Mother banned from school for confronting son's bully

[2kidzandi]

here She's no longer allowed to take her own son to his classroom. How are you supposed to deal with bullies and parent bullies then? I hate confrontation but I think the schools response is awful, I hope she challenges this and wins.

No its on the bullying board and the grandparent was present.

God I didn't even know there was a bullying board.

It's under education

I think you're all being a bit harsh on her just because it's in the Hate Mail and she has nice baps.

I recently had the experience of a mother accusing my 13 year old of being a bully to her face. I was livid. If my child had been 5 years old I think I would have done something drastic. That's not to say I would condone my child being a bully for a second, or that I would not take such accusations seriously. But it is ENTIRELY inappropriate for a parent to approach another child like this, particularly one so young.

Whatever her topography, schools are supposed to be safe places where there are rules.
Speaking as one who has been the complaining parent in question, the parent of a child who assaulted another, and a teacher in a class with an OTT ranting and flailing parent.
I've worn all the hats at one time or another and still think you shouldn't tackle a child without an adult present and aware of what's going on.

As someone whose 11 year old dd was 'confronted' by another parent who thought she was bullying her daughter, and whose idea of confronting her was chasing her through the school corridors to the girls toilets (where dd had the sense to lock herself into a cubicle) and then trying to physically break into the cubicle while shouting at dd that she wasn't going to make her next birthday I would personally take one-sided stories like this with a very large pinch of salt.

So if you were in the playground and a group of kids jumped your child, threatening to hurt him or her, you would not tell the bullies off?
I think her mother's instinct got the better of her....she is made for looking after babies (sorry !)

She wasn't intervening in an actual incident - she actually went into the classroom and talked to the child she thought was bullying her child. There is a big difference.

I never hear these stories without thinking of a friend of mine who went into school absolutely livid to tell the teacher how her son was being bullied. The teacher gently pointed out that in actual fact the boot was on the other foot: it was her son who used to jump on the other children and try to start fights with them. I could have told her that; my own ds was very frightened of hers at the time. This boy also used to tell ds that he was thick because he couldn't read (in Reception) and needed special help. But at home he told his parents the other children were mean to him.

Fortunately, she did end up seeing the teacher, not a bunch of bewildered 5yos. Otherwise I could easily see her laying into ds.

When I have had reason to speak to the school about bullying I have always assumed that it is their job to deal with it. If they didn't, then I would do everything I could to stir up a stink- but not confront a child or a child's mother; the risks are too great.

Parents often forget that they are getting the information filtered through one experience and often that of a young child.
Rather like reading the Express or the Mail as truth without finding out alternative viewpoints. That's why I keep a log of incidents, both for my son at his school and another for incidents with my class. Serious incidents are logged with the detail required in a police statement, often with multiple witnesses.

I'm really amazed at the response to this woman's predicament. O.K. so it's the DM, but so? And I'm not going to comment on the nightie aspect. All she did was ask the other child to please stop hitting her son. Her son was scared of going to school and dreaded going in the morning. That is always unacceptable isn't it, even if the situation isn't just black and white? She watched him being hit without intervening straight away, and even invited the other child to a picnic. So I would say she took reasonable steps to resolve the situation before she spoke to the child.

I find it disturbing that a child with these concerns could be essentially segregated from the other children in the school. His mother is the only one who cannot drop him off in the playground and not for arguing with another parent or fighting. What incentive is there for him to complain that he's getting hurt again?

And bullying is to a large extent defined by the perception of the sufferer. i.e. '5 year olds don't bully' If the other child feels distressed and it continues, then yes, that is bullying.

I'm really amazed at the response to this woman's predicament. O.K. so it's the DM, but so? And I'm not going to comment on the nightie aspect. All she did was ask the other child to please stop hitting her son. Her son was scared of going to school and dreaded going in the morning. That is always unacceptable isn't it, even if the situation isn't just black and white? She watched him being hit without intervening straight away, and even invited the other child to a picnic. So I would say she took reasonable steps to resolve the situation before she spoke to the child.

I find it disturbing that a child with these concerns could be essentially segregated from the other children in the school. His mother is the only one who cannot drop him off in the playground and not for arguing with another parent or fighting. What incentive is there for him to complain that he's getting hurt again?

And bullying is to a large extent defined by the perception of the sufferer. i.e. '5 year olds don't bully' If the other child feels distressed and it continues, then yes, that is bullying.

Thing is the school can't do anything else. If it is ok to let a mum confront a 5yr old boy politely, then is it ok for another mum to instruct a 5 yr old 'firmly' in the same way? And what about the mum who tells the 5 yr old boy that he will be in serious trouble if he does it again? Or the one who grabs the boys hand and scares him?

There is only one place a school can draw the line in black and white, and that is by insisting that things go through the teachers. The mum may have been polite and may have been reasonable but that doesn't mean that the next one who does it will be. And for that - if nothinf else - the mum is being totally unreasonable.

But let's give her credit for very impressive baps.

agree with Squiffy
she has not the power to address teh issue - if she was that botehred she should have approached the county LA

Yes, SetSquare I think complaining higher up is a good strategy. But that all takes considerable time, and that's the catch 22 for parents who have to endure a child refusing/being sick/complaining etc each school morning. If they don't send them to school, they get EWO and truancy/court orders. So in effect, if the teacher/head/governors and parents concerned don't acknowledge the problem, the parent is forced to keep pushing their sad child into a horrible situation everyday. Under those circumstances I would damn the bureaucracy that isn't protecting the victim, frankly. A reasonable person should not feel pushed into having to take action into their own hands.

I can't take that woman seriously, she had em hanging out again on GMTV this morning...

did she?!!

I think the reason that the DM has printed an article like this, is because it speaks to its readers. It expresses a real, genuine concern about how schools deal with bullying. Whether or not the details of this case are as the DM states doesn't matter really - that's why it prints this sort of stuff, because it's tapping into something it knows is going to resonate with its readers. Even if this particular woman was out of order, there are thousands more out there who are reading this article, who are not out of order and are feeling the helplessness that she presumably felt in the face of her child being bullied and that situation not being effectively tackled by the school.

And agree, she should go via the LA, the governors, the correct channels - but as another poster pointed out, that can take literally months and for a child who is being bullied, months of misery is utterly unacceptable and frankly if schools can't deal with this stuff quicker than that, then of course parents are going to take the law into their own hands - even normally reasonable ones.

Having said that I wonder waht the full story is - someone said that the school couldn't do anythign but ban her, but that is not true - my DS's school puts up with all sorts of unacceptable behaviour from parents, so there's no national guidelines on this sort of thing, schools handle them as they see fit. I would expect a school to have given this woman a warning before banning her outright, unless there is some other history here that neither she nor the DM are divulging.

I do not uderstand why parents continue to take their children day after day to places where they are hit, if I'd witnessed my child being hit in the way she described I'd have been keeping him off until the bully was dealt with.
If that's what the brat is like at 5 god help us when he's a teenager unless he is sorted out by the school.
TBH if my children are attacked as described in one comment, foot broken, I'd beat the shit out of the bullies and they can do what they want to me but nobody will get away with it whilst I have breath in my body.

You'd beat the shit out of a 5 year old?

Really?

Have you thought of trying anger management?

Er no I said at the comments below the article where one poster mentions his teenage daughter having her foot broken by a gang of other teenagers.

There is more to this story than has been revealed.

My DTS are 5yo and under no circumstances would I want another parent confronting them because that would terrify them. This mother probably was ranting and screaming at a little 5yo and that is why she has been banned.

I had issues with a 5yo who kept picking on my DTS (and other children as I later learned). I spoke to the class teacher and it was resolved. If it had not been, I would have raised it with the head teacher, governors and then Local Authority but no way would I ever confront a child. As an adult, me confronting a child on school premises would be tantamount to bullying, imo.

"Other boys then ran up to him grabbed him round the neck and arms and he was being hit . I was rooted to the spot."

Wouldn't then have a been a more appropriate time to intervene, love?

Yes, I noticed that too. Another sceptic here.