Non traditional bullying

[ShockingStateOfAffairs]

I will try to keep this brief but hoping for some feedback from parents whose children have been the victims of ‘non traditional’ bullying and how their child’s school has dealt with it. Long story short my 5 year old daughters life is being made a misery by a very controlling child who for want of a better description is showing obsessive tendencies towards her. It is apparent that the school do not know how to deal with this child as she is not adhering to the steps that they have put in place to protect my child so it seems that they are changing tactics now and insinuating that my child and I are the problem. At first they were saying that they could not follow up any problems unless my daughter reported everything at the time. My daughter has been reporting all issues and last week was told twice by various staff to basically stop telling tales! I first reported these issues before Christmas and this child is still mentally pecking away at my daughter. The latest thing the school want to try is sending my child on a course to teach her strategies on how to cope with what the child is doing to her! I have refused these on the basis that they are simply looking for an easy way out rather than dealing with the behavior this child is showing. The child has not physically attacked my child however she has attacked other children who try and sit next to or play with my child. AIBU for expecting the school to stop putting all of the onus on my child to ‘fix’ the issue? Any advice appreciated!

Oh there is a long list! At first it was small things like ‘no two girls are allowed to sit together today’ if my child sat next to another child. Once my child was told it was teachers who set rules not other children she would drag other children away if they tried to sit next to my daughter. If my child tried to earn reward points the child would say don’t you dare put your hand up. Once my child tried to break away the girl was saying she would tell everyone that my child was kissing another girl when she had tried to remove fluff from another girls face. She would then tell my child that she overheard teachers and dinner ladies saying that they hate my child. That’s a few examples off the top of my head

So the other child has 'a need' to bully and control ops dd, and that's equal to not wanting to be bullied or controlled?

They have said that they cannot classify it as ‘bullying’ as the girl is struggling without having access to my daughter and the situation needs time and to put my trust in them.

Your daughter is not this child's comfort blanket. Dd is suffering at the expense of the school keeping X child happy. This child is causing harm to your dd. It is affecting her day to day wellbeing. It IS bullying.

Put in a formal complaint to OFSTED.
And consider moving dd to another school.

That is exactly what I am trying to avoid! When I raised this as a concern I was told oh your daughter doesn’t strike us as volatile! I said she is not but she is being provoked constantly and although she has not done anything in retaliation as of yet I do not want her being constantly backed into a corner!

Whilst your initial sentiment to let the girl play and include her was meant kindly it sounds like this girl needs very firm boundaries and it’s actually kinder if your dc just avoids her completely and school do upmost to keep them apart.
There’s obviously something going on with the girl whether she has a diagnosis or not. Keep your focus of discussions on your dd and impact it’s having on her physically and mentally.

It is obsessive control. It will wear OP’s daughter down. When it’s happening to you you feel so alone that no one is seeing it and coming to help you. It’s like wading through treacle every day. Your concerns about how uncomfortable it’s making you are laughed off.

This with bells on x

Absolutely. And people wonder why females end up as support humans!!

Children who are in/have been through the care system often do what this child is doing. We fostered two baby boys. One moved on to be adopted elsewhere; we adopted the other. Our son used to follow boys who resembled our other foster son. It was heartbreaking. I have heard many cases of this with children in care.

I know this doesn’t help your daughter, but it might explain the behaviour, and if this were to be the case, the school needs to do much more to support the other child.

I completely agree. I have been having light hearted conversations with my daughter on how she would feel about the possibility of a new school but she is saying that she likes her class teacher and her other friends. One part of me wants to swoop in and remove her from the situation and another part of me is thinking she will potentially come across other children like this and to be honest my post was to gauge if this seems to be the way schools deal with issues these days as it could be an ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’ situation if I move her as opposed to keeping on the schools case

At the beginning I was very vocal in asking if anyone is actually guiding the other child and explaining to her why the measures have been in place as opposed to just expecting this child to stay away from her without breaking it down for her! Obviously they cannot tell me that but I was getting the impression that they was almost dangling my child like a carrot giving the other. Hold hope that she can be ‘friends’ with her once everything had blown over. I don’t think anyone was expecting the child to react in the way that she has

I would question whether they really truly understand what they are saying

Do they not see that if a child is so obsessed with another child then this is where professional help is needed.

Your child isn’t this child’s therapy pet.

I would ask that maybe if this child can’t keep away from your child and there boundaries aren’t working then maybe for everyone’s safety you keep your child off school for a few weeks for this child to go cold turkey and maybe find someone else to obsess about.

Two weeks off at Easter hols may help.
Is your dd friendly with others in class. Maybe try to meet up or play dates with them to reinforce the positive friendships.

You are not the first person who has suggested that in terms of keeping my child off and impacting their attendance figures to see if that gets a different response from them - certainly food for thought

Yes luckily she has other friends which has been our only saving grace in this otherwise I genuinely don’t know how she would have coped.

I had something like this with dd around the same age.

There were 2 classes of 30 pupils each in her year group at primary school

Dds class was really lovely

The other class reduced to 20 children by the time they started year 3

The children were moved between classes so each class had 25 children each.

one child was moved from the lower numbered class to her class. Within days this 8year old was showing that she had a problem. She was obsessed with death and watching someone die. Brought knives into school and targeted dd
DD was frightened of this child but the school refused to do anything about this child’s behaviour and issues. I was told they couldn’t expel her as she was in the catchment area for the school. (Bit of a dig at me and our housing situation which is too long to go into)

I ended up pulling dd out of the school. Within a few weeks someone else had pulled their child out of the school as this girl had started to target their dc

Going into year 5 there were only 12 pupils left in that class

Don’t know what happened but it was at this stage that this girl was taken out of school. Don’t know if her parents moved house or they had been persuaded to remove her because the situation was untenable

I always wonder where she is now and what happened to her. Just for safety’s sake

As I said I removed my child but from the schools pov it didn’t remove the problem

Bear in mind one day the pest will pick the wrong victim and they’ll come unstuck. That could be many years hence though. I really feel for your little one. The school experience is being ruined. No doubt the kid will go on to cause problems in every environment it finds itself. I suppose you could approach the parents but I think you’d have to have a strong stomach for that. I wish you well x

That’s absolutely shocking! How scary for you both

I have approached both of the parents before the situation got to this point and before I realised exactly what was happening and my child started opening up more. I said to the dad I feel like there’s some tension between the girls can we maybe work together to try and resolve it and he said that his daughter was very jealous that my daughter wanted to be friends with other children and that he had told her that’s not right but he didn’t know how to cope with girls problems. I said I would speak to his wife and we could get to the bottom of what was happening. I approached the mum and she was very nonchalant and was shrugging her shoulders and couldn’t have looked less interested if she tried. That’s when I approached the school for support.

The mother couldn’t care less could she. Neither parent cares. The school certainly doesn’t care. The kid has deffo got some sort of issues that need to be recognised and dealt with. As I said earlier, to not deal with this creates so many problems for so many people going forward. It did in my office and now I’m not there any more I’m sure it still is x

That’s the thing children need guidance, my child is no saint and parents who believe their children are will be setting their children up for a fall! I guide my child constantly and tell her what she could maybe do differently in situations but it appears that this mother was happier shrugging than maybe having to have a difficult conversation with her daughter x

In that case complain that the behaviour of another child is affecting the mental health of your own child and that the school is dismissing this or not taking steps to ensure her mental wellbeing. Maybe see whether that falls under safeguarding and use that route. Indeed report immediately to the designated safeguarding lead.

Brilliant advice- thankyou! I will look into this and ask for who the appropriate contact would be

A similar thing happened to my daughter in Reception. She was only 4 (June), the other girl was 5 (Sept). This girl latched onto my daughter and was completely obsessive. She would tell my daughter she wasn’t allowed to play with other children and stopped them from playing with her. I was told that ‘X said we are now allowed to play with Y’. Worse than that she said horrible things to my daughter. That her school bag was babyish, that she wasn’t clever, that no one else would want to play with her, etc.
The school were useless as they said it wasn’t bullying if my daughter chose to play with her. At this point she had been brain washed into thinking she had no other option.
i encouraged lots of play dates but it carried on. My daughter realised that this girl wasn’t a friend but she was still not allowed to leave her.
It dragged on so I decided to have a chat with the other mum. This went down like a lead balloon but in a way it did make the situation turn a corner. I guess they told their daughter to leave mine alone. My daughter gained good friends and started sticking up for herself more. She was still only 4 by the time it was resolved.
It was a tough time and we did consider leaving the school over it, I’m just glad we came through it.