Advice needed re: bullying

[pain1nthearse]

Hi - I'm just after advice from other mums who may have been through similar as I don't know what to do/how to help my son

My DS11 is in Year 6 and has always got on well with most kids in his class. He has one very close friend (did have another but he left the school a few years back - they are still in touch but live a distance apart now) and also has several other friends he plays / hangs out with. He is usually a confident, happy, well liked boy but there are a group of other boys in his class who are starting to make his life a misery despite the fact that they are considered to be his 'friends'. They all play sport outside of school together (several sports) and have at one time or other been to our house/had sleepovers/been transported round for events by us etc. However, this group (4 of them) do have a reputation for being spiteful to others, over-competitive, intimidating etc. On their own they would come across as nice boys but the dynamic together is pretty toxic and lots of children are scared of them. My son has sort of straddled this group from time to time - dipping in and out of their group whilst also maintaining friendships with other children and his best friend.

What they are doing is pretty insidious, under the radar type stuff ie. when he tries to join in their chat/games he will be told to 'shut up', 'you're not funny so stop trying to be', or they just smirk at each other and laugh at him. He's very aware they are mocking him / laughing 'at' him. When this happens he will leave the group to speak with others as he, of course, finds this upsetting. When he did this yesterday they called him gay and threw a ball at him. When he tries to speak with the girls / hang out with them they call him a 'simp' (had to look that one up - apparently a guy who is desperate for female attention). The most upsetting thing is they are trying to ostracise him from his best friend which, sadly, seems to be working. When my DS and his friend are sitting together eating lunch they will call his friend over to join them and he has done leaving my son alone. The friend is now often hanging out with this group.

My son doesn't want me to speak to the school because he's worried it will escalate things and I understand why he thinks that. You can't force the boys to be nice to him and it all happens outside at lunch/break. However, we still have a term left, SATS soon and a residential trip happening which I'm really worried about now. If this has happened to your child what did you do and what worked? Do we just try and ride out this last term and hope it just passes or do I kick up a fuss at school. My feeling is i need to speak to the school especially about the residential trip but I don't want to make things worse - its heartbreaking watching him cry and not want to go to school. We are supporting him to strengthen other friendships and his best friends mum is on side also trying to help the two of them maintain their friendship but I think its falling on deaf ears.

Speak to the school.

Posted too soon. Your ds is too young to make that kind of call, you have to do what’s best for him. Speak to them but explain that he doesn’t want to make things worse so they need to handle carefully.

Speak to the school.
The culture of not snitching really needs nipping in the bud. Secrecy allows bullying to thrive.
These boys don't need his protection - how would it escalate things? He needs to see that reporting a problem means it gets dealt with and the bullies need to find out that actions have consequences.

You can speak to the school and explain his fear of the issues being made worse by 'telling' so they deal with it sensitively

Thanks for your responses. I think the escalation he fears is that this will happen every single day and they will completely shut him off. He is desperate to be their friend despite us speaking to him a great deal about what a good friendship looks and feels like. So he has come home thinking he's had a good day because they were 'nice' to him. I wish he could see them for what they really are but because they haven't always been this way to him he still thinks of them as friends.

have a quiet word with the teacher, you don’t need to go all guns blazing, of course a good teacher may have its suspicions, but as you said it’s all happening at break time
they won’t force the boys to be nice, and as it’s mostly micro aggressions the boys most probably think they are ok
what they will do is encourage your kid to make other friendships, make sure he’s with nicer boys in the residential trip (my DD went through similar with the girls in her class, ended up sharing the smallest room in the residential with 2 lovely girls, they thought they had the VIP room, and the teacher did split the “trouble” groups for activities)
same as you, bf mum tried encouraging, but did not worked, again, teacher encouraged her to spend time in class with like minded kids and she ended up having a great group of friends (boys and girls)
eventuality she was happy with her group of friends, stopped caring about the “popular” kids and they stopped paying attention to her - no more mean comments her way… a couple did tried acting friendly with her again, but by then she knew to be polite but keep them at bay
my advice is speak to school, and if there are other kids in the class that look like potential new friends, encourage those friendships - some of those mums may have been through the same with their kids (also happened to us) so they were extra keen to encourage the friendships

Speak to the school. They need to know so they can help him and they can find ways to do this without drawing attention to things.

A big piece of advice once you have done this, is get them to spell out how they are going to tackle things on the residential in terms of sleeping groups, work groups and social times. As a bare minimum, your child should not be partnered with any of these other children for sleeping or working. Most importantly, all adults taking part should be made aware that there are issues and that particular attention needs to be paid to the dynamics while they are away from home, with intervention as required.

As you can probably guess, we had a similar similar situation and while the school were brilliant in handling it in and around school, it all went a bit tits up on the residential as - despite me liaising with the class teacher about sleeping arrangements to make sure my child was in a different dorm - they put them on the same daily work group and not all of the adults there had been made aware of the situation. As a result there were some upsetting incidents for my child and a very terse meeting with the school upon his return. It was the one time in the whole sorry process that I didn't manage to keep my temper in check.

Best of luck.

Another vote for speak to the school - I would stress that you want it handled discreetly, however there are things they can do, such as keeping an eye on things, changing table arrangements in class, and being mindful of the situation when putting people in groups, etc.

Definitely speak to the school. My DD went through similar started just before Easter in y6 thankfully their residential didn't happen that year for other reasons. Was hard enough just dealing with a school day.

Speak to the school.I absolutely wouldn’t allow him to go on the residential trip whilst the school are failing to look after him

The school would want to know.
The bully culture thrives on secrecy and fear.

Also arrange for your son's best friend to visit outside of school. Nurture their friendship.

Speak to the school.

Maybe invite some of the boys over on different occasions individually for playdates with your DS, so he can bond with them individually.

On the plus side - it's year 7 soon and a chance for a fresh start and to make new friends

Gosh are you me? I could have written an identical post as going through the same thing with my 11 year old. Doesn't want me to speak to the teachers about it.
my husband thinks we keep talking to my son and encouraging other positive things in his life and respect what he's asking us to do but I want to email the teacher and just make them aware. Although my son did say today a member of staff has been checking in on him today so I did wonder whether they are already aware
My son does not want it to escalate and for the boys to get worse because he has told on them. Bloody difficult

My son had a similar in Yr5 and I would echo everything that skgnome says. A really good post.
primary schools are far better at fixing these issues than secondary - you will be surprised at just how much they can do to rejig friendship groups.

kids change enormously in yrs 6-8 and, if your child is substantially more or less mature than their peers, they will need support to manage social relationships until everything calms down a bit in yr9.

Primary schools and teachers can be fantastic at this, if you can work together - they see a side of your child you may not recognise and it’s important to be open to that.
Do use the school to help your DS now as his secondary school won’t have as much traction with or knowledge of their yr 7s and 8s.