This is a thread for people to get support and advice about bullying and what to do about it. Please post all your ideas and collected wisdom on it.

[cocolepew]

Please post all the good advice that gets put on bullying threads here. Then it will be easy to link to when trying to help someone whose DC is suffering at the hand of bullies.

There are a lot of MNetters who has very good and practical advice on what plan of action to take, HT/BOG/LEA etc.

Thank you.

Oh I'll start.

Go to tell school straight away. Don't wait to se if it goes away, by the time you have been told about it it probably has been going on for a while.

Ask for the schools anti-bullying policy and ask how they are going to implement it.

Don't get fobbed off, your DC is more important than upsetting the HT.

Copy all correspondence that you have with the school, note down dates and what was said at meetings.

Agree with all the above.

This is some advice I was given for action a child can take.

It's to be loud. That is, if there is pushing, shoving, holding against a wall, to be loud, shouting Leave Me Alone, Why Are You Doing This, Get Off My Bag and so on.

It's quite nerve wracking but quite often a child wants to shout anyway about what's being done to them, and you sort of give them permission.

The advantages are, the shock for the bully at someone shouting and yelling at them. Drawing attention to the incident. Importantly, if there is anyone in authority around, it alerts them to the fact that it's bullying, not playing, not a mutual fight or argument, but one or more people having it in for another child. I think this is important because it forestalls the teachers being able to shuffle it off as both children's fault. And it's really good for the bullied child's self esteem.

My Y7 child did this and it worked. There was no teacher involvement but the shouting led to a shouting argument and then to talking.

and well done coco this is a great idea

I shall be shamelessly bumping this.

don't think you'll need to for long, the number of bullying threads I've seen recently

am off to bed

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Where are you all, o wise ones?

I am all in favour of approaching the parents / mum first. After all, any decent person would want to know and deal with it themselves , why should the school have to deal with everything? That said, you'll probably get a very defensive reaction from the mum, but then that's probably why she's bred a bully in the first place.

I approached a parent first, who knew me and DD it all went **horribly wrong. I'd never speak to one now.

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Agree. Never go to the parents first. Always through the school. The school teachers will mark the card of the bully. For all you know, other parents may have complained, and it's right the school should know and deal with it.
And never be fobbed off until you have resolution. Your child needs to know you take it seriously and you are 100 % behind them.

And never say anything to the bully.

Last bump.

bump because i think this can be so helpful

Following my very recent experience, I would advocate the school as the first point of contact. We were very lucky, incidents reported on the Friday, dealt with over the weekend and resolved on the Monday. We are in Switzerland at an International school though.

I couldn't bump last night, I was at the school talking to my DDs teacher about her being bullied!