Say NO to bullying with Andy Day and his brand new band Andy and the Odd Socks - share your thoughts on dealing with bullies: chance to win £300 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

We have been asked to find out about your childs’ experiences of bullying and to hear your tips on dealing with bullies by Andy Day and the Anti Bullying Alliance. Andy is one of the most popular faces on children’s TV as a presenter on Cbeebies.

Andy, with his band ‘Andy and the Odd Socks’, are also patrons of the Anti-Bullying Alliance and next week (13-17 Nov) they will be encouraging primary schools up and down the country to take part in Anti-Bullying Week. It's a cause Andy is very passionate about and is one of the reasons he formed the band. He believes that music is not only great entertainment for children, but is also a great way to inspire them to be accepting of each other and to show everybody is different in their own way.

Andy and the Odd Socks say “we are all about putting across a positive, inclusive fun message via our new song ‘Unique’ which has been chosen by the charity to support their message this year of ‘All Different, All Equal’”.

See below for the video for 'Unique' by Andy and the Odd Socks.

The Anti-Bullying Alliance say “the aim of the campaign is help young children understand that everyone is different and to celebrate that from an early age. The main focus of the week is the introduction of ‘Odd Socks Day’ (the official Odd Socks Day is Monday 13th November (but schools can still take part and hold an Odd Socks Day at any time)), whereby Primary Schools and their pupils are encouraged to wear odd socks for the day to promote individuality, being unique, a sense of self and awareness for the overall aim of the week....to say NO to bullying”.

So Andy and the Alliance would love to hear how you and your child have coped with bullies, any tips on avoiding being bullied and also your experiences and thoughts generally about bullying amongst primary school aged children.

Add your comment below and you will be entered into a prize draw where one person will win a £300 voucher for the store of choice - from a list.

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Standard Insight T and Cs Apply

PS If you have any questions about bullying, do join us on Monday 13 November at 11.00am where we will be Live on Facebook Live Andy Day and Lauren Segar-Smith of Kidscape

In my experience bullies are usually enabled by parents and/or teachers.
There's often a stereotype about bullies; poor parenting, troubled background etc, but my bullies and my son's bullies were from "nice" families and stable backgrounds. Because ds and I maybe didn't fit the acceptable standard of normality (we're both autistic), it was acceptable rove bullied as we were seen as not making an effort and maybe asking for the treatment we got.
I've heard from several parents of autistic children the same story, that teachers will allow bullying, or won't actively stop it, as they are also irritated by the child so their sympathies lie with the bully.
We've also experienced teachers turning a blind eye because they can't deal with a child, so the behaviour continues unchecked.
We need bullying to be targeted more effectively. Victim blaming will only hurt the victims more, and allows bullying children to grow up into bullying adults.

My DC is very sensitive so I'm here to look for tips to help avoid bullying at school and to help them stand up for themselves, which they struggle with. I love the idea of DC doing a martial arts class, might look into that next term.

Bullying and bullies come in various shapes and form so always watxh out for thw signs. Do not let anyone make you or your children feel like you or they are not good enough or intimidate you or them. Everyone should be wary of what they say or do.

My son has been bullied because he is quite small for his age. I enrolled him in karate and football as I want to build up his confidence.

He is quite athletic and the positive feedback he gets from organised sports really helps him.

On the other side I also encourage him to be friends with everyone and to especially look out for classmates who are alone or sad and see if he can help.

I was bullied throughout most of my school life and I have also been bullied at work so it is a sensitive subject for me.

I would advise trying to stand up to the bullies if you can and ask them why they are picking on you - when I did that when I was about 15 those particular ones weren't so bad afterwards. If that doesn't work they must tell and teacher or older family member who will sort it out - they mustn't suffer it - it's so awful to deal with.

It is so much a harder these days for teenagers in particular now that bullying also takes place online.

I've had bad experiences of bullying for me and my DC, especially DD who is Dyspraxic. My experience unfortunately has been that school has gone very much down the victim blaming route, telling DD she should modify her behaviour (ie be less Dyspraxic) rather than punishing bullies. They have consistently denied that their school has a bullying problem and have punished DD for standing up to the bullies verbally (swearing at them after being sexually harassed for months). However since starting sixth form college she is a different child. She is so confident now and tells me she's repeatedly amazed that other kids just treat her normally and want to be around her. She's made a lovely group of friends and feels secure and happy. I'm so sad that her secondary didn't help her more.

Strategies often given by books like ignoring or trying to be invisible or trying to throw sarcasm at bullies have not worked, and in fact only made things worse. The only thing that ever worked sadly was her hitting back, she only did it once and it worked in that situation. I don't know what the answer is really but she says she felt the books also took a victim blaming stance, making it all about what the reader had to do to not be bullied a bit like rape apologist posters which tell girls to dress more modestly and don't walk in the dark. The problem is more embedded in many schools than the schools admit, and if the culture is apologist it's really damn difficult to get them to see this, and you end up being 'that parent'. I'd love to see a different culture develop in schools where they take bullying much more seriously, because it can affect someone all their life, eating away at confidence and make someone feel incredibly inadequate. And the bullying of SN pupils is sadly all too common - and too minimised in many cases. 'well, Sammy is a bit odd, after all. You can't blame the others for laughing at him', etc. Bullying needs swift and decisive action which doesn't try to pin the problem on the victim but punishes behaviour while trying to help the bully as well (not to the detriment of the victims).

I feel very strongly about this. I think bullying is as bad as ever and some of these anti bullying measures are simply lip service so that schools can tick a box to say that they are dealing with the issues, when so very often they are not. At all.

Ignore, walk away and go and speak to another group of children. Talk about any bad experiences with teachers and at home.

I was bullied at high school. However, if you ever asked the girls who bullied me they wouldn't have seen it as bullying. They didn't talk to me and I had nobody to sit with in class. They would look in my direction and then whisper to each other. I felt very lonely. Bullying can be in different forms - physical, emotional, financial. I was a teenager and felt that I was 'too old' to talk to a teacher about it. I do wish that one of my teachers would have noticed the class dynamics and tried to talk to the other girls on my behalf so they could see how it made me feel. I think at primary school the teachers should look out for children who are sitting alone or look upset as excluding another child from games etc is also a former of bullying, in my opinon. I know teachers have a lot to do but something should be in place to help children understand how bullying isn't just when you push or hit someone. My baby is 7 weeks old so I don't have to worry about school politics yet but it's something that will always be in my mind when he starts nursery.

Both my children have been bullied at school, reported to me by the teachers. I often wonder if I haven't equipped them with sufficient skills to avoid bullies, although they both seem confident to me.

I think it is good that it is a subject openly talked about nowadays and schools are more vigilant. I think this should continue.

I think there also needs to be greater understanding of why some children / adults become bullies and whatever issues might be going on there should be talked about more openly too.

I think any school that claims to not have a bullying problem is lying. It happens everywhere, and schools do really need to nip it in the bud before it escalates.

I'm looking at primaries just now and it's my main point of interest, after being horrendously bullied at senior school, and I feel it had such an impact on me and my choices, leading to several abusive relationships.

BUllying should be dealt with as a zero tolerance matter.

I think that the first vital step is to ensure that children know what bullying is. Recognising the fine line between teasing and nastiness. Both in others as well as themselves.
Next, they should know to always report it to a grown up. And to expect to be believed and for the grown up to address the situation immediately.

I agree with some others , that in life you will always find bullies even after you are grown up. I think the key is 2 ways, one to tackle bullying and actively work on anti bullying behaviour, some children do bully and have no clue what they are doing could be contrived as bullying more "banter" so as parents we must try and counteract this. We must also try and improve our child's resilience by improving their self confidence and assertiveness, which is probably harder to do but in the long run will protect them for life. (Morris9)The child who found Kick boxing and has excelled got there confidence that way, for each child it is different and unique

No idea if I was doing the right thing, age 7 DS was being bullied mercilessly mostly verbally, but occasionally being shoved about, school didn't really know what to do with the behaviour of the bully. The bully was also charming with most everyone else, but erratic with my DS. Some days trying to do things to make up, but mostly making his life hell. I tried to explain to DS that it was the bully who would lose in the end that the bully would fail to learn the meaning of friendship, would fail to understand in the long term how to work with people to make things happen and would only develop his thuggery. Fortunately, he left the school. but it has left a lasting mark on all of us.

I try to make sure my kids have friends from different areas of their lives so if it all goes horrible at school for example then they have kids of family friends or friends from clubs.

I think schools should be stricter with bullies and they should be excluded early on to prevent other children suffering.
And parents should accept more responsibility for their childrens behaviour and show them its unacceptable to be a bully.
As for dealing with children that are being bullied i think society as a whole should support these children and should intervene when bullying is witnessed it should be made a serious crime as what the children suffer at the hands of bullies is unacceptable, if an adult did it, it would be classed as abuse and dealt with as such.
Bullying ruins life and steals childhoods away whilst leaving lasting scars.

DD has just started school and came home upset that a boy in her class kept calling her a cry baby.

I gave her 2 phrases - “Oh do be quiet” and “really?” to be accompanied by a head tilt, and then walk off
No aggression, no abuse back, and she feels that she’s regained control of the situation.

My colleague has a son who was being bullied by this one kid. After some time he walked over to that kid and said: " If you don't bully me for a week I'll be your friend."
And it actually worked. I thought that was such an awesome move!

I really like the song, it's so catchy and positive. I talk to my four year old about being kind to everyone but also want her to be resilient and self confident. She's shy and sensitive so could be a target for bullying in the future. We often talk about how it's OK to be different and unique.

My DD has had a few tough times at school being excluded by others, but nothing I would necessarily class as bullying. What I do think though is so important is how the school responds, her last school very much let the children get on with things and told them to sort it out amongst themselves. Her current school really tackle problems and make sure that children who are mean are dealt with. It seems to work much better!

Probably not the done thing but I've always said to mine that they need to stand up for themselves no matter what and if that get's them into trouble let me deal with that side of things for them. They know that they can talk to us about anything and we'll help them to sort it themselves as much as we can but will step in if needs be.

My son is aware that if ever he is bullied he tells an adult such as a trusted teacher and / or a parent asap. It's the only way to stop it. And if the school are unable to deal with it then I'd go to the police.

bullying is vile and such never be tolerated. it should be taught from as early as the first class that it will not be accepted and children taught that bullying is an atrocious act

I feel that bullying is so widespread that sometimes schools do sweep it under the carpet for easiness, out primary has a friendship bench where children who are lonely or upset can sit and every week 2 from each year are chosen to be the bench buddy and if they see someone on the bench they feel confident to approach and talk to whoever is sitting there.
We have found that this has helped our quieter child become more confident after being chosen and friendships have blossomed through the various classes,so it is certainly working.

Its about talking. use the bullying to make you stronger and the bully weaker. Encourage the child to talk about situations that they havent been in yet and how they would deal with that if it happened to them or a friend

My advice would be to hold your head up high. I was bullied growing up and there's nothing a bully hates more than when your self-esteem is still in tact!