice and can be unkind to others. There is one in particular who is an issue this year. Their behaviour is never accepted and dealt with following our behaviour policy every time but she has been through a lot at home and needs support to change her behaviour. She has support from our nurture team and she is slowly improving. Everyone labelling her as a bad child would not help matters.

Get a copy of the school's bullying policy - it's probably on their website - and ask what they are doing to comply with it.

My first reaction was this is really minor.
My second reaction was that my first reaction just shows that my DD put up with waaaay too much over the years. And that a series of minor annoyances is in many ways harder to deal with. No individual behaviour is awful in itself so child gets shushed if they point it out at the time or they get a 'both of you stop disturbing the lesson' sort of reaction.

But still, calm but firm is the way to go. Tell the teacher what happened, tell the teacher what the impact on your daughter is, ask them what they are going to do to ensure your daughter can be happy at school, if they say "talk to the child" remind them this has happened before and hasn't done the job.

DD's teacher has in the past tried to deal by changing seating plans. It might help particularly if the misbehaving child is put close to teacher/TA to keep an eye on him. The trouble in our case was the miscreant kept escalating with each new neighbour as they figured out they'd get moved again. So they plagued neighbours till they got sat next to their best buddy, at which point they plagued everyone by mucking about and chatting. So I'd prefer properly addressing the behaviour to shoving it off on a new desk partner every few weeks.

OP your reaction to me is quite oppositional too. I get that you're upset but portraying a 7yo child as a 'bad person' and getting exasperated with people who are trying to help, will not work for you.

I've dealt with similar stuff with a similar aged child. The points I'm making come from that experience.

Two separate things really:

When I say 'duty to report' what I'm saying is that the teacher is in charge of the class and needs to know what is going on, so that they can do their job and look after all the children properly. That's a simple way to explain it to your dd. If someone behaves badly, other children need to let the teacher know - so that the teacher can help that person behave better.

Children are often reluctant to report things for all sorts of reasons, including not wanting to draw attention to themselves, to 'cause trouble', make someone else dislike them, or not being sure how their report will be received. Your dd needs to know that the teacher does want to hear from her about things that upset her. The teacher needs to tell her that.

The point is that children often think only about how something affects them and some children will put up with a lot before reporting. What I'm saying is that they need to understand that it isn't only about them and their feelings. It isn't up to them to decide what is serious and important and what isn't. The person who will take that decision is the teacher. All the child has to do is pass on information.

My point about good people doing bad things is this. If you portray this other child as evil, as inherently bad, because they've done one bad or unkind thing (or a series of unkind things), then what happens next year, when your dd does something silly or thoughtless, even mean or manipulative (all children go through phases of trying out different behaviours, to find out what works and what is acceptable)?

According to your teaching, children who do mean things are bad, evil people who are incapable of change and must be kept away from others. So how will your dd be able to reconcile her own poor choice of behaviour, which has upset someone else, with her idea of herself as a good, worthy, loveable person? Will she be able to focus on the behaviour in isolation, on its impact on the other person, so apologise, acknowledge her mistake, learn from it and move on?

Or will she think 'but I am a good person, so my behaviour must always be right, or even it wasn't I didn't mean to upset them so it doesn't really count, so I'll just carry on being lovely, wonderful me'? That disables her development. It makes her unable to focus on the behaviour, on empathy for its effect on the other person and on learning and growing from the experience.

All children need to learn that they will get things wrong sometimes, they will upset other people, intentionally or not and they need to learn how to deal with that and how to examine and adapt their behaviour as a consequence.

I had similar, called school, teacher called me back and changed seating around. Kids is still a bit of a nuisance but not disrupting learning and DD isn’t bothered or getting hassle.

I'm so sorry, op my fat fingers accidentally clicked YABU - meant to be YANBU.

The school should be sorting it. Mention it again. Dd is having similar issues with some of the boys in her class. Encourage her to tell the teacher every time!

I don't have much else advice.

@HelloDulling

Ask the teacher to rearrange the seating plan. If he’s sat away from her, he won’t be able to pick on her during lessons.

Absolutely or could he be moved to a different class? I assume all schools have multiple classes per year? Our school does but not sure if that's the normal.

@Burnt0utMum

Also can't see how this child can be called a good person doing a bad thing. This is repeated and sustained behaviour. In this situation she is the good one and he is the bad one. Or should I be telling her it's ok to be nasty to one person as long as you are nice to other people?

YANBU and right with this comment. Make sure he is moved and dealt with etc and not your DD.

She really is NOT right with that comment. Labelling children as 'good' or 'bad' is very, very damaging (to the 'good' ones as well as the 'bad' ones).

Focus on the behaviour, don't attack the person.

Definitely raise it more with the school if you don't get further with the teacher.

As a class teacher if a parent raised issues of bullying / sustained behaviour issues then the first thing I would do is separate the two students.

If the child needs additional intervention or support then the school need to do that, and they need to do it without sacrificing the happiness, wellbeing and learning of other students.

You can't get involved in the nature of any intervention or sanctions with the other child, but you can ask for the school to ensure they are creating an environment where your child can be happy, feel safe, and learn.

As above, if only bad people do bad things, then what happens when OP's dd does a bad thing?

'Good people' do bad things all the time.

That doesn't make this other child a good person. Maybe they're a sociopathic mass murderer in the making.

It does indicate that focusing on 'good people' and 'bad people' is deeply unhelpful.

YABU on the basis of being melodramatic about it. It needs to be addressed, that's what the school is doing. It's not uncommon behaviour. You're making out like the other child is some kind of demon rather than (most likely) a silly wally.

There is nearly always an underlying reason behind behaviour, it’s often a sign of something else the issue for the school is figuring what and ensuring it doesn’t have a negative impact on others.

Ds is in year 7 and has been having issues with a girl in a lot of his classes. Teachers have now done a seating plan jiggle so the two aren’t sat together in any lessons anymore. I would never dream of using language like her being bad to DS though because I don’t know the girl!

I am so sorry you are going throw this. I do understand that some children go through stuff at home which makes them lash out in school. Sadly I have never really seen this getting resolved by the school, even when they had “meetings”, “pastoral case sessions”, etc. I have seen three targeted children change school ☹️.

DS was told by my to hit back, never start the hitting but hit back if someone hit him. He was in a few fights year 2/3 now nobody touches him (year 6). One boy had antibacterial jelly poured all over his books. I asked DS if that had happened to him, he just looked puzzled and said “Of course not, I would beat the crap out of anyone doing that”. DS has lots of friends, is never in trouble but everyone know that he would retaliate badly.

DD is an expert in “one liners”. She had a girl being mean to her last year. She started to verbally retaliate with insults about the bully’s looks, intelligence and clothes. Again, never starting, just retaliation. The girl stopped and moved on to someone else.

I personally hate bullies and I understand that as an adult you need to be compassionate. I don’t think another child needs to be. A child that hits, rarely chooses someone he/she knows is going to retaliate aiming 5cm behind the nose. A child that is mean rarely targets a child who instantly says something meaner back.

We had similar (hiding lunchbox and generally being a pain). Emailed school, seating plan rearranged the next day. Other child is a known pain (based on commentary from other parents) but he’s 8, maybe he’ll grow out of it and this way DS was protected.

I have to say that teaching girls they must speak up is vital. It should NOT be needed but it is sadly

I agree - if he's hassling her in class, she should tell him, loudly, to stop.

The teacher should be aware of the issue and then intervene.

Also appalled that a teacher would tell someone they were being a baby if they complained of being bullied. It's 2021, not 1981!

It would be good if she had the confidence to make a scene the moment he does something - stand up and shout "Steven! what on earth are you doing? That's my xyz, you cant just go take other peoples stuff. You know that, you've been told before.> etc etc. "
So that teacher has to stop and deal with it there and then

DS was told by my to hit back, never start the hitting but hit back if someone hit him. He was in a few fights year 2/3 now nobody touches him (year 6). One boy had antibacterial jelly poured all over his books. I asked DS if that had happened to him, he just looked puzzled and said “Of course not, I would beat the crap out of anyone doing that”. DS has lots of friends, is never in trouble but everyone know that he would retaliate badly.

DD is an expert in “one liners”. She had a girl being mean to her last year. She started to verbally retaliate with insults about the bully’s looks, intelligence and clothes. Again, never starting, just retaliation. The girl stopped and moved on to someone else.

Do you think these methods will work when they go to secondary school? You DS won’t ‘beat the crap out of’ a year 11 who is nearly an adult. What about as adults in the work place? Your DD’s insults one liners won’t stop someone who is all about the office bantz!

Both of these scenarios would probably end up getting your children into more trouble at school than the child who ‘started’ the bullying.

At secondary school, I was picked on for having red hair. People tried to say things about it but I responded every time with comments along the lines of needing to expand their range of insults because I was getting bored of their current set. Took the sting out of what they’d said to tell them and everyone else listening that they were boring me. I didn’t overreact because that would have made me more of a target because others would have had a kick out of watching me kick off.

* DS was told by my to hit back, never start the hitting but hit back if someone hit him*

Diabolical advice

I understand that our methods wouldn’t work for everyone.

But one boy was hit every break for a year before he moved school. The school had weekly meetings, couldn’t stop the hitter. The mum of the hit boy was in tears. My son hit back every time the same boy hit him. After a week the boy found another target. My son hasn’t been in a fight since he was in year 3 (always defending himself then). He is in year 6 now. The troubled boys leave him alone. It helps that DS is popular but I also think it is mainly that they know that if they would touch his stuff, he would be retaliating.

DD is in secondary school. Her one lines could probably be passed off as “banter”. The bully girl tried for a week in year 7, DD kept putting her down. She then stopped. DD overheard her saying to a friend that DD was “intimidating” a few months later.

DD will stand up to bullies if the bother someone else and once told 4 girls in the hockey team that she thought it was mean that they made a 5th girl cry (DD is also in the hockey team, on friendly basis but not best friends with the others).

I really hope some schools are good at dealing with bullying. I was bullied as a child and this probably has coloured my outlook on this. I have told my children since they were in nursery about being kind to smaller children and shy children. And that they always need to stand up to bullies.

I don't see anything wrong with telling a child it's ok to defends themselves if another child is physically bullying them. They shouldn't instigate the behaviour but of course they can hit back. No point comparing it to situations later in life as they are different but yes if someone hit me as an adult I would hit back and try to protect myself so why shouldn't a child be able to?

@lottiegarbanzo I never said only bad people do bad things. You are putting a lot of emphasis on the position of the bully. My point is that they are not the important one here. My DD is as she is the victim. There is no onus on her to understand why the bully is behaving as they do or to make allowances for it and give them the benefit of the doubt as they "might" actually be a good person. Of course, over her lifetime she will do bad things but if I were to find out that she was specifically targeting a peer in this way I think it would make her a bad person, or at least in would in the eyes on the recipient of the behaviour. A one off or occasional mistake, or even recognising bad actions and trying to change is different to repeatedly trying to upset someone else and not reflecting on the effect it has on the victim. Maybe this child has issues at home or elsewhere that are causing them to behave the way they do but that is not my DD's problem. She goes to school to learn and has the right to do that without victimisation or harassment from anyone.

I agree with PP about encouraging your daughter to make a fuss. One of the most effective example of this was one I saw in my Yr3 class, which acquired a new pupil. He was sat next to a meek, quiet, industrious little girl, and as he found his feet, he decided to go in for a quiet bit of sly bullying.
The look on his face when she went off like a siren was a sight to see; from the horrified expression as he tried desperately to hush her, I guessed he'd been in similar trouble at his previous school. (as it transpired, he had all sorts of unfortunate things going on in his life, but his problems did not justify taking it out on her......)
The other pupils already knew that, although quiet, she was used to holding her own with her brothers.
Once her outburst had alerted me, I was on the lookout; the awareness that I was on his case helped to deter him, but it is quite common for this sort of behaviour to be covert.