Advice Please - child being bullied at nursery ?

[oceanwave]

Hi, my little boy is 3 & half years old & attends nursery for 3 days per week. Over the last few weeks he has seemed to become 'angry', & seems to show his temper when he doesn't get his way. I realise that this is probably just his way of trying to get what he wants but more recently he has started to 'blame' his temper tantrums on another little boy in his class at nursery, & has also said that the other little boy pushes & shoves him about & is basically being not very nice to him. I know the little boy in question & whilst he can be lovely I have also seen him being less than friendly with other children. I dont want to sound like a paranoid mother but at the same time I dont want my son to be adversely affected by any of this. I speak to the women at the nursery each time I go to pick my son up & none of them have ever said that there is a problem but having said that something which we see as trivial as adults can be huge in the mind of a 3 year old. I have thought of changing the days on which he attends to ones when the other little boy wont be there. Am I over reacting ? Is this just usual 3 year old behaviour? Has anyone else had any experiences like this ?

I think you need to speak to the teachers so that they can keep an eye on it. My ds was being kind of bullied by a boy in the next year at playtime. My ds is only 4. Luckily he knew the boys name and I informed the teachers. Unfortunately this boy picks on everyone. The teachers do need to know as they don't always see everything.

Oceanwave, When my dd was younger she started to say she didn't want to go and started screaming when I took her. I found out that it was another child being horrible as it happens this particular child was a bossy little thing and years later hasn't changed at all.
The nursery never mentioned anything at the times but when I said she wouldn't be coming anymore they then said about the other child.

I think I would be inclined to change the days and see if this makes a difference to your ds. larsxx

Salsa & Lars, thanks for your replies. I am erring on the side of changing his days, it seems it would be the best thing for him to be removed from the situation, but I do take on board what you say Salsa about making the teachers aware & I will be doing that when he goes back to nursery next week (just getting over diarrhoea & sickness at the moment).

Goodluck larsxx

I had to go and see my dd's nursery teachers this week too as she was getting bullied too, she's 3 1/2 like you ds. Basically it was girl bullying "you cant play with us or be near us as you're not 4 and you're never going to be as grown up as us" not the type you have. Her teacher was vaguelly aware that these two girls were nice as pie when she (the teacher) was looking and said a few things when they thought she was out of earshot. She was really understanding and said she would loiter and listen in secretly. She also said she would make a kindness tree and put the names of kind children on leaves to encourage the children to be more inclusive. I was really pleased I'd bought it to her attention.

Do try and speak to the nursery teacher and see if she is aware and whether she can talk to the whole class about not hitting etc. Good luck

Thanks Hockeymum, am going to have a word with the teachers on Monday. I have a couple of weeks before I book his next lot of sessions so there is time to see of things improve, if not I think I will change his days. The kindness tree sounds like a really good idea, think I'll drop that one into the conversation xx

I am not sure how to start having kept silence since the September :( and now I decided to share my experience. I was a full time student at university. But had to stop because my son started displaying unusual changes in his character. From being a confident, full of joy child, he was very quickly the opposite becoming upset and sad. Is when I stop university and observe his changes. Before I could understand the exact problem, I took time to observe When dropping him he used to be very exited and on the way home he was talking about his teacher L. But then he stopped talking about her and became very quiet, and lost confidence. He kept saying teacher L, ''is not my friend''. I DISMISS so much OF HIS COMPLEINT at first, thinking everything will get better . But he kept saying this days after days. One morning around October, I am seeing my son seating in a classroom were all his pears were different. He was the only mixed race child. I was feeling so hurt because he seems isolated and so lonely. I started questioning him what was the name of his friends etc... But I could not understand. I could not believe that the same teacher he was at first exited to see each morning now has turned into an intimidating monster. The fear in my boy's eye when seeing her was so obvious. Once I asked my partner to drop him. And himself was choked to see my little boy of only three by himself alone surrounded by girls only. The only mixed race in the class with no one to identify to. he has naturally bonded with no one. Apart from a parent who has forced herself into us when we arrived. She has two girls and her youngest being my sons age. But her daughters did not get on with my son because they will always accused him, at time heat him but I noticed I avoid taking my son to them . How can young kids understand their potential if they can't identify to anyone. Now he keep saying that teacher L is not his friend. Since September I felt trapped but at the beginning there were nice to me and I realised they changed after the school application for September 14/15 has been completed and handed to the school as my first choice of school because it's the closest to our home. Now I wish I could take him to another school. But I am alone and so broken by all of this abuse and by myself I don't know how to make the change. And now things can get worse because each time we walk to school the other kids call his name on the street. And I can see he's not happy, I thought of getting him some headphones for kids, so he would not be distracted. But sadden by this cruel behaviour I wanted to share my loneliness. THANK YOU

Goshia, the only advice I can give you is to go into the school and discuss your concerns with them.It may be something and nothing (although it doesn't sound like it is). To get to the bottom of why your son is so unhappy in nursery, you really need to go and speak to the school and address all the problems that he tells you about or that you have concerns about yourself. Re: the name calling outside of the school, perhaps there are neighbourhood wardens you can raise the issue with or maybe PCSO's? ( don't have them here in Scotland so not sure what their remit is).
If you know the children who are name calling in the street it may help if you speak to their parents but not knowing what the parents are like' I'm not sure this would work I guess it depends how old the children are, what the parents are like etc you'd have to play that one by ear I suppose but in any case, please do go into the school and discuss your concerns with them. You won't really be happy and neither will your son until you've sorted it out and speaking to them is the first step in getting it sorted. Hope you manage to sort something out anyway.Good luck.

@ileaveonbenefit,
Thank you. He's not been to school because he wasn't well last week but he's back tomorow and I will have a chat with the teacher. And hopefully everything will be fine again. Thanks