DC accused of bullying

[PeachyPotatoes]

I received a text on Friday evening from a parent at my daughter’s school. She got my number from a nursery group chat. She alleged that my daughter, 7, is bullying her daughter who is in the same class by; kicking her under the table, bumping into her deliberately, inviting her over to play they telling her to go away, and the worst of all, throwing her lunchbox across the playground after inviting her to sit with her and her two friends.
I was absolutely shocked by these allegations; my daughter is kind and friendly, confident and just lovely. However, I’m not there at school, so I told the Mother I would speak with my DC.
I asked DC what she thought about this other girl in the first instance. She said she was “alright” but that they weren’t friends. I asked if anything had happened between them. She described the lunchbox incident, but said it was another child who had done it and my DC had helped pick up the contents of the lunchbox. I then explained this child was going home upset every day after school, allegedly because of her. DC had no idea why she would say that.
I then phoned the Mother and outlined what my DC had said. The Mother was friendly, but adamant that my DC was systematically bullying her DC. I advised her to contact the school, as this is where these alleged incidents have taken place. I also emailed the school to inform them.
The school replied and said they were completely unaware of any issues between the two DC and had any of that been going on, the teacher would have seen it. They advised my DC to speak with the teacher should anything happen with the other DC.

I’m so taken aback by all of this. Firstly that the Mother, who I don’t know, got my number from a completely unrelated source. Secondly the allegations which are awful. When I spoke with my DC regarding this, I warned her should anything be happening at all, it ends now. She assured me nothing is happening.

Im absolutely torn. I believe my DC, but I’m of course concerned for the other DCs welfare. The school are keeping a close eye. If my DC is innocent, why have these allegations been made? According to the Mother, she has been discussing this with other parents. I’m not happy my DC has been labelled a bully when there is no evidence. Where do I take it from here?

Aibu to believe my DC?

Surely this is the worst, most selfish thing to do?

Realistically you need to tell her to speak to the school.

My child has a "friend" who is a bit prone to bully behaviour, ive reported to the school every time. At this age some kids just need more support with learning to control their emotions and behaving appropriately. I wouldn't go to the mother as both of us will have a bias, school is a neutral third party who can help both girls

I think you've done what you can, and the school now needs to monitor the situation.

It's important to keep an open mind about what may or may not be happening. No parent would ever want to believe that their child was capable of bullying, but we know it happens. At the same time, we know that kids are sometimes wrongly accused as well. So I wouldn't come down on either side just yet.

You've made it clear that, if there is anything going on, it needs to stop. And you've handed it over to the school. There isn't much else you can do at this point.

I think the other mother handled it badly by approaching you instead of going directly to the school. And she shouldn't be gossiping about your dd to other parents but there isn't much you can do about that.

For the time being, I would just keep a watchful eye and see how things pan out.

Agree. The school need to handle it, but as parents we also need to monitor and respond to our children's behaviour. No child is an angel all the time, and as parents we need to be honest.

My oldest punched a child in year 1. The teacher called me to tell me, saying 'I know you won't believe me but your daughter just hit a child, we were shocked, she is so sweet' - My response was 'I absolutely believe you, she has a temper on her and I'm guessing its (name of child) who has been winding her up for ages, but it's not ok to hit and I will be talking with her at home'. Teachers are primed to expect not to be believed, and some parents get aggressive when its suggested that their little darling isn't perfect.

My daughter was bullied by 2 children in year 2. Both parents were made aware. 1 parent was 'I'm really sorry, I will deal with this', the child was made to come round and apologise- and it stopped, and now in year 6 they are great friend's.

The other child's mum is a bit of a bully herself tbh, and said her daughter would never do such a thing, and she is still causing issues now.

"I was actually helping her pick up her thrown belongings"...sorry but this is classic bully behaviour - admits to being there but is careful to portray herself as the helper to wilfully blind mumsy.

If the teachers saw then you have nothing to worry about in regards to that incident.

I thought they saw nothing though? Or weren't aware of any issues?

Storm in a tea cup. The children should be separated in the classroom, both mums and the internet need to step back and chill. Class teacher should do a group session on kindness and different kinds of a 'bullying' so children learn social awareness. The End.

Look, the mum should have raised it with the school, and in your shoes, I would have spoken to DC and relayed to the mother a bland response like "Thank you for raising this, I've discussed with DC and relayed to the school with the expectation that this will be resolved".

Im.sure ill get pounced on for saying it, but some mums vicariously bully other mums under the guise of "defending" their child and that may or may not be what's happening here; you'll likely find that out in due course from whether other mums experience the same from her.

All you can do is engage positively with the school, ask for the kids to be kept apart, and make sure your child has plenty of other strong friendships.

At 7, this is not necessarily a big deal but it does need to be sorted out so that the other child feels happy and secure. It doesn't matter how lovely your child is, if they're making another child unhappy in some way, you need to take action.

While it's very uncomfortable to suspect that your child might be bullying other children, you need to be alert to signs of this and understand that they may not frame it to themselves as 'bullying', they may think of it as justified dislike or play gone too far.

I have a similar aged child who is socially confident and sure of himself. I've always been told he's a lovely boy by everyone, but last year I became aware, just by listening to what he was saying, that he was engaging in behaviour that might be making another child in the class unhappy. The teachers and parents of the child never mentioned anything about it to me, I just picked it up from chatting to my DS about his day. A certain child was mentioned frequently as being 'annoying', everyone had told him to 'be quiet' in class because he was saying things that everyone already knew and DS hadn't wanted to play with him at break time. Fine, you might think, kids can play with who they want, but DS is very tall for his age and has a lot of influence over some of the other children. Which skews the power dynamic somewhat.

It was hard to unpick because DS didn't frame what he was doing as 'bullying' in his mind. But he was crossing a line imo and I was worried about the other child being miserable at school as a result. So we talked a lot about it, and how he might be feeling, and eventually we ended up inviting the boy to DS's party and they had a couple of playdates together which seems to have solved the issue. Although not best friends, they respect and tolerate each other now.

My eldest punched someone in class a few years back. Much older, teens involved. I absolutely bollocked him because you don't punch people, but I also know you don't punch people for no reason unless there is something spectacularly wrong with you.

Turns out the other chap was always titting about and had whipped DS in the face with a leather belt. He hadn't meant too, but was pretending, then judged the distance wrong and full on welted across his face.

DS jumped up and the chap, threw a chair at DS to try and escape past him and missed then threw a swing at him but missed.

DS did not miss.

The other chaps parents tried to have DS expelled. They fully believed their son's account being "DS just punched me in the face.".

They "knew" when their son was lying too. Listen to the facts, not the voice of DD trying to get out of the shit.

I think you did the right thing saying you would speak to your child about it. That's all you can do, realistically. I would not expect more than that type of acknowledgement, had I sent you the text message.

I disagree with those that say the other parent was wrong to approach you. Why are people so terrified to actually speak to one another now? As long as she approached you in a reasonable manner, which you say she did, there's no issue. She made you aware of a problem. It's now up to you to deal with it. She may have approached the school many times about the issue, which remains unresolved. That's certainly the approach of DS's school.

Personally, I would email the school and describe the lunchbox incident, as it would support the other parent's claim that these incidents are happening and have happened in front of witnesses.

Perhaps your school really is good at managing bullying, but it's ridiculous for the teacher to say they would have noticed the behaviour mentioned. Teachers are not always in the class, they don't notice everything, in many schools they don't do playground duty, so there are actually ample opportunities for some kids to bully others and not be seen. Even when other children see the bullying, if they aren't tough kids, they run away because they don't want to get involved, and they won't tell the teacher for the same reason. That's our experience, anyway.

Bullying nowadays is vastly different to what it may have been for some us in the 70s/80s/90s. (As an example, whilst kids may have had occasional spats with each other at my schools, it was never physical and never sustained. There was 1 yr 6 kid who used to try to steal lunch from the other kids by threatening them, but he never actually followed through. My kid has to put up with daily verbal assaults, kids ganging up on him in the playground and screaming into his face for so long that he's quite literally a crying mess who then can't attend afternoon class because he's so terrified and overwhelmed; physical assaults where they hold him down on the ground and throw hard objects at his head; theft of his wheelchair and other personal items; insults over his disabilities and regular physical assault like punching him and pushing him down the stairs. The school refuses to do anything.)

It's never a storm in a tea cup, but the sort of behaviour described here certainly isn't. If you had a colleague who regularly kicked you or punched you at work, belittled you, isolated you from others and threw your personal belongings around, would you just say, 'oh that Geoff, he's such a kidder' and carry on with your day? Or would you report them to your manager/HR and expect serious consequences for their actions?

We that's a concrete and independent source of information to take back to the school "two teachers Miss X and Miss Y saw the lunchbox incident occur" and inform the other child's mother too if need be.

Completely wrong of the other mother to be bad mouthing or spreading stories about your DD, I too would be very annoyed about that.

I would believe my child 100%. Certainly until/unless another 3rd party gave me reason to suspect any truth in what this other mother is accusing.

A good friend once phoned me saying her daughter was upset with my son over something that happened at school that day. My son gave me a different account, involving someone else. I called my friend back to relay my sons version and actually heard my friend's daughter in the background go quiet and admit that was, in fact, how it had happened.

You don't know this woman, OP but you know your child and she deserves your complete backing. You can rethink this if presented with more evidence to make you think otherwise.

Fair enough, but if anyone accused my daughter of bullying I would bet my house on it not being true, and that she would tell the truth because some children are actually honest.

It is also entirely possible that the other parent’s daughter is lying, but you think we should believe her and not OP’s daughter? I was accused of bullying in high school and it was utter bollocks. I hadn't spoken to the girl, our paths never crossed out of class times. Turns out she really wanted to be friends with me and another girl and she knew if she accused us of bullying the school’s policy was to sit the kids involved together in class. It was very weird, but I was polite and chatty to her, worked with her in class etc. When she still wasn’t invited to join us out of class, she complained again, but this time I was ready for it and told the guidance teacher if she couldn’t come up with any specific instances, I’d be carrying on as I was. She eventually found some friends and left me alone.

Or, the woman has trawled back to a 4 year old WhatsApp group based on the information her daughter gave her and has entirely the wrong end of the stick.

Yes all of this.

My daughter was physically assaulted by another child in school.

But there was absolutely more to the story than that.

As there always is.

The thing is I didn’t expect my daughter was an angel in the story and the more I allowed her to be her full self the more of the story that came out.

There were many lessons for my daughter to learn as part of that “bullying” experience and I think it is best to be as open as possible so that kids learn them.

Years on those kids are still in each others orbit and now get along just fine too. Also a possible outcome.

Oh OK, if two teachers saw the incident then what's the problem? I assumed it was one child's word against another's. Surely this should be easy to sort out if two teachers witnessed it and know who threw the lunchbox?

What on earth are you talking about?

The classroom teacher hasn’t witnessed any bullying going on. The two “teachers” who witnessed the incident with the lunchbox may have been PSA’s (to my DC they’re all teachers). The child who threw the lunchbox was spoken to by an adult who was there at the time. Obviously this wasn’t passed on to SLT and my daughter wasn’t named as the perpetrator as she wasn’t the person who did it.

Calling someone a liar is pretty absurd.

I agree. It seems that nobody passed this onto SLT at the time, so it’s one child’s word against another (according to the other Mother).

Bullying in 70s/80s/90s was just as bad, I know.

My kid has to put up with daily verbal assaults, kids ganging up on him in the playground and screaming into his face for so long that he's quite literally a crying mess who then can't attend afternoon class because he's so terrified and overwhelmed; physical assaults where they hold him down on the ground and throw hard objects at his head; theft of his wheelchair and other personal items; insults over his disabilities and regular physical assault like punching him and pushing him down the stairs. The school refuses to do anything.)
I hope you are dealing with? I don’t recall saying that all types of bullying are storms in a teacups. My comment was specifically in relation to the OP’s situation. The teacher should separate these 2 so they aren’t sitting at the same table, run sessions on kindness and different types of bullying, and help the children understand how their behaviour can make others feel. 7 year olds are work in progress. Teachers generally know how to deal with this.
If it doesn't stop, they will have to rearrange the classes.

One of my then primary-aged DC was physically assaulted every day for half a term by another boy. That same child also cut a girl’s ponytail off and, on another occasion, shoved my DC while they were washing their hands, causing them to fall against the basin and cut their lip.

The headteacher was, unfortunately useless and seemed more interested in trying to pull the wool over our eyes and fobbing us off. Thankfully, there was a great SENCO team (thank you, Mrs W 💙) and I knew how to raise and sustain the complaints against that child.

After several meetings and another half term of ongoing incidents, the child eventually moved schools. This was due to the extreme nature of their behaviour. Hopefully he moved to special school so he could be helped too.

Youve done more than i would have. Id have just sent her a message saying ill speak to the school and let them look into it.

And did you let the school know who your daughter named? If what your daughter is saying is true, then doing so will help clear her name.

If your daughter genuinely is 'lovely and kind' and definitely not the bully, can she actively befriend this child if they are a bit isolated? Bully's generally pick on the more isolated child. It's nearly always a power play - trying to make themselves feel or appear more powerful by picking on someone they perceive to be weaker, or taking down someone who they perceive as a threat.

Personally I think the other mum did the right thing. She has drawn it to your attention and you have spoken to your daughter and if she is indeed the bully hopefully this will end the incidents with the other girl. Bullies don't like being confronted.
For what it's worth my child too was adorable kind loveable empathetic as a young teenager. She was accused of a 'revenge attack' on someone's property. They later made friends again. I had believed what she had told me and got involved. Couple of decades later she told me the truth - kids lie -

Ultimately, these kids are 7 and it's the responsibility of both the school and the class parents collectively to make sure that school is a happy experience for all the children in each class, as far as it can be. Throwing around words like 'bully' is always emotive, but if a child in the class is unhappy and being targeted for whatever reason and your DD is apparently involved, then you do have a responsibility to help get to the bottom of it and understand what is going wrong in terms of the dynamic between these children.

You'll be doing your own DD a favour as well, because being part of creating a culture where parents are concerned about all the children, not just their own, and take responsibility for ensuring a nice atmosphere for all of them in their school life will benefit her as well as the other girl.