AIBU to ask if you ever beaten up or otherwise physically bullied in primary school?

[antanddec2021]

Sadly in primary this boy I was 'friends' did things to me a friend wouldn't do and it really upset me. Thinking back about primary makes me horrible that I let this happen to me. Did anyone else ever have a similar (bad) experience?

This happened to me just over a decade ago (year 5) and it's been playing on my mind. There was someone in my "friendship" group who truly made me miserable.

In the playground one day we boys were acting a bit silly and saying who the strongest was. I remember I wouldn't relent and I said "no I'm stronger". After a few days of roughhousing in the playground this boy decided to prove that he was stronger. He pushed me up against a wall said "so you think you're stronger than me" and thoroughly beat me up. I was kicked and punched and the kids around just didn't seem to care or intervene. When he walked away I remember trying to angrily push him. He responded by hitting me again. I just slumped down against the wall and was in a flood of tears. My other "friends" them came along and looked at me pityingly. What made this so humiliating for me what that I'd been doing karate for a few years by then (and was supposed to be good) yet I didn't even manage to defend myself let alone throw a punch.

I remember a few weeks later he beat me up on another part of the playground (for a reason I can't remember). This team I actually was got bruised on my waist.

Unfortunately in year 5 I also remember seeing him beat a girl up and she too was left crying.

One final thing I remember him doing was that in class once he was tugging my trousers down to try and expose my underwear. I had to raise my hand in class to say "Sir. [Boy's name] is pulling my trousers down." The rest of the class laughed but thankfully the teacher moved me somewhere else but this too made me cry.

I hate this boy very much but idk why I remained friends with him.

Last I heard was that this boy had to change secondary school due to him being bullied. Karma comes to mind haha.

My husband was thumped to the ground and kicked multiple times by a boy in the dinner queue at school. No-one intervened. He was also beaten up in the school toilets. This was in the 1970s. My youngest son was beaten in the school reception in Year 7, this was less than ten years ago. No-one intervened. A so called friend came to my house and then, at school the next day, told the whole class how awful it was (we lived in quite awful conditions). The teacher just let the ridicule continue.

In all the cases, it is not just the bullying that is recalled by the victims, it is the fact that nobody intervened.

I was kicked repeatedly by a boy in infants school - my shins always covered in bruises. My mum spoke to his mum at the gates about it as the teachers did nothing. His mum said she couldn't control him (age 5 or 6). He was always in trouble at primary - we went our separate ways at secondary.
I later heard he glassed someone in a pub and ended up in prison in his early 20s.
I was bullied in secondary by DMs friends daughter in my class. She stopped picking on me and moved onto someone else when I hit her back and cut her lip! I didnt see her after I left home for Uni many years ago although our DPs remained friends. Her dad died last year after a long illness and I drove my DM to his funeral. I was surprised at how small the bully was (in my minds eye she was tall and fearsome!) nd she's still angry at everyone and disappointed at life. I really do pity her.

I was left out and excluded by a spoilt, nasty little girl when we were 7. One day she came up to me and told me that everyone was going to her birthday party except me, cause she didn't like me. I gave her a good shove and knocked her over. Trouble ensued. No regrets.

She now spends time making crass, thinly veiled insults about other people on FB.

Teach your child to wait til the teacher isn't looking out in the playground, then hit back.

In all the cases, it is not just the bullying that is recalled by the victims, it is the fact that nobody intervened

This. This is what sticks to me and embarrasses me. No one cared enough to make it stop. No one cared enough to stop the pain, the ridicule and the feeling of being so hated and left out.

OTOH I did get beaten up by top "popular boy" and his mates for 3 years, age 9 to 11. It was a horrible time. Strangely the verbal put downs hurt most.

He wasn't really popular: people were just scared of him. His dad was the local drug dealer who ran a vice ring getting teenagers in jail. The teachers didn't want to cross them.

That boy now lives in a shit area and smokes a lot of weed. Looking back I feel a bit sorry for him really. He had been exposed to evil and it left its mark.

It wasn't a very good school and I often wished my parents had moved me.

I wasn't bullied at primary, but I was pushed into a phone kiosk by a huge pile of thuggish lads (10-15 of them?) when I was about 15, and shoved and (mildly) sexually assaulted. This was at 5pm in broad daylight, and I'll never forget the shock I experienced that every adult in that busy bus station just ignored it.

@recycledcat I am 22 now

@Santahatesbraisedcabbage

I was bullied. School did nothing.. One morning at drop off my dm marched across the yard, our ddog with her and told the awful girl to bloody well leave me alone. It worked.. Have actually used this method with my own dd. It also worked.

My DM did the same.

She's the sort of woman you just don't cross, so it worked for me too lol.

No, I have never experienced anything like that at either the schools I attended or the schools my children attend. But I do work with children and I would say the in my experience the ones who act violently like this are almost always either being abused at home or witnessing domestic violence.

But I do work with children and I would say the in my experience the ones who act violently like this are almost always either being abused at home or witnessing domestic violence.

Or they are spoiled little princes, whose mums think that sun shines form their backsides. Oh, and they can put a spectacle of perfect manners in front of their parents.

I have heard before that bullies are often the victims of violence In the home. That no adults intervene is the sad thing about many of these cases. For victim and bully.

In the 50s,you didn't tell your parents then, teachers were allowed to hit you. I lived in the next road to my primary school,girl and her gang of 4 boys. Most days I managed to outrun them,get in the back garden. Best friend lived next door ran with me. They caught me one day,girl told them to "get me", the 4 ground me into the shingle path,took the skin off down to the bone. My lovely late tiny quiet DM marched me to the girls house,they never touched me again

Ouch that’s horrible @nannybeach - good for your Mum!

@CatsArePeople

But I do work with children and I would say the in my experience the ones who act violently like this are almost always either being abused at home or witnessing domestic violence.

Or they are spoiled little princes, whose mums think that sun shines form their backsides. Oh, and they can put a spectacle of perfect manners in front of their parents.

I know people say this but in all of my years of working with children I’ve never experienced it. I work with children individually in school. Sometimes children who are being bullied and some who are acting out and bullying. All of the ‘bullies’ have troubled home lives.

My children live and go to the kind of school munsnet ers take this piss out of , the kind filled with little Tarquinius. Very leafy middle class area, where pretty much everyone ‘gentle’ parents and would probably be considered spoilt by mumsnet standards. None of my children have encountered and bullying in schools.

Spat on by a boy when I was 11. Proper gob full of phlegm 🤢

Told my dad who marched me round to the pub where his dad was (army families we all lived on the same estate). My dad spat right in his dads face 😬 and then said “anything your son does to my daughter I’ll be back to do to you”

Boy never looked at me sideways again

3wildones I agree completely.

Yes, there was an awful group of girls at my school who would beat people up for no reason. They never got in trouble for it, the teachers wanted to stay on their good side.

@Tifalockhart did they hit boys as well? Teachers were afraid of them?

@antanddec2021 - thanks for letting us know

There are many on here who are a lot older and still scarred by childhood bullying and perhaps wished they'd addressed it earlier

Try and look at how you can "let go" of this (whether counselling or speaking to others/friends and family)

Kids can be (and still are) "little shits" and often those bullying are doing it because of their own issues - no excuse but the older you get you see this and other patterns.

Don't let what happened when you were younger define you and remember most people are good but reach out for support now (well you are on MN so there's a start)and after a while the bad memories will be replaced by new good ones as you get older. You can spend so long questioning how you behaved or felt a long while ago that you never get past it - try and work out what will help you let go.

Best of luck in resolving your feelings

Ever read Lord of the Flies or I'm The King of the Castle?

Kids can be horrible and you were terribly bullied by a friend. It is likely your entire 'friendship' was just a power struggle and he secretly hated you.

Children don't always know how to process their irrational feelings and they resort to the evolutionary 'fight or flight' response to deal with emotions they can't process. He obviously chose fight and was consequently an awful bully. In all likelihood though, there was something about you that bothered him. Maybe you were smarter, came from a better family, had nicer things....or it may have been totally intangible. Perhaps he sensed your self-belief under everything and he wanted to break you because he sensed he didn't feel that way about himself, and he didn't like it.

Regardless it was awful. But you did nothing wrong. Crazy how memories suddenly creep up and haunt us again isn't it? I'm sorry OP. Horrible memory.

There's one clear pattern here - bullies were never disciplined and allowed to get away with shit. Only stopped when others fought back or when confronted by a threatening adult (or older sibling).

@Athysuisse ah yes I have read lord of the flies.

The fight occurred because I would not relent that I was not stronger. (Honestly we were acting so stupid back then). I wish now I had let it go. Wouldn't have been beat up otherwise.