to tell ds to hit this little boy back??

[Nemoandthefishes]

little boy in ds class has been badly bullying one of ds friends for the last couple of months. However today he decided to punch ds in the stomach and then told him not to tell, so ds didnt until he punched him in the stomach again at which point he told the teacher whose answer was 'oh just ignore him'. So I have told ds if the little boy punches him again to hit him back usually I wouldnt have said this but ds has already been through a bullying incident since sept and only just got it sorted about 2 weeks ago.

I was often bullied (wouldn't have been called that then) in school. I never, ever retaliated with violence. I always, always used words or walked away from the situation and told a teacher. As a result it never escalated. The bullies got bored because I wouldn't play the game. Persistent bullying is a real problem and it and the bullies need dealing with. Hitting back validates their initial action. You need to break the cycle and address the reasons for the bullying. Especially where bullies are picking on children with disabilities for example. There very clearly needs to be a whole school policy promoting disability awareness and so on. You need to get to the root of the problem rather than joining in with it!

You're the one not discussing being hit. The child in the OP was hit more than once and scared into not telling the teacher.

I was bullied physically and verbally. I ignored the names, you can still call me whatever and it doesn't bother me. I will make sure my children grow up knowing that some people say silly things and you ignore it because it doesn't mean anything but tell the teacher if they're getting annoying (cause it is hard when it's every second of a school day having someone following you around and saying things). I ignored the physical bullying for a long time too, I let my parents deal with that but at the end of the day it was adults talking to each other and not a lot more! I hit back when I was 14, I was surrounded by a crowd of girls shouting at me, I ignored them until they got fed up and one hit me. I hit back. I was never hit again.

My children will know it doesn't matter what poeple say, but you don't ignore hitting. I'll tell them what I tell people who hit me, you get one chance then you walk away because hit me twice and I finish it and I only hit once. I will not have a child of mine standing or lying on the floor whilst others hit them. I also will not tolerate bullying from my children and I know enough to know you don't always know your children well enough to know they wouldn't do that. Although from the reports I've had back about Tink I don't have much to worry about she can stand up for herself without being nasty or hitting.

fivecandles so wtf do you do when it is not the child with the disability being bullied, instead the bully uses their sisters disability as their weapon..the school do nothing, should my ds stand there and let some $$$$$ callo his sister a spaz??
I don't think so.

You're just not listening. Of course you don't do nothing. That's ridiculous and I've never suggested that. What you don't do is stoop to the level of using violence to solve your quarrels because that's exactly what the bully is doing in the first place. You follow procedures. You go to the teacher. You can hardly blame the school if they don't know there's a problem. Then you go the Head. Then you get the support of other parents and you got to the Governors. You do not join in with the bad behaviour.

And, let me tell, you in all my years experience as a teacher and every teacher I've known I've never seen this thing where one person standing up the bully has a miraculous effect. The bullies just come back try different tactics or move on to another victim but more typically it isn't a question of one person in the right and the other in the wrong in the first place. Violence and bullying typically occurs after a build up of misunderstandings or bad feeling. Once somebody hits back you've not got a bully hitting someone anymore you've got a fight. It escalates. Violence never solves problems. Even if you think you've stopped the bully attacking you or your child they've probably just moved on and nobody's attitude has been changed. In fact, as I've said you've just played their game. You've joined in. Which is exactly what they wanted. In effect, they've won.

rubbish

And 2shoes your example is one where very clearly attitudes need to be changed. The school needs to improve their inclusive learning policy and improve attitudes to disability.

Any school which doesn't handle parents concerns properly is not a school I would want my child to attend. So as a last resort I would always take my kids out of the school rather than resort to the sorts of actions that were causing the problems in the first place!

If you live on a council estate where there's vandalism do you tell your kids to stand up to it by joining in?

If one of your kids is irritating or hitting the other do you tell them to hit back?

Of course you don't. If you're a responsble parent you teach your kids right and wrong. You have rules - no graffiti, no hitting. You teach them other ways to manage their feelings and if they can't you step in to protect them.

If my kids ever hit another child (unless it was a matter of preserving their lives obviously) it wouldn't matter what the circumstances. Hitting is wrong. Full stop. End of. Yes, if they'd been provoked by name calling or whatever else I might have more sympathy but I would still repeat the same message. Hitting is wrong. There are better ways of dealing with problems.

What's rubbish?

'I was often bullied (wouldn't have been called that then) in school. '

bloody hell,how olda re you?It definitely was when I was in school and I am ancient!

But that's a dangerous strategy isn't it Riven? Even if you had no objection on principle to advising your child to use violence (not you personally anyone) how can you sure it won't escalate to a fight or to the bully changing tactic or enlisting mates or even pulling out a weapon? Or moving on to another victim?

when you are the victim, you don't really care about who is the next victim, just as long as it is not you.
it is fine for an adult to preach what is right and wrong, from the safety of the staff room, but when you are 11 and don't have that sanctuary.....not so easy.

The next victim is someone else's child!

And quite possibly your best mate. If you don't care you ought to. And, once again,that's our responsibility as parents to make our children aware that they are part of a community and their actions have consequences. TBH I can't believe some of the stuff I'm hearing here. No bloody wonder our lives are so hard as teachers!

And when you're 11 your sanctuary should be your teachers and your parents who should protect you and give you advice about handling conflict or handle it for you not advise you to give as good as you get! Sheesh!

lol

But 5 Candles, I know there are other ways. I am not advocating just responding with violence ? just that in certain situations, like the OP, it is justified. We all use multi strategies to get out of tricky situations and I personablly believe are better empowered if we know more rather than less. Simply repeating a pacifistic mantra like ?hitting always bad? (which is what you were saying ?either hitting is bad or it isn?t???) to a child is only going to confuse and disempower it when its in a very tight spot. ?Teach them to hit and you are teaching them that violence resolves problems. It doesn't.? Well, actually, this isn?t cut and dry because sometimes it does solve a problem. It?s teaching them when it?s justified that is the tricky part.

I am responding to the OP. The child was attacked, the teacher was unhelpful. If the child is confident enough to stick up for himself, let him do it and then he will learn from any repercussions after ? as will the parent. That?s all I?m saying, and feel my position has been misrepresented too, to be frank.

Why the fuck do people constantly extrapolate the most absurd inferences from totally non-ambigous statements on here? I am getting very fucked off with this idiot tendency.

Yes, Riven, of course I mean that you should "allow yourself to be bullied" becasue I am obvioulsy a fucking maniac.

Not all bullying happens at school! There isn't always a teacher and a policy. Anyone has a right to defend themselves.

Sorry, Riven, I got the wrong end of the stick. Been prodded with a sharp one lately and it's made me a bit jumpy. Much apoligies.

Nemo, I would go to the boy's parents as a last resort. That is what I had to do when ds was rolled in dog poo on school premises by known older thug+sidekick. School 'talked' to boys but refused to tell parents on the grounds that it would 'upset them for nothing.'

When I said if school does not tell, then I will, thug turned into blubbering wreck. Which did make me wonder what he expected to happen to him at home, but entirely stopped bullying.

I dont know why schools dont tell parents

I know its different with ds1 as he genuinely cant help being aggressive (AS) but schooloften take this dont tell the aprents so we dont upset them tack with him and whilst its kindly meant, how can I do anyhting about it if I dont know?

5candles - in theory I believe that all violence is wrong and that there should always be an an alternative way to resolve conflicts. However, experience says that there is not. I have been down the road of telling teachers and adults and it has had no effect. They cannot be there all of the time and no-agressive conflict resolution requires both parties to be complicit in it otherwise you end up with even more sustained bullying.

You cannot draw parallels between what children do and what adults do. Adults have learned self-restraint and that actions have consequences. Of course I would not hit someone in a work context and if someone hit me, they would be carted away by the police. This is not what happens with children - they do not have the same level of restraint or the same consequences which apply to them.

But it is up to their parents to teach them that self restraint and that actions have conseqentions.