To be f*cking p*ssed off and angry when schools refuse to deal with bullying

[AgentZigzag]

I'm sick of hearing about children who have to put up with this shit.

Why the fuck is it still going on??

More details, please.

It's a problem in every school, my son was constantly bullied for years and i was made to feel like i was the problem until a incident in the playground with me and bully's mum, then it was sorted and stopped.

Maybe say you are going to confront their parents then they might pull their finger out.

Echt, there are so many threads about it on here, there's a fucking topic called 'Bullying'.

I can think of 2 in the past 2 days and I'm sure I've missed some.

My ds was bullied. The school made us feel that it was his personality and his failings that was the problem (when he was 6 )

We moved school, they take it completely seriously, problem solved.

Different schools have different attitudes to bullying. Mention bringing the police into it if they are being completey useless, I'm sure it'll sharpen them up!

You're right. And right to be incandescent with rage.

My daughter was bullied last autumn, badly, called unspeakable names, and was pushed and shoved and her bag ransacked, and just terrorised really. The school's response was just to give me lip service. DD was told to 'avoid' the troublemakers, it ended up she spent all her time in internal exclusion because she was too scared to go to the classroom (not normally a timid girl). It got to the point that she cried on the whole 30 min journey to school and begged us not to make her go.

Had to move her school in the end. As horrible as it was it was the best thing I did for her - she is incredibly happy now. But it was torture for her at the time, and her confidence took a long time to get back.

In my experience many schools are very competent at talking the talk re bullying, but practically not much ever gets done.

Irony is that dd went to a selective school - one which is high on the league tables, a prestigious school to go to in the town etc. She now goes to a pretty rough, bog standard comp - the kind where people say 'my child will go to that school over my dead body' (me included). They really DO have a zero tolerance approach to any kind of crap, and it is a far, far better school.

Just goes to show really.

I started a thread yesterday about a thread I'd been on (hope the OP doesn't mind), but even though there were some really good posts, I recon my OP was a bit too dry for AIBU

So I thought I'd just put what I really think about it, which like Getorf says is incandescent rage.

I was bullied relentlessly in the 70's, I'm so angry children are still going through the same thing.

YANBU.

I see the signs of future bullies early, in children who are poorly disciplined and in particular, the children of parents who like to smack the kids (spare-the-rod Catholics and their ilk), and parents who are so "in love" with their little darling that they refuse to see aggressive actions in them, and miss the chance to nip it in the bud. Those type of parents (often mothers who were fortunate to have a little "miracle" after forty years and will be forever blind to their faults) are un-aproachable with regards to their children's bullying, and will retort, "all boys play rough", or "it takes two to tango".

After the failure of the parents, the next failure is in the schools. We must always have our eyes open to bullying, and must all accept, that it may well be our own children who are the perpetrator, and be vigilant about stopping bullying from our own backyard.

'spare-the-rod Catholics and their ilk'

Because people who smack are definitely all of one religion.

And their ilk. Baptists, Jehovas, many others.

It makes me very angry as well, and also because I was picked on pretty much all the way through school and nobody dealt with it. In some ways the total lack of interest was actually easier to stomach than the all too often now used implication that the bullied child is somehow at fault, that if they could be just a bit...different, a bit more like the others, then they would not have this trouble. I still hear many reports of this and it makes me very angry indeed.

That's funny. I live in a council house building full of people who probably haven't gone to any church in their whole lives and yet there are plenty who smack regularly.

Has nowt to do with religion.

Not wishing to add to any impending bunfight, or get off the subjuct, but do athiests and their ilk not smack their children?

o god don't even get me started on bullying. I never ever realised the extent of the failure of our school to deal with it until my child was bullied, so mercileslly, for many many months, and i did everything in my power to make it stop - i took advice, i reported every single incident to the head and other teachers, we wrote it all down, we wrote to the governors, we did everything. The school were diabolical and despite my child being phsycially attacked, surrounded in the playground and hit, thrown down the stairs, stuff stolen, name calling, relentless, horrendous, independent witnesses - other kids in the class, other parents - the school sent me a letter saying they thought it wasn't all one sided. I moved my child. Best decision I ever made. But god, yes, it still makes me really fucking angry.

AgentZIgzag, I am sure some of them do. However in my time in conversation with people about smacking (and surprisingly a lot of people want to discuss it), the churchy ones have always been the ones who have come out in favour of corporal punishment.

I'll admit my survey is a small one and unscientific but I promise it's the truth.

It makes me more angry when the normal solution seems to be to remove the victim, as though like duchesse says, it's them that don't fit in, and the bullies remain...untouchable.

'spare the rod catholics and their ilk' well with that comment there's a sensible thread gone down the swannie less than 20 posts in.

What a daft post.

I think kids who bully are influenced by a lot of factors, however I think the main thing which comes into play (esp. with teens) is the mob mentality. Once one person starts loads of others join in. And they may not necessarily be bad kids. The kids who picked on my dd were (at the time) nasty cows, but I imagine individually they were nice kids. It's just when they all got together they turned into evil little shits.

I was bullied all through school - there wasn't a religious child amongst them.

My bullies, without exception were from wealthy families who thought that the fat kid at school was an easy target, and children with a rough background who needed some "entertainment" in their sad, no-good lives, and their lovely parents pretty much backed them up on that opinion.

My friends, the ones who stood up for me, were the other misfits who were also not worthy, and, surprise, surprise, children from very religious families.

Bit of a crap generalisation Snobear.

Fathersday, please name and shame the school.

In fact, perhaps a new thread is required, name and shame schools who ignore bullying?

Bullying is the blight of some children's lives - from the low level constant shit tat saps self esteem and makes school unenjoyable, to the out and out violence and robbery that goes on.

Why is it tolerated? Why aren't heads down on kids and their parents who bully like a ton of bricks?

Depends on the school, it really does.

Have to say, the three schools my dcs have attended have been very firm and pro-active with bullying and it really does seem to work. This involves several steps:

teaching children from their very first term in infants, and reinforcing it throughout their school career, that bullying is unacceptable

teaching them how to recognise bullying

showing them that it is their duty to act when they or any other child in the school is hurt or upset

teaching them how to act

making sure that staff react instantly when a situation is reported

having firm and recognised sanctions

When ds was being picked on, it was the aggressor who was taken out of playtime, not ds. It worked.

Exactly. My dd was told to 'avoid' the students at play time. What shitty advice. The school had words with the bullies, basically told them to leave my dd alone. That they did do, however they told all their mates that dd had 'dobbed them in' and then they started.

DD used to be terrified when the bell went - in the melee of moving from classroom to classroon it is very easy for the other kids to swipe her back, punch her round the head, give her a shove.

Like I said my dd ended up being too scared to go to lessons and went into internal exclusion - so sat in a crappy room (usually used for punishment) on her own with her books all day. I asked why the bullies were not sent to internal exclusion as they were the ones who were trouble. i was told that it was easier to remove dd as there were so many bullies. No word on the punishment of the bullies at all - it was all 'dd must stay out of their way'.

DD was removed from the school that day and sent to another school a week later.

My DP's niece is also having some trouble at that school as well with bullies. And again the aschool is not at all helpful.

"often mothers who were fortunate to have a little "miracle" after forty years and will be forever blind to their faults"

I take exception to this generalisation - I am a late mum and I was relentlessly bullied as a kid. My DD's are little miracles - but they also are learning respect.

In my limited experience litchick, some schools don't want to admit it goes on for fear of it showing their school in a bad light.

The same goes with complaining about the school doing fuck all to stop it, they don't really want to know 'lalalalala I can't hear you so it can't be happening'

So angry for your DD Getorf, I know that cold pit-of-your-stomach fear when you know it's coming.