bullying

[tots35]

Broke my heart today when myself and my six year old went to the local park. He went on a big slide which you have to climb up many enclosed steps. As he reached the top some older boys started picking on him, grabbed him by his throat, pulled his ears and teased him. I'm heavily pregnant and couldn't get to the top to speak to them and they had no parents with them. My boy was in tears all the way home. Didn't know how to console him much and felt so angry but didn't know how i Would of dealt with the older boys if i could of reached them. Just wanted some advice incase anything similar happens again. Thanks x

Oh your poor boy! What a horrible thing for those boys to have done.

If anything like that happens again, and you can't physically get to the children to separate them, you can use your voice to try and stop it.

What can be effective is to use a low, loud voice, and give clear simple orders to the children you're trying to stop. So you could say "stop hurting him now", "let go of him", "stop doing that - get down", or just "stop". Make eye contact with the ring leader and repeat the same phrase, as firmly as you can whilst keeping your voice loud and low. Kind of like when people tell a dog to "lie down!". Obviously it won't work all the time, but often children will respond to this kind of instruction. Try and say it with 100% belief that they will obey you.

If that doesn't work, then I think it would be reasonable to call the police if your child is being physically assaulted. In fact, you could ring the non-emergency police number and report it now. They may well know the children involved, and at least it would be recorded and you could tell your son that the police know and will be looking out for those children.