How to help 9 year old cope with and recover from bullying

[Puffdragonmagic]

We have a nine year old who is being bullied at school. He’s having trouble falling asleep at night, eating less (and becoming tearful if we want him to eat), extremely quick to feel frustrated or angry - for really minor things, reluctant to get up in the mornings and not wanting to go to school on some days - not all the time. Some advice on how to support him would really help. He won’t talk about it, shuts down any convo about his feelings.

We are moving house and will move schools. The bullying is pushing/hitting, horrible comments, being excluded from playground games. He does have a couple of friends but they’re not strong friendships, more fair weather.

He’s also recently dropped out of an extra curricular club he liked doing.

How do we help him work through this? It’s awful seeing his behaviour at home (he’s a dream at school but it comes out at home). He’s a ball of pent up emotion. Considering counselling

How imminent is the move? Can you remove him from school now and home educate until he has a place at the new school? I think removing him from a toxic environment in which he's not being protected or supported is the priority here.

If you can't remove him then school needs to put something into place to keep his bullies away from him until you leave.

Keep reassuring him that this is about their behaviour, not anything he's done.

Give him a few months of a fresh start and then if any lingering concerns I'd do a few sessions with a psych, just to help him work through what he went through and get him used to talking to adults again - effective adults.

Good luck. Children can be really awful to eachother and parents and schools don't do nearly enough to tackle this and support the child suffering with it.

Thanks @catcob. The move is a 2 months away. I wonder how we handle the part where we leave the school mid year too. Would it be worse for him if we just leave without telling his peer group or having a class goodbye? I do want him to feel he has had the opportunity to tell his peers he is leaving and have a ‘last day’.

I think much of his behaviour stems from feeling he has no control over the way he is treated at school. Taking him out of school without notice and taking control away from him again could be detrimental

Does school know that this is going on?

Then perhaps you could ask him what he would like to do? When our youngest DS was bullied we spent a lot of time talking to the school and made it clear that if the behaviour continued we would be removing him. We made sure to let DS know that we were talking to school - it was important for him to see that we were fighting his corner and it was important for school to understand the issues. I think you can raise it with the school even now, even though you're planning to leave.

At the same time we were quite clear with DS that the situation was not of his making, and that we would never force him to be in a situation where he didn't trust the adults there to keep him safe. So if he woke up one day and said he no longer wanted to go in, we would support him and explain to the school why he felt that way. One day that's exactly what he did. And we told the school. We kept him home until they gave us a clear plan as to what they'd do to keep him safe and provide a healthy and supportive learning environment for him. To be fair they did try, but it didn't work and DS one day just said no more. That was the day we took him out and he didn't return.

You're right - it was important for him to feel as though he had a say in what was happening to him. It's the powerlessness that leads to anxiety. And this is a good opportunity to give him that sense of control.

Thank you, that’s really helpful. There is a lot to consider. Not trusting the adults to keep him safe is about right. We are not going to spend much time and energy with the school now. We’ve tried but they just don’t prioritise addressing bullying.

Bumping this

Anyone else been through similar?

He's being bullied. The school are doing nothing to address the bullying. Why are you sending him in?

What I mean is, is it because you worry about his education, or because he has friends there (as well as bullies)?

Because there is nothing you can do to make him ok with being picked on day in/day out.

Would be so ashamed if my child was a bully

It’s been addressed now but the damage is done. His class mates see him as someone who gets bullied and he didn’t have strong enough friendships formed to have any of the other kids on side if that makes sense.

I don’t know what to do for the best. When we have let him have some time off before because of this, he just seemed to me get worse (quick to anger, depressed and cross)

For the first time he’s made us aware and we’re really addressing it with school. He sees this. I think he’s angry. It’s difficult trying to unravel his feelings because he won’t really talk about it. But he seems so angry and depressed since we addressed it. Maybe we’ve made it real and he can’t pretend it’s not happening now

Have you spoken to the Safeguarding Lead? I'd be threatening writing to Ofsted about this. It's really not on that a little boy can be so badly affected because the school won't do anything about it. So sorry for your lad.

Honestly, if you are able to, I'd take him out and home school him until you move. Find a decent home school group for support. Arrange counselling if you can afford to. Love bomb him, help him feel secure and loved and safe. I'm not an expert, this is just what my instinct would be. for you and your DS

@iridescentpaint

Honestly, if you are able to, I'd take him out and home school him until you move. Find a decent home school group for support. Arrange counselling if you can afford to. Love bomb him, help him feel secure and loved and safe. I'm not an expert, this is just what my instinct would be. for you and your DS

I agree with this. He shouldn’t be going into an environment where you know he’s being bullied. Poor kiddo.

I just wanted to add that this can have big effects mentally later on and it is really important when he moves school to try to build up his self esteem. Maybe scouts, or anything else he is interested in, also building up a strong relationship with him and as much family time as a 9 year old would want
My child got bullied in yr 6 , she had had no problems at school it was just of those strange situations where a group of girls decide to ostracise one of their group . My child coped with it and had other friends and although it was upsetting I don’t think I was aware how low her self esteem was after. This in turn a few years later led her to get into a very scary serious situation in her mid teens, and after therapy a lot of it was caused through very low self esteem stemming from this i period .
It’s so tough as you don’t want to keep talking to him about it as children do feel embarrassed about bullying, But I think we tried to sort of bury it abit with daughter and presumed she was over it but we were not aware of the damage it had done

Could you look into sending your child for counselling?

I am looking into counselling and think it could benefit him.

He seemed a little less stressed going into school today but I am very much taking it day by day and monitoring closely.

Thank you for the advice it's all helpful.