Coping with children's attitudes to private school

[GooseyLoosey]

There have been lots of threads here about the way in which adults view private education but I am looking for some advice in relation to children's perspectives.

I live in a small village and I took my children out of the village school in April. I am aware that some people have criticised my decision and perceive me negatively as a result. This upset and surprised me, but I am a grown up and can deal with this.

Because the community we live in is a fairly close one, I have tried very hard to ensure that the dcs remain a part of it. This means that they are still involved with village sports and I ensure that they still see village friends.

The problem is that ds (9) is now getting a lot of negative comments about the school he goes to, about how it is full of nerds and he will grow up to be a geek with no friends etc. etc. He is easily hurt and he wants to react to this by withdrawing from village life completely.

What do you think? Should I let him or should I encourage him to confront their views?

Is the coach of the football team a father of one of the kids giving your DS grief Goosey?

Yes Sparkling. There are 2 coaches and the 2 kids giving ds grief are their sons. Ds gets on OK with the rest of the team.

bisjo, it would be fair to say that ds and these boys were never destined to be best buddies. However, before we moved him there were no similar issues at football. He never suffered from any kind of taunting.

Oh Goosey the politics of junior footy.

." I did not opt out of the right for ds to be treated with a modicum of compassion, or is that a justifiable consequence of my choice?"

No of course it isn't. But sadly your child, like mine, has to learn earlier than we might wish to weather this particular storm. And resilience is an incredibly useful thing to have- I am doing my best to help my ds develop his. Eventually, it will be to his benefit. However crap it feels at the time.

Football . I wish it had never been invented!

You are right about the resilience Seeker. Ds really could do with more of it.

My "modicum of compassion" comment was probably uncalled for and borne out of long bitterness which really has nothing to do with the issue I was asking about. I think I am just a little sensitive over the comments about it being my choice and I should live with the consequences. In reality it did not feel like we had much choice and therefore, I do not feel that I (and even more so ds) should have to accept any consequences.

I too am finding that football may be more trouble than it is worth!

Junior footy is one weird world. I have been involved for about eight years. I am still baffled. Ds1 plays for 3 teams and Ds2 for 1. It is all consuming.

If anyone sees resilience or confidence for sale anywhere can you let me know. DS1 could use some sometimes.

If it is only 2 making comments then I would try to get ds to ignore them. Ds stopped playing a team sport because of the manager (another school mum). He wasn't bothered about playing or not and would have happily continued going. I found it impossible to spend 2 hours a week watching him and being ostracised by her and others.

bisjo - not sure I could bear to watch either. It is largely just these 2 but one of them is the alpha male of the group and where he leads, many of the others then tend to follow (albeit not with much vigour).

Goosey- were either of these boys part of the reason your ds was so unhappy at school before?

Oh Goosey an alpha male 9 year old boy, There is nothing worse.

Seeker - in short, yes. I had hoped that now ds is not in the school and they have more distance from him that they could accept him or leave him be. Football was never a problem before. It seems though that they just have more reasons now to get at him. What to do?

Is he friends with others in the team? ie does he see them outside football? If not then you've probably got nothing to lose by moving him to another team.

If ds decides to restart the activity he gave up I will be taking him to a different team, further away but with friends from his new school.

Ah. And you say everyone in the village knows- or think they know- why you moved him?

I don't know what to suggest- but I am a little surprised that you didn't think this would happen! Not helpful, I know.

You can't predict how others will react. I've been surprised at some of the reactions I've had.

My guess is that the problem is really something like this.

The football coaches are the sort of parents who believe that their children are inately superior to all other children and see their own worth reflected in the success of their children. I doubt their children would ever get dropped from the team no matter how they played because after all they are better at football than everyone else etc.

You have upset this status quo by moving your children to a private school.

You have moved your children out of the "nice enough but not quite as good as little Jimmy" category into "other". That other category is perceived as "they think they are too good for the local school" but there may be underlying resentment such as "is their child cleverer than mine?" or "are they richer than me?". This resentment doesn't have to be based on fact, its a reaction to you moving out from your allocated slot in the world.

I suspect you might get a similar reaction if you bought a bigger house, a more expensive car etc.

You can't cure your ds's problems, unfortunately, GooseyLoosey. You can help him make his experiences more constructive for the long term, though, rather than letting them pull him under. If you look on mumsnet, there are two extremes to which experiences like this can go - one is that people grow up bitter and can never forget their childhood hurts and the other is that people grow up with far greater self awareness than most people and use their childhood experiences in positive ways to help them understand others and what makes them tick. It's a bit like learning to look on the bright side of life, but where even the bright side is also a little bit painful - it's part of growing up, really, and not everyone gets the opportunity to grow up properly, which is why there are so many adults still going about behaving like children and being rude about other peoples' children in front of their own children...

Think opinion is divided between keep him there and encourage him to get past their behaviour and move him and just accept the loss of any ties to the village.

Seeker, I guess I just didn't think it through and thought that if we removed ds from the situation everything would become alright. I can see that that is breathtakingly naive.

Rabbit, I can see it going either way for ds. He is very self aware and always looks for the best in people. However, when things go wrong, he is very hurt and takes things personally in a way that a more robust personality would not.

Toomuch - I think for the most part it will improve over time. However, I am now wondering if with these particular children it has become such entrenched behaviour and it will never stop.

Bisjo - he is friends with others in the team. However he has, for the first time in his life discovered genuine close friendship and because of that he is less keen to hold on to older, less strong friendships.

Close friendship at his new school or in the team? If the former I would seriously think about stopping the local football team and moving him to one where his school friends play.

Tedious for travelling but he may be happier if he has no particular friendships in his current team. That is the downside of private schools - distances travelled are greater. I took ds to a party the other week and realised I would only have 20 mins at home before it was time to go back (2 hour party but 50 mins each way driving). So I had to stay when ds is at an age to dump and run.

At his school - that made me cry when he told me that. I would drive him to Mars if it would make him happy. I just wonder if one day he will regret the loss of friends in the village. I think you are making me see that I should worry about that in the future and for now, go with what makes ds happier.

Could he go to Scouts in the village? Football is, as we all agree, a particularly bizarre world with it's own unique issues. Ds has certainly had no problem at Scouts, though. Probably because there is a much higher expectation of behaviour.

It's a thought. I know the guys who run the scout group and they are lovey, no-nonsense people and not parents of any of ds's peers. Same boys are at the scout group though so would have to think carefully about it. Honestly, selective evisceration would solve so many of my problems - maybe it's the way to go.

I have witnessed this anti-private school bullying from children in outside sport too and it definitely did seem to be parental opinion related as most of the children had no problem with it even with a bit of an effort from the bullies to stir things up, and the ring-leader's parents were known to be rather anti private. In this case the private children toughed it out (some more easily than others, but none as affected by it as your ds) and it did all calm down after a while as the perpetrators got older and wiser.

I think your case is a little different though as the problems seem to have stemmed from before the education split and so that seems to be more of an excuse for the bullying than an underlying political/ethical stance from the children or their parents. In other words it is typical bullying, pick on anything that is different and make an issue of it. I don't know how is best for you to proceed - it's really tricky with the parents being the coaches, but I'd be tempted to let him withdraw. Is footie the only village activity your ds could participate in? Is there no other activity where he could continue to mix with the nicer village children? Longer term it is definitely desireable to have local friends imo.

"I have witnessed this anti-private school bullying from children in outside sport too and it definitely did seem to be parental opinion related as most of the children had no problem with it even with a bit of an effort from the bullies to stir things up, and the ring-leader's parents were known to be rather anti private."

PLEASE don't make this a private/state thing. Or if you do, please acknowledge that it goes both ways.