To be annoyed at DD’s punishment

[LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet]

DD (9, Y5) has been getting picked on by a girl for a couple of years now. It seems to happen in peaks and troughs. But this girl’s focus is on DD’s height. She’s very small for her age, as is her dad. If you looked at her you’d think she was 7yo max. Her 5yo brother is only 2 inches shorter, and some of her friends are head and shoulders taller. And the girl picking on her constantly calls her titch, shorty, dwarf, shortarse and constantly pats her on the head like she’s a dog. If something has been said in class when they’re learning, for example the teacher describes a ‘small mountain’ this girl will shout out “Just like Emily” (meaning my DD, not her real name).

I raised it last year but she had a bit of a hippy teacher in his last year of teaching who said things like “I’ll work on empowering Emily” and “I’ll do a lesson on how name calling isn’t ok” - which is all very well but FFS just tell this girl to stop it!!!

I raised it with the head who is as much use as a chocolate fireguard and just says “Oh well these things happen and we do encourage resilience”. Which I agree with but one child can only take so much.

To avoid drip feeding - this is a private school with very low numbers and the bully girl is one of 5 siblings. I’ve strongly suspected they don’t want to upset the family in case they pull all their kids out. It seems to be a pattern with wealthy/large families, whereas I only have 2 in school.

Anyway I spoke to her new teacher in the first day of term and said it absolutely cannot happen this year as DD is starting to dread school and has come home crying too often, and I don’t wanna have to pull her out. New teacher is much more of a ball buster than last year’s teacher and said she’d directly pull any name calling or mean behaviour. And all seemed to go well this term (except for the odd incident). Until today.

DD’s teacher called me to say that all her break times will be removed next week and she will have to stay indoors. Apparently the bully girl made a comment when DD was asked to pin something she’s done on a display the wall. She said “Someone get Emily a stepladder”.

DD replied and said “I may be short but at least I’m not fat.” The girl in question is quite overweight. She burst into tears and DD has had that punishment.

Now I’m not condoning what DD said, I’ve always said we never talk about how people look because look how awful it makes someone feel. But after 2 years of grief from this girl when there’s been NO action taken against her, my DD seemingly has snapped and now is being punished for 1 offence. The bully girl was made to apologise but isn’t getting the same punishment.

Full disclosure: DH has suggested before that DD say this to the girl (to which I promptly said FGS NO don’t say that!). But bear in mind we had her coming home upset and crying yet again by this nasty girl who just won’t fucking stop.DH got fed up and said that if she can comment on DD’s height the only way to stop it is to bite back equally as hard. Which I don’t agree with - but I bet that’s why DD’s said it.

WIBU to see the Head and say this is unfair, yes DD should be punished but why hasn’t the other girl ever had a punishment once? Why is fat shaming terrible but height shaming ok and should be tolerated? Neither can be helped of children. I did tell her teacher I’m not happy but she seemed to think it was much more unacceptable what DD said than what the other girl said!

Put it in writing that you have instructed your daughter to call this girl fat every single time she makes fun of her height and she will continue to do it until the harassment stops.

cc in her parents if you know their address

Tell them you’re not accepting your daughter’s punishment. I had a similar thing years ago with my daughter’s school. We moved from another town and she was bullied constantly and I’m not just talking verbally, physically too. Then one day one of the bullies was having a go at her verbally and because she wasn’t reacting she pushed her hard into a bookcase (they were in the library). My daughter had finally had enough and pushed the girl in return, as she wasn’t expecting it, she lost her balance. Unfortunately the teacher saw this and my daughter was given detention on two days for this. The bully thought that was very funny. I went to the school and told them that my daughter would not be taking detention. They had been aware of the bullying and had done nothing about it, so my daughter finally had to react herself. I told my daughter to leave school at the end of school every evening and not stay for detention and threatened that if they tried to implement the punishment then I would take it to the education dept. They didn’t make her serve her detentions. Incidentally that girl left my daughter alone after that too. Unfortunately the school was full of horrible girls as I hadn’t realised that it was in a rough area until we had moved to the town .

I feel for both you and your daughter, we've went through something similar. My daughter is also very small for her age and would get teased relentlessly by one girl, teacher's were useless and actually made it worse by making the class do things such as line up in height order!

Your DD has been provoked into a reaction. Ant human would be. In criminal law, provocation can be a defence to violent crime so I don't see why for children who are less able to regulate their emotions and behaviour, blurting out a retort isn't a reasonable response in the circumstances.

Completely agree that height shaming appears to be acceptable in school but fat shaming isn't.

As the education is private, you could argue that there has been a breach of contract in that the.school has failed to adequately care for and safeguard your child. If they had, the matter would unlikely have escalated to this point. Your child as been failed.

The girl was asking for it!

I always assumed private schools were better at sorting out bullying!

Worse!! Sadly they are obviously in the back pocket of this girls parents!!!

Funnily enough, my daughter was also bullied at her private primary by one of 5 siblings (who were at the same school) and the Head also did nothing! Must be a theme

I feel for you & your DD I had this with mine lookin back I wished I had been more vocal my DD was bullied primary then secondary and sadly collage I blame myself I should have been there for her more she ended up leaving college she couldn't deal with it anymore she got herself a apprenticeship passed and started next level she now has some lovely friends while her bullies are nursing their own babies or their pregnancy

I think you need to report them on safeguarding - they are not caring for your child and have allowed bullying to happen. This is emotional neglect by the school. If they are due an inspection then it is perfect timing! As someone else mentioned, start recording all of this in emails that you can share with inspectors
Also, do a follow up email to any face to face interaction so there is a record of that too.

You might be at a private school, but they still have a duty of care! They are also teaching the bully that her behaviour is fine when it most definitely is not!

Had similar at a small private school.

Ended up writing a probably more lengthy than necessary listing every incident of unchallenged bullying by the other child and reminded head of duty of care to my child.

Upshot was both children and one parent each were summonsed to head and both told behaviour unacceptable but neither punished.

settled after that. But if no joy from head, I would go to chair of governors. (Other parents did this).

private schools can be quite bad at challenging bullying due to the fees.

I feel for your daughter. She stands up for herself because the school isn't and she gets more punishment I'd be banging the heads door down and demanding why?? .
She deserves to be treated better than that.

The school have failed her for 2 years. I'd ask her if she would move to the school around the corner if she had the choice and see what she says..
But let her know that in no way is this her fault. Everyone has a breaking point at least ahe only called her a name and didn't hit her. Which I think I would have by now.

Good luck hope its sorted out soon..

She didn't deserve any kind of punishment. As an exvictim myself I say that nobody should be punished for defending.

I know this will not go down well on MN, but your daughter was right, your husband was right and you should be backing DD 100%, not 90 or 99%, 100%.
Teaching her she should accept this sort of abuse and not react, is wrong. It puts you on the side of the bullies.

My 3 DC went to a scummy comp. I received a phone call one day to say eldest DS had been fighting. One little shit had been goading him for 2 years about all sorts. My DS had had enough and retaliated badly. The school backed my DS. They had no fee agenda, no rich family to appease. Btw, all 3 DC now have top degrees and have not been disadvantaged by lack of private education… just saying..

Changing schools makes sense to me if you do have a lovely state school in your area as you say. We are a military family and my older boy (10) has started a new school four times. His last school was awful. They wouldn’t do anything about the bullying. They were weirdly stringent on uniform rules instead. His current school doesn’t sweat the stuff that doesn’t matter and has a wonderful knack of making school a happy place. Happy children learn well. It isn’t fees that make a good school.

Go to state school

It's a shame 😔 that DD doesn't want to leave this dreadful school. You should make as big a stink as possible, even threatening to write to the newspapers. Shame the ministry of education can't help.

This happened to me as a child. 9 years old. A couple of girls had been bullying me and really nasty for week. My mother has been in to see them and they had done nothing about it. Eventually I flipped and did slightly hurt the main bully. I was immediately sent to the head teachers office and he rang my mother. My mother stuck up for me and refused to allow the school to punish me because basically I had reached my breaking point with the bully and reacted eventually. The school actually agreed in the end that I wouldn’t be punished. I can’t recall if they had words with the bullies or not. But, Weirdly, one of the bullies pretty quickly became friends with me. One of them even joined in a hobby I had been doing. We became kind of friends for the rest of that school and then when we went up to high school made our own new friends and went different ways.

Everyone has their breaking point. There are also some bullies around who deliberately press buttons of vulnerable children to see them react and then get into trouble. There was a group of mean girls in my daughter’s primary school and may kids left the school because of them. The reason was they were never ‘caught’. They were clever top set girls who knew how to wind people up and knew what their weaknesses were. Parents complained and the bullies were never caught. I actually brought it up with one TA I knew out of school and she said she was aware of these girls but they were too good at doing it behind backs that nothing could ever be proved. And their parents were the pushy parent types who thought their kids would do no bad so on the odd occasion the school had tried to bring it up with parents the parents basically backed their kids.

I do think people are going a bit OTT with this.

OP,
Your daughter is a legend! Lol.

I wanna high five her and take her out for Starbucks! Haha. Good for her!

Mum, seriously? She stood up to her. She's gotta do her 'time', fine - you know, sometimes life isnt always fair and it is a bit shit.

Yep you can say the other girl got away with it (sort of) but she didnt, this bully was properly humilated and cried like a baby! Justice has been served my friend. Smile and take the sweet victory.

You need to tell your DD to style out her detention - no fucks given and just tell her you're proud of her. That's not going to turn her into a bully - its just sometimes, that's the way it goes - but her family are there for her.

Just be proud of her. So what she does a detention? it's not a big deal.

The bigger point is that she sorted this bully out for herself and stood up for herself. And I'd be so proud of my kid for that.

Make an official complaint in writing, this will hurt the school more and then I’d lay into the teacher and head about height shaming which you have no influence over where as fat is something you can fix! I’d also way lay the prick of a parent or nanny and lay into them tell them you know their business associates and will gladly tell them how useless they are and if they are this useless at home imagine how useless they will be in business. They don’t know you don’t actually know them if this do even better. Just be confident.

Exactly. Update us OP I bet that gave the bully food for thought literally..... tbh you should be speaking with the girls mother I know I would!

Thanks all
Hone now after a lovely girls weekend!

Im not going to tell DD to fake cry or play sneaky games - I’m big on them being honest and not lying and I don’t think this is a very honest way to be. I’ve said i will stick up for her if her bully calls her short and she retaliates again, but I’ve also told her the school might not look kindly on it, but we will deal with it if the time comes and I’m always on her side! I have drip fed about another school - she is really good friends with some girls from Brownjes that go to this school nearby so I’ve been saying wouldnt it be lovely if you could see Ellie and Maggie every single for day.

Its very important to me that she sees I stick up for her. My mum is lovely but always shied away from confrontation, I remember someone picking on me in front of her and she just pretended it wasn’t happening, I don’t want that to be DD.

Emailing school on Monday with a summary of the meeting and how they’ve (IMO) breached their own anti bullying policy.

And I’m gonna avoid speaking to the other mum (and certainly won’t send her emails!) because this is a school issue and they should deal with it - also I’ve worked in schools and no parent has ever taken it well when being told their child is a bully so IMO it’s pointless

Bet the other kid gets sneaky. Prepare DD to loudly bring attention to this behaviour. Ie “Stop calling me Shorty!” or “Stop patting my head! I’m not a chihuahua!” So the teachers can’t miss it. (My dd was bullied by one of thrash beasties too.)

I would encourage your DD to assertively stand up for herself. In response to the bully's comment say, "Yes, I am short. I am also nice and I seldomly make fun of others." The contrast would be clearly stated in a way that no one would have grounds to punish her for simply having made positive statements about herself. That might silence the bully. At least it will empower your DD. All my best to her.