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.

Not some shang wu chi plimsoll nonsense but actually proper contact sparring with gloves and headgear.

This made me chuckle!

I've trained a fair few martial arts including a few years of krav maga which is great if trained properly but too often doesn't really have enough pressure testing/hard sparring, which is also a big problem with most traditional martial arts (in addition to many not really being very applicable to our modern world where most people don't fight using kung fu etc).

Arts like boxing, BJJ, Thai boxing are great because you are guaranteed to actually properly contact spar. Especially BJJ as you can grapple full intensity without getting black eyes etc.

Brazilian jujitsu is by far the best one on one (proven in the UFC) and the best for women as it uses leverage rather than strength and teaches you to fight from underneath (best rape defence bar none). It only falls down against multiple attackers as you're liable to get booted in the head by the attacker's friend as you're wrestling him on the floor.

But really there's not much you can do against multiple attackers. If you can escape from 90% of men you're doing well IMO.

Just to give an idea of what I'm talking about.

Great technique but clearly a marketing vid BTW which should be taken with a pinch of salt. Despite what they say you can't really learn it at home and you wouldn't want to as the sparring ('rolling') element is what allows BJJ practitioners to become so good.

Really?! In year 8/9 i was hanging out with my own friends and organising my own social life.. I’d be mortified if my mum ‘took us out’/organised something.

God this person is awful.

The biggest thing you can do is help your DS to have confidence in himself, because bullies will inevitably look for those they perceive to be weak in some way.

As someone who wasn’t bullied in school. Here are my suggestions.

1. Don’t try too hard - you or him
2. Him- Find people to hang out with - they don’t have to be the popular kids, but other kids to chum around with and hang out with in school. You- Don’t try to engineer his social life. Let him lead.
3. Don’t be the weird kid. There is nothing wrong with unique hobbies…but if it’s something that will seem out of step with the masses… keep it on the down low and enjoy it in the evenings
4. Him (and you) Don’t be the smelly or weirdly dressed kid. You don’t have to be the blessed dressed or groomed kid, but you can’t be the worst.
5. You- Don’t go overboard… clothes, activities, stuff, whatever. Let your kid take the lead. If comes home saying his shoes are stupid, ask him what he wants. Don’t try to preemptively buy his way to success. Start middle of the road and follow his lead.
6. He needs to be fun to be around. Nobody wants to hang out with the sullen, grumpy, or annoying kid.
7. Resilience- start really stressing this if you haven’t already been. He’s going to have deal with situations on his own and stand up for himself. This is probably the most important

All that to say… neither of you should try hard to fit in. Just relax, watch social cues, and find people he gets along with.

Being able to kick people arses is still the most surefire way to never be bullied. A lot of the other dissuasion/distraction tactics have the potential to work, but once a bully singles you out you're in trouble.

you were a bully weren't you?

Nope… were you?

it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which kids did get picked on. The OP did not ask how to stop kids from bullying she asked how to not make her kid a target. These are all perfectly reasonable suggestions that anyone could pick up from a teen movie.

You did remind me of one more, though!

1. Him- don’t walk around with a chip on his shoulder and lash out at others preemptively.

no I was a victim of people like you

bit if you're getting your life's philosophy from teen movies that explains a lot

Err Nike is not being a try hard. It’s par for the course tbh and as long as he is t rocking up in a pair of £500 yeezies then standard Nike shoes are fine and will blend in.

Non-branded and obvious supermarket clothing will be noticed and mentioned so if you can afford to avoid it, you can.

Teenagers can be real arseholes.

Yes sleepovers are a thing, parties become gatherings so to speak and are structured differently to primary ones. Is he worried, or are you?

Christ! Bit harsh isn’t this? You’ve just accused a random person on the internet of being a bully for no reason at all.

Sorry you were bullied, but that’s a bit much.

You are totally projecting.

What sort of personality is he? Both my ds's are strong personalities and throughout school there has been general happiness. A few very minor issues that we talk about, talk about emotions, their self worth, how they deserve better. Standing up for others and not letting bullies be nasty to their friends. It's just talking about stuff. In primary I spoke to the teacher and a couple of times in secondary I emailed HoY who called me back.

If you are talking about bullying, that is a more severe and totally separate issue, it does go on in schools, MN is it is very good for advice and support of how to deal with it; who to complain to. but unfortunately sometimes it's best to remove your child and move them to another school. Basically the school fails children (and parents) in their duty of care, to stop it from happening at all, and often worse still after it becomes apparent it is not addressed properly.

That second paragraph, you're getting way ahead of yourself and you're absolutely catastrophizing and projecting something that hasn't even happened yet. there's a lot of ground work and donkey work you can do now, to a childs self-esteem to make sure a lot of this never happens or if any there are any problems they communicate them to you straight away and that's where you really should be concentrating surely?

Ahahahahaha. My DH suffered vicious, prolonged bullying at one of the most prestigious public schools in the country. Far worse than what I experienced at my state comp. If you think you can buy your way out of bullying because there’s a better class of child at private schools, think again.

Better class of crueller bully more like. My friends had way worse stories than anything I witnessed at my bog standard comp.

Also boggling at mums organising days out for 14 year olds!

Oh dear… well clearly you are projecting intentions and actions on to me for no no reason. It’s too bad you were bullied as I can see that it’s colored your perceptions of innocuous interactions.

‘If it makes you feel better you can continue to see me as an evil bully and I won’t interact with you directly anymore, as I appear to to have upset you.

Hope you have a better day.

So you weren't victim blaming by saying kids shouldn't be "weird"? Weren't basing your assumptions on American High school dramas?

People who are screeching @saltinesandcoffeecups and earlier @TypeMite don’t understand the fundamental truth and are expecting children to behave in a way that is radically different to adults.

Every society, community, friendship group has social rules, some of these are fairly universal; be clean, don’t smell, don’t say stuff that is repulsive to the rest of the group.

These rules are enforced by members of the community, and a lot of what would be classed as ‘bullying’ in schools happens unremarked upon in the adult world when these rules are enforced.

The endless ‘friendship drama’ threads posted on here by women who are very close to middle age show this - on these threads the poster is either told they’re very reasonable for excluding someone or completely unreasonable for breaking a norm of the group and getting excluded.

Looking at it like that it’s unreasonable to expect children to behave any differently.

I don’t think we can blame youngsters for enforcing the rules of their communities when they adult world does exactly the same.

So really it comes back to parental responsibility- are you making sure your child adheres to community norms? Is freshly showered every day, regularly changed into clean clothes? Deodorises? These are basic life skills.

Are they following the other norms of their community? If these other community norms are disagreeable to you it’s incumbent upon you the adult to find a community where you agree with the norms and where you and your child can fit in.

Saltine may have had a point but TypeMite was just nasty and I've seen them being nasty elsewhere.

You cannot endure that
Part of growing up is understanding that not all people are nice and not everyone will like you or you them

if adults acted the way some teenage bullies did they'd be arrested

Exactly, adults don't like those who are different but the courts are full of people who have been physically abusive to the people they don't like.

Things that happened to the OP

• being tripped up or having drinks poured on her - assault
• pulling clothes and ripping tights - sexual assault
• locking in the toilet stalls - false imprisonment

Even "name calling" is technically an offence, though usually only prosecuted when it's discriminatory behaviour like racism or homophobia.

Genuine question: I came from a low income family Who just could not afford 50 quid for a pair of Nike trainers. Why the fuck is that my fault (and no I couldn’t move schools because I had SEN needs, which obviously didn't help matters.)

OP I am with you here, every step of the way. I was bullied mercilessly in secondary school. All girls, it stopped at age 16 when we entered Year 12. I was very thin by then. My eating disorder became a weapon.

This is 30 years ago now, however, I now how have an autistic son who does fine, for now, in primary. The minute - the SECOND - I see bullying behaviors starting to take root (ie. more than 1 mocking or trivializing words intended to hurt or diminish my DS) - I will be cracking down. And yes, I do know the difference between teasing, banter, and outright bullying. Any intelligent person does.

My secondary, all girls school bullying damn near destroyed me. My sons - both of them - will NEVER EVER EVER go through that. Neither. I am here, and I will ensure it.