Will I be THAT parent if I email / see the teacher again?? Is this bullying?

[RoyTucker]

DS is 8 and moved to a new school for Yr 4. He is not settling well .

I had a meeting with his teacher before half term, there are efforts by the school to help him but it seems to be slow going. I emailed the teacher once to follow up two weeks after half term and got a short reply. We spoke about the issue at Parents' Evening last week and she was at pains to tell me to stop being anxious and leave them to it reassure me that they are monitoring things and doing everything they can.

However, not a day goes by when DS does not tell me about one boy, X, and how he treats DS. X has so far made DS cry, done the thing of "if you don't do as I say you can't be my friend" multiple times, then when DS refuses to play with X, X gets tearful and accuses DS of being mean, X makes snarky comments when DS does well at anything (ie "you always want to win don't you" or "you want to do everything don't you"), shouted at DS to run in cricket seemingly to get DS out even though they were both batting (probably not that deliberately scheming, but that's how it felt to DS), pushed a fair few times in front of DS in the lunch queue, assembly queue etc and told DS that he will get angry if DS objects.

Is this bullying? It feels low level and I may be getting het up as I know I am worried about DS settling in. The latest is that child Y has got involved, accusing DS of lying about something that X did the day before (the making DS cry incident). Child Y also spread a rumour about DS being mean in his first week at the school, saying DS had done something deliberate when it was accidental.

It makes me feel so sad, the school in general is excellent, has great teaching, facilities, ethos (seemingly) but the other kids just don't seem to like DS. If I ask to meet the teacher again will I be seen as that precious overinvolved parent? I will wait until next week anyway as I know they are up to their eyes in concerts etc this week.

I don't think its a question of "not believing" her son, but personally (and I appreciate that others might not have the same view) I think that the term "bullying" is overused and *some" parents (not all - and I don't mean the OP) are quite quick to take one side of the story, decide what has happened (rightly or wrongly) before hearing the other side of the story. There sometimes needs to be a bit of "digging" with an 8 year old to get all the details before forming a view. I think bullying is quite a serious accusation to make - don't get me wrong it is awful for the victim - but I would just be wary of accusing another child of bullying unless you're 110% confident that you know all of the facts.

Hello again. Thanks all for the very useful suggestions. In particular to make sure I don't make an accusation of bullying outright as that would be the wrong foot to set off on.

Today DS said that Y and another boy would not let him into the lunch line and made him go to the back. (He wasn't pushing in, if they have a club they can go first. He wanted to join the back of the first half of the line, behind these children and they closed around the space and said he wasn't allowed in. He didn't go to a member of staff as he is frightened of getting into trouble with the other kids if they are told off.)

I have emailed the teacher saying that a number of boys are being unkind to DS and I want to meet her and see a resolution before the end of term. Hoping that this will do the trick. I think I have actually been too nice before, keen not to rock the boat etc!

Yep I would have emailed too.

I would never just ignore my child if they were telling me they were struggling at school. X behaviour is certainly unkind and it needs nipping in the bud before it involves more children.

I work with children and have seen a whole class isolate one child because of a fall out between two. Many schools like to pretend this doesn't go on. It does.

I'd sit and practise with ds about non confrontational ways he can deflect boy X behaviour and I'd also go in. I really don't care about being that mother, you'd be surprised at how many parents that don't care enough.

Perfect - it is very very common for children to do this sort of thing to the new kid. It needs stopping.

We had the same issue with ds not wanting to tell the teachers, but once we had drummed it into him that he had to, every single time, the other kid soon realised that he would be in trouble if he had a go at ds and he actually stopped very very quickly.

Bear in mind the teachers can do very little unless they are made aware straight away.

Hope it works out OP.

YEs!! I really hope it works out too.
Good luck OP.