A nasty card given to child

[Ssvic]

I just found a card tucked away in my daughter’s drawer. It says “no one likes you or cares about you”. She’s 9 years old. Schools have broken up so can’t talk to the teacher. I have the mums contact details as we are on class WhatsApp. I have never spoken to her. What would you do? Ignore and talk to school in January or send the mum a picture of the card? What would you do? I spoke to dd who got very quiet and said he’s naughty. I asked her if she would like me to tell the school
snd she said yes she’s never mentioned this boy before. Sorry for typos, my phone screen is not working properly

My DD is 9 and being bullied by 3 little shitbags from her class. I emailed the school and asked for a copy of their bullying policy and sent them a bullet point list of all the things these children have done this term. They are taking it seriously and the deputy head talks to all of the children involved every day just to remind them about appropriate behaviour. Things have been OK for the last week but I have no confidence that it's sorted. I'm not sure what the next step will be once they start up again.

99% of the time I'd say to never approach a school mum about issues between children. But in this case you have the signed card as evidence of what happened, rather than it being a he said/she said assumption.

Do you know this mum at all? If you know her to be a reasonable person, I'd be tempted to contact her. But if you don't know her, that approach isn't without risk of course.

That. Definitely don't share it to all.

That's good.

This is horrible, Savic, I am so sorry.

Don't put it on whatsapp, that is too retaliatory. I would speak to the mother/parents if you know them and show them the card, no doubt they will be mortified. If you don't get anywhere with them, tell your daughter's teacher, but quickly. Most schools have another week before breaking up so all will be 'normal' there for a few days. He may well have sent the same to everyone, who knows, his idea of a joke but he must be told it's not on.

Good luck to you and your little girl, Savic. Kids can be horrible sometimes, verbally, but they don't usually write it down.

@Ssvic It sounds like your daughter is thriving socially, with best friends and frequently playing with the wider group, getting invitations etc. She’s doing great.

Time to talk to her again about why bullies bully - it’s them and their problems, something ugly in their life or in them, and no reflection of your lovely daughter at all.

You sound like a great mum.

Write to the teacher. Letters must be addressed and replied to.
If that gets nowhere, progress up the school hierarchy, until someone deals with the bullying. If that fails, governors, then LA.
Put everything in writing, or follow up every call/chat with a covering letter.
And just keep going. X

why a letter and not… email? 😆

Does the class routinely swap Christmas cards? I ask as then this is a school thing, so I would email the school with a copy of the card. I'd follow the school's anti bullying policy and use the contacts provided. Failing that, I'd email her teacher and copy the head of school - stating in the email that you are copying the head as you expect swift resolution and it's now holidays.

I would not drop on WhatsApp and I would not approach the parents.

Why not go to the school? I would.

And... I think it goes without saying that the card is absolutely awful.

'no one likes you or cares about you' written to crush and create total unease. Not 'i ' but 'no one'. Hideous and cruel.

I would suggest you try and get a playdate with a friend or two from school over the holidays so she knows that what was written is not true, and so she doesn't dwell on it over the hols.

I wouldn't really do this type of public shaming.

I'm not in the UK so it could be different but I'm a teacher myself. Quite often management are still in the school building dealing with admin when normal staff go on holidays. Might be worth a try. And I wouldn't go down the shaming route, things like this need to go through the proper channels. I also think messaging the mum gives her the upper hand too, to think about an excuse.

Sending onto the WhatsApp group will lead to people messaging each other privately, and there will be cliques with this

That’s what I would do.

It isn’t public shaming if OP doesn’t say who it’s from. Her DD may feel better if she knows he has sent similar to other classmates

well yes

but the school is closed for the holidays

Even if teaching staff are still in school (which I doubt) there's nothing they can do until the child concerned is back in school.

But this is neither safeguarding or bullying. It’s a really nasty thing to happen and needs dealing with, but it is (on the face of it, as far as we currently know) one incident. I wouldn’t be surprised if more came out, in which case then it would be bullying. If I went to my DSL with this they’d think I was mad - this is something that should be dealt with on a class teacher level. By all means the OP could email now - it’s very unlikely anything will happen until they’re back, but worth doing so it’s done and will be sorted when they’re back.

She has the card as evidence that somebody sent the nasty card, but it isn't any kind of evidence that it came from the boy named at the bottom of the card.

Of course, there's every chance that he was the culprit, but kids have been doing things to deliberately implicate and get others in trouble since forever.

It's the oldest trick in the book to write an unpleasant message or invitation and then leave somebody else's name or contact details. I highly doubt that the graffiti in grim public toilets that say something like "For a good time, call Sharon/Keith on 07xxx xxxxxx" were actually written by Sharon or Keith, along with their own phone number.

The named boy may very well be a horrible, unpleasant child; but he may also have been involved in this against his will or knowledge, just like OP's DD was.

I'd want to know if the named boy had form for this kind of behaviour and a handwriting comparison before deciding categorically that he was the one who sent it.

Actually, this would probably be a head of year issue rather than a class teacher one. I don’t think I’d be the one to deal with the boy that did this if it happened in my school - I think I’d escalate it to my HoY.

OP has already said school is closed. By January the school will do nothing. It will be long passed. Why should OP's DC be treated like this and nothing done about it?

Even if someone picks up an email at school it isn’t realistic to expect anything at all to be done before January.

Scan card and email teacher since school is on holiday but maybe staff still working. The card situation depends if all kids giving it to all the class kids or to only a few kids. Was your DC name assigned to the kid or not? If this boy was made to sign 10 cards or more he may be see this as punishment and maybe other kids got the same card with horrible words.

Poor you and DD. It goes straight to the heart doesn’t it?

I had a similar situation. It happened the last day of a summer club run by my child’s school. I found a long letter scrunched up in their pocket from a girl in their class detailing why they were ‘weird’. A real poison pen letter. But (d’oh!) she’d signed it as well as handing it over. Like you, I was flummoxed as school had broken up and club had ended. I did know the mum and would have felt able to contact her but I decided to just concentrate on my child. They seemed ok so I left it at that. That may not be the same for your daughter. It was such a horrible feeling unscrunching that letter.

If possible organise a meet up with a couple of her good friends this week so she can see that what he's written is untrue

If you know who it's from and have his mother's whatsapp then I would definitely send her a screenshot of it with a brief message along the lines of 'Sorry to be the bearer of unwelcome news, but I felt you should know about this. I am obviously extremely upset and concerned to see that DD has received this from your child. I hope you'll speak to him about how catastrophic the results of this kind of psychological bullying can be. I have no choice but to inform the school as I'll need to ask them to keep an eye on things to make sure DD is safe around your child, so I imagine they will want to speak to you about it. Regards, Ssvic.

I ended up messaging the mother! I took the message someone posted upthread.

I introduced myself and told her my daughter is in the same class as her son and she received this Xmas card (I put a photo of the message). I said I thought I’d let you know my daughter received this card and I’m wondering if anything has happened between the children. I wished her a merry Christmas and happy new year. She hasn’t responded yet. I’m glad I’ve done this because I can’t wait till January. Whatever her response is I’m glad I’ve done this.