How to ensure my son won't won't bullied in secondary school?

[thelongconmom]

I was badly bullied at secondary and hated it with a passion. it was similar to will from the inbetweeners where everyone called him "briefcase wanker" and even his mates didn't seem to like him that much but he was stuck with them. Well that was me and it was terrible.

I don't really know what started it, but once you are othered it sticks. Even people i didn't know or have classes with or recognise would 'know' me.
And trip me up, call me names, pull my clothes, rip my tights, pour drinks on me, lock me in the toilet stalls. there was no respite for the whole 5 years.

I really don't want my son to have to go through tthat.But how do I prevent it?
Is it a simple case of following trends and buying Nike shoes?
Im not really one for following trends but I'm willing to jump on any band wagon to ensure he fits in.

When should he invite friends round? do you still have birthday parties? What about sleepovers? I just don't know what's expected as my experience was wildly different from the norm.

Any advice appreciated.

Sorry you had a crap time at school. Is your son sporty? I have noticed that boys who tend to be good at sports gain a level of respect regardless of whatever else they are interested in/what they look like.

You don’t come across well. Maybe it’s your writing style? You seemed to have observed a lot of bullying at close quarters at your school and made judgements of the victims’ personalities and how much they were deserving of it. 🤔

Most people can't afford that and I imagine bullying happens there too.

I have to say I think the judo advice isn’t so far off the mark. Not the badges but having the actual capability of putting someone sharply on the floor, if things get to that point.

also verbally being able to go for the jugular.

Having a skill that has been acquired through effort- good at sports; playing the guitar; drawing.

just having enough self-confidence that the words of some fuckwit have zero impact on you.

OP all you can do is be led by your ds, you can't make them into the cool, confident, popular kid - they might not even be interested in being that. Even if they are they are then at constant risk of being dropped from that group and they are often the worst group for bullying, drinking, smoking, sex etc.

Just let him be him, he doesn't need to change to try to fit it, wear clothes he doesn't want to or try to be something that he's not (unless he is violent or has some other very extreme behaviour!). Tell him that he is welcome to have friends round, ask him if he wants to do something for his birthday - he will have much more of an idea than you, I'm sure! Mine has ASD so these were all lessons I had to learn.

The best thing you can do is be present, listen and keep communication going so that he will hopefully tell you if there are any problems. If there are problems you need to assess how serious they are - there was a kid doing silly things to wind my ds up which he found very irritating/upsetting, it didn't seem particularly nasty to me just attention seeking/bored before lesson so I gave my son ideas to get the kid on side starting with offering him a sweet. This stopped the problem before it could grow into anything else. If you can help your child with them sorting the problem out, without having to be heavy handed all the better IMO.

If your ds is being called names then the best thing for him to do is to ignore and walk away - if you don't respond then there's no 'fun' in it. Tell him the ones calling him names have low self esteem regardless of how confident they pretend to be - and so they call him names to try to make themselves feel better. It's important that he understands that no one deserves to be bullied for any reason, and it is never 'their fault' - please don't listen to TypeMite who still seems to view things in the way I did at 12.

Some kids really struggle to fit in, and the consistently 'weird' ones are often ND - I look back now and I can think of a few kids who would now probably have been diagnosed, and I know that because I was very involved with my ds's diagnosis once it was flagged by his school.

The most important thing is that your ds knows it's ok to be him, and that the people who love him, support him and accept him for who he is - that's your job and i'm sure you'll be brilliant at it.

Aww OP, I'm so sorry that happened to you. School could be absolutely brutal back in the day.
Your experience doesn't have to be your son's experience though. And you must be very careful not to pass your own anxiety on to your son.

Absolute rubbish. The education system is ran by lefty fuck wits who would let a child set fire to his class mates before excluding them. Why do you think schools are incapable of tackling bullying in the first place?

its not her writing style, its the fact she's a vile bully.

I was bullied for being autistic. Guess I just brought it on myself, maybe should have been less autistic. and my friend who was bullied for wearing a hearing aid probably should have just had better hearing. And the huy who was bullied for being gay, well, you get the picture

I seem to remember the bullies at my school were in the bottom sets and not very bright. If your child has academic ability they may be able to form friendships with more intelligent children who are not interested in making other kids feel bad and provide a good friendship group. Academic achievement can also boost self esteem.

TypeMite - are you still a bully? Do you pick on the quiet person in the office? Or laugh at the junior with a stutter? Or bitch about the colleague who works harder than everyone else?

We are all different TypeMite. That's what makes the world a great place. Kids need to learn to value and appreciate difference in school, not bully difference out of people for kicks.

I'm glad you weren't at my school. Or if you were (those girls sound familiar), I hope you weren't the one making their life a misery (as it was no doubt, no plain sailing for them at home either.)

When I was at school the worst bullies were in the top sets, the teachers were very invested in making sure no one ‘upset’ them

That sounds incredibly strange, tbh. Invested in not upsetting them? How so?

Ah, sorry to hear that @Elmore. It was the only protection I found at secondary - that the clever girls were more interested in writing witty Latin poems and not in criticising hair styles. Latin class was my sanctuary, complete with a very quirky but sweet teacher. I take it you had a different experience, though.

You can’t prevent bullying. I think the key thing is to be aware of what’s going on and if there are difficulties move your child to another school. My mother watched me get bullied for four years and did nothing because there was a free school bus, in order to send me to a different school she’d have had to quit smoking to pay the bus fare and obviously she wasn’t going to do that.

Never bullied anyone just didn't feel the need to get involved defending someone who I knew was never going to help themselves.

But you sound like your were laughing a long, or at least looking on thinking 'you deserve it because you are weird and asking for it'. How did you know they weren't going to help themselves? Did you ask them? Do you know what was going on for them to make them act like they were?

I was really really fortunate to have never been bullied in school (was once in the workplace, but that's a whole other thread), was kind of 'cool' I guess. But in my year there wasn't much bullying because if we saw someone start on one of the kids, we would make an effort to hang out with that kid, include them, tell the bullies to back off. It usually worked because if the kids telling the bully to back off are considered cool and respected, the bully usually gives up. You could have been this person OP. You could have seen those girls doing wolf impressions and others laughing at them and said to the bully - "fuck off Joe, give it a rest". Maybe a few comments.like that from you and some others might have helped.

Don't agree with this..my son's bullies were immediately pulled out, interviewed, parents in and had a fixed term exclusion. The school also contacted the police as racial and violent language was used and the police went and talked to the bully and his parents at home. I teach secondary and any instance of bullying that is reported is similarly recorded, investigated and dealt with. I'm not naive enough to think there's nothing that happens that we don't know about but we deal firmly with what we can.

They were never held accountable for anything - one of them was dishing out a particularly unpleasant beating in the yard and the teacher on duty ‘didn’t see it’ (he was a metre away)

I was trying to be diplomatic😁 but yes I’m afraid that particular poster does not sound very nice and seems quick to judge a person’s worth and their culpability in being bullied, seems if you’re bullied then it’s your own stupid fault 😯🙄

That’s a shitty attitude. So those bullied for more than a week are at fault and not the ignorant idiots who are bullying them? I was bullied for a damn sight more than a week and decades later I still can’t fathom out why, other than the fact they thought I was ‘posh’? I lived on a council estate and was working class so fuck knows why they thought that but in your books, as it went on for two years (and only stopped because I moved), it was justified. Jesus!

You shouldn’t have to run through hoops in order to not be bullied! For god’s sake why are some of you so dense? Oh yes of course child bullies become adults, silly me.

ugh you sound awful

Ok from a male perspective. Teach him some resilience and how to laugh at himself. An example after I left school but was only 18. There was a group of older men mid 20s who were dreadful bullies I was working in the local pub when one of them said to me "I don't like you" I replied "I don't blame you I don't like me either" he mate laughed and it knocked the wind out his sales.
encourage his to compartmentalize his life with different friends/hobbies away from school. I was goody goody in school but hanging around with some right naughty and the blacks than than me.
he needs to be able to switch off social media, learn some good come backs, to just laugh even if what's been said wounds.
I deliberately stood out in school as the only teddy boy in the 1980s! It's on reflection was me saying I know I am different and whatever you say doesn't matter.

Wtf i didn't post the word blacks it was meant to be "naughty boys older than me" I have posted anything racist I swear!

I know we’re constantly reading stories about how someone hit their bully and they were forever left alone however what is more likely to happen is bully hits them twice as hard back and it’s your child’s fault for starting it. Not to mention your child will get suspended because schools just cannot ever condone violence (even if they think ‘good for you’ in secret).

Not my experience. My brother was a medium sized kid who was good at boxing. Not some shang wu chi plimsoll nonsense but actually proper contact sparring with gloves and headgear. He was a really friendly and genuinely nice kid but nobody would mess with him because they knew they'd be in for a proper punch up whether or not they won.

Alternatively, Brazilian jujitsu is excellent for these purposes as it's all grappling, mostly on the floor, and anyone half decent can tire out somebody much bigger than them and submit them with joint locks. It actually works and won the UFC eight years in a row against boxers, kickboxers, etc, before everyone started cross training in it. Double leg takedown to mount and bully is toast.