Son 12, bullied

[WorriedDaughter12]

How do I stop my son from being badly emotionally bullied at school. Snap chats have been set up to ridicule him (he’s not a member of those ones). But the one he is in it’s a constant barrage of insults about his ginger hair, his Irish heritage, his SEN needs. It’s relentless. He’s crying every day after school because they ditch him at lunch time. Call him a parasite. Loser. Make up voting things suggesting sacrificing him. I don’t know where to turn. Can I jump on his snap chat and tell the boys I will be contacting the police? The school is useless.

Can I jump on his snap chat and..

Don't do that. You're an adult, they are children. It won't end well. Be the grown up.

I will be contacting the police?

You can do that. Especially so if those harassing him online are identifiable and you have screen shots. Also provide screen shots to the safeguarding team at school - they have a duty.

The best responce though would be to get your son to disengage from these people. Block them on snap and all social media.

If they ditch him at lunchtime it's because they don't want him hanging around with them. If he stays away, they cant ditch him. He could do with support to find a new group of friends.

I'd put him in another school.

What have you done with school? You need to email and document everything in writing.

Get him off Snapchat. Don't say anything on the group yourself, that will not help.

Investigate a school transfer if at all possible.

I’d get him off Snapchat asap and move him to a better school. Your poor son, that’s horrible

Take him off Snapchat for a start

He's underage to go on it anyway.

Move schools

I would talk to your son. How does he want to handle it? Try to empower him.

Personally, if it were me, I would want to change schools.

I am so sorry, it is totally unacceptable and the school is awful for not tackling the bullying.

I'm so sorry, this is utterly awful for you and your son.

I have a 12 year old son with SEN too, and while he is currently in a lovely little school, it has been an absolute fight for years. He's on his 5th school, and we removed him entirely for 8 months due to bullying (from another parent no less, VILE creature she was, made false allegations about him to the police and everything because she didn't want a SEN child in her sons class 😡 )

It's so so tough, but if you can, remove him, don't rely on empty promises from school, if they even make any. We left it longer than we should have and it has taken about 18 months to get my son back to himself, he was an absolute shell for a long time and I feel like he missed a good couple of years of his childhood and I will never forgive myself for that. Don't force him into an environment where he's in tears every night, it's not worth it. School is not important enough, his mental state is. Take him away and fight for a better setting for him.

Huge amount of sympathy and strength to you because this is so hard for both of you.