Punching boy at school

[BackAgain2023]

Looking for some advice... there's a boy in 6yo DS class who keeps hitting him (and another couple of children) and calling him names. It's been going on off and on since the start of the year. DS tells the teacher each time and has been trying to stay away from him. Previously the teachers had been encouraging everyone to include him but I've given DS permission to not play with him as he won't stop hitting him.
I know the child and his parents well unfortunately so it's quite awkward. I've spoken to the school and I don't feel they're taking it seriously tbh.
DS friends parents have given their wee boy permission to now punch the boy back and they'll deal with any trouble from the school. My husband thinks we should tell DS to do the same thing and that it's just self defence and if the school won't do anything then DS needs to protect himself.
It feels so wrong telling my child to punch someone but maybe this is the only way the boy will leave him alone?
For further info, the boy has no known special needs but has a bit of a chaotic household and siblings with special needs. He seems like a very angry child which is sad but I need to protect my child from being assaulted on a near daily basis.

Scotland doesn’t have governors, and has policies that HEAVILY protect the rights of the bully, and wholly disregard the rights of the victim. The school has no ability to permanently exclude unless the child brings in a knife and tried to use it (unlikely at 6). They cannot even move the child from their current class without the bully’s mum’s permission. It’s insane! Sorry, I mean’progressive’. I’d just hope the child moves on to another victim soon. In my experience of bullies in Scottish schools that’s all that can be done.

honing in on the ‘safeguarding of my child’ helps to concentrate teachers minds on how serious you are though.

Class bully came up and slapped me across the face. I naturally saw red and hit her back, massive fight ensued.

She never said another word to me and her older sister stopped bullying my brother.

School is survival of the fittest

I'd tell your son to give his bully a smack in the face.

They tell your son to just keep away from him? How about they tell the other kid to keep away from your son????
Speaking as a parent who's daughter was bullied for a long time.....I wish she'd thumped them back at the start of it all. Maybe she wouldn't be the mess that she is now.

It does annoy me when schools take a softly softly approach with children with behaviour like this. In my experience children from chaotic backgrounds need firm boundaries to feel safe and secure. When my foster son came to me his behaviour at the school he was already attending was shocking. I was told every day about people he had hurt or things he had done. But at the same time he was getting no sanctions at school because I think they felt sorry for him. I remember one day they all came out with a certain craft, including him, smiling and happy as usual. But the teacher said he'd done x, y and z including refusing to make the craft. To me the natural consequence of that was that he wouldn't have had one to take home. But no, the teacher just made it for him. He also won a fancy dress and a colouring competition that year purely, I think, because they felt sorry for him. But because of that he ran riot in school, while learning very little, until towards the end of the year he was moved to a stricter teacher who started sending him out of class. But she still couldn't get him to behave because I think he'd ruled the roost for too long. I think if I hadn't moved him he would have ended up being expelled. But I moved him to a more local school for the next school year, got him up to speed a bit academically over the summer, drummed it in to him that this was a fresh start, and thank God he had a strict teacher who he wanted to please so I never had a bit of bother from him at primary school behaviour wise again.

It reminds me of when I was bullied by this girl. She came up to me in the street and grabbed me by the hair. I grabbed her back and we both fell to the floor. I banged her head against the pavement. She never came near me again. Oh and I saw the little cunt a few years later and complained to her manager about her.

I wouldn’t usually advocate hitting back but I once did tell DS tooand have no regrets.
DS was bullied by a child for months in year 6, it was verbal bullying and really upset DS. The child was very sly and always did it out of ear shot of the teachers though they were aware of what was going on.
DS was really struggling and anxious about going into school, I snapped and told DS to hit the child. On that day the child said something to upset DS, DS then hit the child with his pencil case. The deputy head saw it all. DS was comforted. The bully was shouted at and taken to the heads office and suspended for the next day. DSs teacher told me the events at pick up and was very happy they finally caught the child in the act. The other child didn’t bother DS again!

I agree with your husband. There was a bully in my DS's class all through primary school, school never dealt with him effectively and one day in year 6 my quiet, shy son punched him. He got cheers and hi fives from his class mates and no punishment from the teachers.

He finally stopped picking on the other kids after that.

If this was my son being hit, I'd 100% be on board with my son smacking the little blighter. Sometimes it takes a good smack back to a bully for them to stop.

The school should be doing more though and so should the parents. It is disgraceful they aren't.

Oh we have this. I’ve told dd to shove the boy off her as hard as possible and shout at him, then tell a teacher.

I’ve also told her that at least she knows that boys who hit aren’t people she wants to be friends with.

Always amazes me to see how many people don't want their DC to hit back.

You're reinforcing that the bully is more important than them and is allowed to mistreat them. They're already seeing from the teachers' inaction that that's how it works and now you're adding to the issue for your own child.

No good ever comes from appeasing bullies.

Teaching them to hit back is reinforcing that hitting someone is OK.

Pushing them away and shouting is a better option and absolutely doesn't teach them that the bully is more important and it isn't "appeasing" the bully.

no good ever comes from hitting someone.

Totally agree with you telling your DS to hit him back. My DS (then age 8/9) had 18 months of another boy making his life a misery, even on summer holidays the bully was inside my poor DS’s head. One day DS finally punched him, then punched him again the next day and we’ve never heard that bully’s name again. I never heard a peep out of school, bully didn’t report it.

Can you go into the school and talk to the teacher?
I would not think the child gets away with a lot from a child's perspective.
I have no idea how the UK schools deal with this, but in our school, stop it etc is taught.

My child was bullied or hit often, it turns put the boy wanted to be his friend and included... the day a I'm sorry card came home it was a huge relief.
The teacher didn't realise until I visited in person and mentioned it to the point my child was refusing school and often feeling 'sick', that is not on.
To the pp who said it is not bullying, yes it is, he's targeting him regularly.
It is stressful and a 6yr old is so young, surely you can approach his teacher or head and sort it out.
Whatever the families' issues hitting is not ok, the boy is at school to learn social skills as well.
Ask the teacher how and why it is happening often!
Horrible stuff.

In this situation I'll tell my DC: " you don't start it, but you finish it! And Mun & Dad will be 100% behind you."
Sadly with the attitude of go and tell a teacher without retaliating, the bully will continue to bully as they know there are no real consequences.

School is survival of the fittest, especially secondary schools!

Yep. Tell your DS to thump the little shit back twice as hard. Unfortunately my child is so gentle they won’t do it and therefore gets picked on.

OP I could have written your post. We’ve said to DS to push the boy away and shout loudly stop hurting me.

The parents of the boy doing it say he’s just boisterous, and doesn’t mean it. Meanwhile my son has had a black eye from his boisterousness.

no good evercomes from hitting someone.

Except that judging by the examples of PPs, it clearly does! Several posters have talked about the bullying stopping after the bully got a smack… (if we were talking about adults, I would agree with you).

OP I think I'm going through something very similar to you and actually posted about it the other day on the preteens thread. I won't repeat it but I didn't get involved for too long as I didn't want to cause trouble, not realising the extent of the problem. I also don't know what advice to give DS so am reading here with interest.

You say no good ever comes from hitting anyone… plenty of us have stated on this thread that we hit back once when we were bullied and then the bullying promptly stopped. Seems good to me, no?

Its absolutely ok to hit someone to defend yourself.

Definitely punch back. Your child is well within his rights to defend himself against this undisciplined bully. I'd pull the school up on their bullying and safeguarding policies too. Their stance ( or lack of ) is negligent

I’m a school governor. I strongly advise that you write down every time this happens and email it to the teacher and headteacher. Set up a meeting and ask how it will be addressed to keep your child safe at all times. The school has a responsibility to keep children safe. If it does not improve then follow your school’s formal complaint policy. If you don’t let the school know in a way that is recorded, things can escalate and they won’t have a chance to act.
have experienced this with one of my dc and it got worse and worse over the years as no one reported anything because it became so commonplace.

Our DD has a similar situation with a boy in her class hitting other students. At the start of the year we told her to shout very loudly "NO HITTING" and push him if provoked.

He has never hit her once.

She also chased him off when he tried to hit her friend 🤣

There were a couple of girls like this in dd's year in primary. DH kept saying hit her back, and I kept saying no you can't, so poor dd was very confused; I am deeply ashamed of the way I handled this situation, btw.

I saw her teacher umpteen times, face to face - we got on well - but just as when myum saw my teachers about my bully and I just got it worse next day, dd just got more targetted by her bully afterwards.

The school did try though, the girl wasn't allowed to play out at breaktimes when all the other kids, including dd, went outside, she had to go home at lunchtimes etc. But no one can keep an eye on a determined every single minute; when the girl couldn't get at dd during school day, she'd get her at the school gates and give her chinese burns, push her in bushes, taunt her, pull her hair, etc. By that time we were giving dd more independence and she was allowed to walk from school with other friends so it was a short while before she told us what was going on. The HT washed her hands of it - outside school grounds outside school time, so dh rang police.... that got the school on board again, though HT never spoke to us again or even looked at us, and dd never got the awards and things her teachers said she should have (Gifted and Talented stuff and the like). Much much worse was that after a year when they'd been in different classes, they were to be put back in the same class. We went to talk to their next year's teacher to saywe weren'thappy about it, but heinsisted that he was going to make sure they were all one happy family in hus class and they wouldn't be behaving like that; he hadn't got a clue how to stop it though. We sent dd to a different school immediately. She didn't even finish the year at the old place; it was shit.

Anyway, I think a strong push with a good loud shout is a much better idea, and I wish I'd let dh encourage her to hit back, and damn the consequences.