Help advice needed re potential bullying

[Jobean]

My ds9 goes to an all boys school, he is not top dog but I gather he hangs out with is suppose is the 'cool' kids for want of a better phrase. this morning he tells me not to tell anyone because this kid is his friend but this kid often stops my d's when he is talking and says ' who cares no-one likes you anyway and laughs' D's thinks he is just showing off my trying to belittle him, I need advice in how to handle this. He says that it has happened on numerous occasions but otherwise this kid seems to get along with him, what do you make of that? Let it ride and let d's deal with in his own way or get involved and mention to school/teacher/parent??

Has he got other friends? If so I would get him to just say ' in that case I will go and play with someone else'. DS seems sensible in that he thinks he is showing off - I would let him handle it - unless he is distressed.

This isn't potential bullying. It is bullying.

I've been there with my DD1 in year 4 and it was hard to deal with. She still wanted to be around this top dog but at the same time was hurt by the way she was treated. It escalated gradually from verbal to physical but was always cleverly done so as to be explainable as an accident and well out of sight of adults. The teachers thought the child in question was angelic.

It did her self esteem a lot of damage over two years and with hindsight I realise I should have made more fuss with the school and shouldn't have been reassured by the fact that DD1 wanted to stay with this friend.

I wish I had worked harder to get her to walk away because when it eventually all came to a head and DD1 retaliated there was a terrible fuss. It was upsetting to sort out but things were lots better afterwards because they were kept apart and DD1 realised she didn't need that group putting her down all the time.

Sorry, I don't know if that helped you much.