Child wrongly accused of gossiping about a parent by TA

[FireBreathingDragon]

Am I overreacting about this?

My ten year old has been bullied for a while by another girl who hits her, verbal insults etc. Teachers have told my daughter she needs to hit her back (which shows how bad the bullying is) but my daughter can’t / won’t as is very gentle natured. She’s the most placid kid and will not hurt anyone.

Yesterday at sports day the mother of this (bully) child claimed my daughter was gossiping about her, the mother?!! She told a teaching assistant that my daughter was even saying her name (totally impossible - we don’t even know the mother’s name). My daughter was pulled aside and given a talking to, asking what she was saying about the mother.

I wasn’t at the sports day so my daughter was outnumbered and totally bewildered as hadn’t been saying a word about that mother or any other. She’s totally, one hundred percent, telling the truth about this.

I feel the teaching assistant was wrong to even entertain this nonsense from the mother and should have calmed it down rather than pulling my child aside in front of the mother and questioning her with:

‘Do you know X’s mother’s name?’
’Why were you discussing her?’
’What were you saying?’

I went in all guns blazing with emails to
the staff member and teacher and want to make sure I am not overreacting. I am not placid like my daughter 🤭

Thanks for taking your time to read this.

You need to report the teacher telling her to hit back because their advice puts all the onus on your child to sort it out, which is ridiculous.

Speaking as a TA, I believe the TA was in the wrong here. I would find it strange that a grown adult was bothered about hurty words from a primary aged child and wonder if there was a hidden agenda. I would speak to the class teacher but better still, the head. I would also not blindly believe one side over the other, even if one was an adult.

This is the most batshit advice I've ever read on Mumsnet.

'If you're being bullied, hit them with a shoe.'

Ok then

Reported as unnecessary personal attack

If my child was questioned about being rude/gossiping about the parent of a bully, I'd be in contact with school to find out what had happened.

And I'd seize the opportunity to discuss the ongoing bullying. Why aren't school sorting it? Telling your DD to hit them is not the answer.

But baselessly accusing OP of doing nothing while her daughter is bullied and blaming her for the fact her daughter needs therapy is not a personal attack?

your d wouldn't be in the situation of needing therapy for bullying because you would have sorted it out by now

I'm sure this butter-wouldn't-melt PP is grateful you came to their rescue 🙄

Feel free to report any posts which you see as not following the Talk Guidelines, obviously the one I did was correctly reported as it's now gone.

If it stops the bully, then good

There is absolutely no way a teacher would tell her to hit back, and there is no chance her therapist would either. Assuming, just to humour you, that there was a teeny tiny minute chance that a rogue teacher said this, the chance that her therapist also said it, ie 2 rogue professionals makes it totally implausible. Your DD is a liar.

People always assume hitting back will stop the bully, but just as likely is the scenario that it will escalatethe violence and put the Op's dd at risk of serious injury

Really?

I agree it seems unlikely. But "your DD is a liar" is unnecessarily confrontational.

I disagree. Most bullies are cowards, and if a child hits them back they will not trouble that child again. They will probably turn their attention to someone else though.

Schools are mostly rubbish at dealing with bullying. They seem to have restorative justice approaches which focus on trying to get the bully to understand the hurt they have caused - which strikes me as utterly pointless as the bullies know exactly what they’re doing. Equipping your child to hit back if necessary is essential. In my DSs’ cases it seems to have been sufficient that they did martial arts. Everyone knew they did and they were never harassed. DS2 might well have been if not for that, but every lad at his school knew that DS2 would have had him flat on the floor if he’d tried anything.

It's hardly a drip feed, her having a therapist doesn't change any of the OP at all.

If you’re being physically assaulted hit them back. Age old advice.

And disputing that a teacher would tell a child to hit back is not convincing. I’m sure plenty would - quietly. There must be plenty of teachers who are very frustrated by the lack of serious attention given to bullying in their school.

I was surprised by responses on a thread about a male teacher telling a parent how he’d fancied her after parents evening. Apparently that kind of unprofessional behaviour was not remotely surprising to other teachers.

I think it probably does break the talk guidelines, but I'm not the thread police and don't feel inclined to be reporting people for minor infringements. Sometimes it's better to let people's characters be seen.

I just found it interesting that you felt such a strong moral obligation to act against a flippant comment about alcohol - and further, felt the need to advertise the fact that you had so virtuously reported it - and not the genuinely vicious and personal accusation that person had made against OP about her child's therapy and bullying.

If this is true it is all terrible.
Teachers do not tell children to hit back. That is completely unprofessional and a teacher saying that would be acting completely against teaching standards
And no TAs I know would behave in such a manner either. It's also odd for a parent to complain to a TA after overheating a child saying something about them.
It's all extremely odd. What type of school is it and in which country?

Report or don't report then, I'm not sure why this is such a big deal for you?

🤔

It's not. I was just idly curious about the obvious double standard 🤷 but you've dodged the query twice now and I'm bored of the exchange. Have a nice day!

I told you up thread I didn't drink and your comment was deleted.
Seems like you are bullying me on here.😄

Get a grip, active bullying from one child to another is hardly the same as a ten year old "bullying" a grown woman without even having any direct interaction.

Apart from the fact that a 10 year old can hardly bully a grown adult, the school doesn’t have a duty of care to the parent, only the pupils.

My DD’s teacher told the kids in their class that they are allowed to defend themselves so if X is attacking them they can hit him to get away. It’s possible that it was phrased more like that!?

Standing up to the bully might mean telling a teacher immediately after play time in front of the bully. That was effective for my other Dd.

The cornering at sports day is weird and inappropriate.