Bullying - am very proud of dd2 and her handling of this

[Miaou]

dd2 told me on the way home from school today that she is being bullied by another girl in her class. Turns out when dd2 first started at this school in June she was one of her friends but has since spent more time with a different group of girls. Since the start of term four weeks ago this girl has been verbally nasty to her. Dd2 has done all the right things - told the teacher when the incidents have occurred and told the girl's very nice older sister when it has happened in the playground. Said child is now threatening to hit dd2 because she told the teacher, and that she'll get her mum to go to the headmaster and get her into trouble. Dd2 is understandably not that happy about it all but has done all the right things in terms of dealing with the bullying behaviour. Good for her!

Ooooh little girls (some little girls) make me want to spit sometimes

Yes, very well done dd2 - how does the older sister view her little sister?

(Is it dd2 or the other girl who now spends time with the other group?)

Awww Miaou...wonderful girl.

Not nice to have to endure though. Remember stuff like this well. Well done her.

Good for her! Bullies always work on the assumption that their victim will keep quiet about it. Make sure that all of the threats are recorded, and fed straight back to the school. What does Tallulah's mum have to say about it all???

Wow! She knows what she's doing and that's very, very good

She seems to be coping well. How are you?

She's done really well and you should be proud of yourself too, because somewhere along the line you've taught her how to react. My mum told me to "ignore them, they'll go away". Well they didn't and I still don't know what to tell DS about bullies, should he ever be in that situation. You've done well miaou. Good for you too.

according to dd2, tallulah's iolder sister "knows what she is like" - and likes dd2 and will stick up for her. It's dd2 who now spends her time with another group - it sounds like she is pretty popular with the younger children too - she's a bit of a mother hen . She reckons it's a touch of the green-eyed monster on tallulah's part - according to dd2 tallulah doesn't have many friends (not surprising if that's how she treats them!)

don't know the other girl's mother but dh wants to work on the assumption that she may be trouble and is going to have a word with the head to get our side of the story in first

I'm cool about it at the moment - maybe I;m being naive but I think this girl is making empty threats! But dd2 is so calm about it all which helps - if she was really upset then I think that would upset me.

peaches, my mum did that line on me too . This school seems to have a good bullying policy though - dd2 said there are signs up everywhere telling them to tell a teacher/adult/parents if you are being bullied.

An update on this

We didn't see the HT in the end but left it to the school to deal with. Anyway, dd2 said to me last night that Tallulah still makes silly and spiteful comments occasionally, but that generally she is much nicer to her than she was. I asked her why she thought Tallulah had changed her attitude and she said she had no idea! However since every time she did something nasty to dd2, dd2 told the teacher and Tallulah got a row, I guess she just got fed up of getting into trouble.

Dh had suggested to dd2 that maybe Tallulah was feeling left out and that lashing out at dd2 was just her way of dealing with it, and that if dd2 felt able to she could see if Tallulah would join in with her and her friends sometimes. I think this is now happening and I guess that had an impact too.

So nice that this appears to have been nipped in the bud!

That's good news, Miaou. The whole episode has been handled sensibly and sensitively, so hats off to all involved

If only all playground problems were resolved so well.

Yup, I'm not expecting it to always be this straightforward! This was our first brush with bullying so I think we've an easy start!

Ah, you never know. Dd2 seems more than capable of dealing with it ... and it would appear that jealousy was the root cause of this particular incident. If that's addressed, which it is being, then I see no reason why Dd2 should become a target again.