to think that DS has been given dodgy advice at his anti-bullying day?

[LadyBlaBlah]

They have been told that if they are bullied, they must just walk away.

I think that is shite advice and sometimes you need to stick up for yourself and answer or hit back.

It is much more complicated than "just walk away" and indeed that may make the situation worse.

Agree that they need to be assertive. I tell mine that they need to say "I don't like it when you do that. It's not nice". But I do also tell DD1 to walk aware or ignore DD2 when she is winding her up. I agree that it is not straightforward

Spot on Mutt!

My DS has been picked on by the same boy for 2 years. Since he was small I have said "don't hit back/run away/tell the teacher" but I have recently modified this to "if he is hitting you then you can push him away" (my DS will NOT hit back as he thinks the rules are the rules and he does not get why other kids break the rules...).

Anyway was discussing this with his new teacher who said she could not condone that (the pushing away) and my response was "i'm not asking you to!". The teacher said he could do blocking moves to stop the blows but her suggestions were victim like and quite frankly ridiculous.

Honestly, the world has gone mad!

Argh it's such a hard one.

One of my (I say 'my' I'm a student teacher so it's really my mentor's) tutor group gets quite badly bullied. He's in year ten (so 14/15) but really tiny, pale and generally would look like a classic target.

I've heard him giving mouth back to the bullies while in the safety of the classroom, but what goes on outside of school, who can tell.

It's almost tempting to tell him just to get a very large friend to teach them a swift lesson, but obviously I couldn't and wouldn't do that.

Lynette is spot on. DD2 has been there and got the T shirt. She reported bullying, got told to walk away, it was ignored, she kept reporting, still ignored so she lashed out - now she's in deep mire and she and I are the bad guys.

I haven't the answer and am drowning in the politics of it all, in tears of frustration and guilt and DD2s in a mess.

The classic in her case was when she was spat at in the face by a boy in class. The TA told her to sit down and not to worry about it!

Has she pre-empted her and gone to the housemistress first?

It amazes me how shit schools seem to be in dealing with bullying situations. All the support systems seem to be directed to the 'poor' bully who must have had something awful happen to them in the past to make them behave that way. BOLLOX. Some kids are just downright nasty little feckers who need a line drawing and clear boundries placed on their behavior. This bully as victim attitude is somehting that seems to permeate our society now and (imo) is why our prisons are full of violent young men and women who have no idea about respect for other people or property.

So so deeply shocked at the teacher who 'couldn't' condone self defense. That school is allowing one if its pupils to be beaten on a regular basis. I would be involving the police and possibly the newspapers - or at least threatening to do so.

It's utter crap that bullying is a normal part of socialisation and all about establishing social structure - another feeble argument I've heard proferred by a headmaster

Bit of a rant for this time in the morning but comes from personal experience, professional experience and maternal worry now DS has started school.

Returning to the OP, what would you have had the school tell the kids? I'm at a loss what to tell ds - walk, fight or defend? He shouldn't have to make those sort of decisions at 5 as all the kids should be properly supervised at all times.