I'm terrified for dd (13) who is becoming a bully's sidekick

[Notmyidea]

Dd always used to be a bright, lovely girl. She is currently excluded from school (part of today and tomorrow, allowed back after half term) for helping to beat up a girl in her year with special needs. I am beyond ashamed. There is a ringleader, and I think there is a bit of "if I don't join in she'll turn on me" going on.
Naturally that is no excuse.

I have let her know how upset and angry we are, and added our own punishment to schools.

Anyone dealt with this? How to I help her remove herself from other bully's influence?

I hope you come back to this. Tbh if you don't treat this seriously without victim-blaming and making her less accountable you are failing her.

It's not about decent v disgusting it's about stepping up as a parent.

Make her volunteer somewhere to learn empathy and toile amends.

These people www.vitalise.org.uk/volunteer/ run respite holidays for disabled people and their carers. She might still be too young - but it was a great expirience for me.

There was a group of girls like year dd and her friend at my dd's high performing comp OP. About 4/5 of them. They never aused trouble for dd personally but the upset to others caused distress and fear. We had several meetings with the HT who made excuse after excuse. Even after a child was beaten up in Y8 nothing was done although the sanction was more than for your dd. It was unacceptable but evidently they didn't have good home lives and the HT had to differentiate behaviour policy.

So, what happened. Well our dd moved schools and the school lost an A grade pupil. Two had left already and about four followed DD; all the A grade pupil's places filled with B/C grade pupils.

Applications for the school were 100 down this year. Eventually the ringleader was expelled but only after hitting a member of staff, clearly more serious if a 13 year old hits a grown up than a vulnerable adolesent .

After six or seven years of this the governors are waking up to the fact that the HT is weak and is having a negative impact.

Unfortinately not all parents could afford to move their children and many have continued to suffer the effect of unaceptable behaviour.

This is why I have lost respect for schoold and their management. They do not set boundaries, they do not implement sanctions, they do not have high expectations. Effectively they allow children like your daughter and her cronies to destroy happiness and dilute the education of entire school commnities.

I think you need to reflect OP on where your dd has developed the notion that it's acceptable to beat up the weak for being weak and annoying. Like others this isn't about blaming others, it's about the standards your dd has absorbed from those around her and which have clearly not been positively moulded.

I’m very glad you’ve started to build bridges. It’s good for the victim too. The phone apology is a good start but part of building bridges should be a face-to-face and written apology, pretty card, flowers etc. And while this is not your issue, it may be important for the victim’s future wellbeing to recognise that breaking the other girl’s stuff was also unacceptable.

One of the things that resonates from what you said is that your DD was trying to protect her friend (or thought she was!) That’s actually quite common in bullying and it’s something else you can use to get through to your DD. You can have a problem-solving conversation with her, going through what happened step by step and asking her what she could have done differently at each stage.

It’s worth pointing out that the victim didn’t break the friend’s things out of the blue, there had been an argument first; maybe the friend didn’t handle the argument well; perhaps the friend doesn’t know how to interact with the victim, whereas your DD knows her better; maybe the victim needs protection as much as the friend does; and the difference between damage to property and attacking people.

According to The Unwritten Rules of Friendship bullies often see themselves as protectors. There’s a chapter called “The Intimidating Child” which is all about bullying and might give you some insights into what’s going on both for your DD and her friend. (The activities are mainly for younger kids but the basics hold true for all ages including adults!) And the book suggests these things that your DD may need to be reminded about in her dealings with her new friend:
• Violence causes more problems than it solves
• Real control is self-control
• Being feared is not the same as being liked or respected

Hope you and your DD find a good way through this.

If anyone is interested, having spoken to victim's mother, and us both having spoken to our respective daughters it would seem that what happened is:
Girls are in form room during wet break, no direct supervision but with teachers and prefects in corridors.
Lassie with asd has lost her comfort object, (small, lavender-filled teddy she sniffs when stressed.) She suspects the girl I'm calling a ringleader of hiding it. She has a history of being a wind-up merchant, entirely possible!
She confronts this girl and they argue. She grabs her bag and pours contents onto the floor, breaking items including mobile phone screen and fastenings on a plastic flute case.
Ringleader starts screaming and three girls, including my dd start pulling lass with asd off bag contents without success. Teacher walks in to find vulnerable student in meltdown with three girls hanging off her. All of whom have been in a class with asd lass for between two and eight years and really should have known better. All have also experienced girly group politics and exclusion type bullying from the lass I'm calling the ringleader.

I'm entirely satisfied, as is victim's mum, that dd was not involved in any malicious hiding of teddy, who conveniently showed up behind a radiator.

That sounds like a whole pile of excuses to excuse a nasty person from non having absorbed the difference between right and wrong kleinzeit. No wonder bullying isn't dealt with in schools if that level of psychobabble theory is prevalent.

So they didn't know their friend had shoved it behind a radiator?

I don't suppose you'll ever have the full facts here ('hanging off'?). But I do think your thread title, that you're 'terrified for' your dd, is quite telling. Be terrified for the poor girl who was set upon by three other girls!

Kleinzeit, thank-you again. Useful stuff.

Yy to "terrified for..."

So a vulnerable girl panics that she has lost something comforting (that will have far more importance for someone with asd than another kid), empties the suspected offender's bag (presumably to try to find the teddy) and is assaulted by 3 bullies.

Still sounds totally awful. Sounds like you think it is ok and that this whole matter is resolved. Lovely.

This is so ridiculous... You are totally buying that they were doing something almost noble by pulling her off the "ringleader's" bag. I can't really believe what I am reading

I think that the fear of being a victim herself, although iitdodoesn excuse her behaviour is very very overwhelmingly strong. What skills are you giving her/helping her develop to stand up to people like the other bully?

Obviously what's happened needs to be punished. But fear of punishment isn't enough, especially if she's more scared of the other girl than she is of you. She allowed herself to be manipulated into this situation and that could happen again, if it's not addressed.

Your dd still set about a child you are now looking for excuses and reasons to justify behaviour I doubt the other girls didnt know the teddy was hidden they purposly wound up a girl with autism for a laugh and to get a rise out of her which happened

Your dd still set about a child you are now looking for excuses and reasons to justify behaviour I doubt the other girls didnt know the teddy was hidden they purposly wound up a girl with autism for a laugh and to get a rise out of her which happened

I think the problem solving conversation should focus on why your Dd didn't step in earlier to protect the vulnerable girl and help her find the comfort object. And why she created more drama by pulling her away from the bag - if everything had already fallen out, what was she going to achieve other than escalating the situation?

Your posts have gone from talking about your dd "beating up" another child to now saying she was just trying to pull her off her friends bag/stuff.

I'm not sure if many schools would exclude a pupil for pulling another pupil away from a third one. But they definitely would for beating another pupil up.

Is your dd still going on about how "annoying and out of order" the victim was?

Oh my... I would be appalled and disgusted if any of my DCs did this. you must be devastated.

If I was a mum to the girl with SEN I would have reported your daughter to the police.

I really wouldn't play this incident down in any form, this needs to be taken seriously as if she can do this now what could happen in 2yrs, 3yrs etc.

Hakluyt, no thankfully.

There is no mitigation for her actions. Certain children hide my ASD son's stuff also, they do it because they are bullies. It sounds like your daughter is part of this group. She should know much better than to start attacking a child who has been deliberately provoked for what were not her possession's but those of another child.

Those involved do need to be excluded, because this will not be an isolated incident, and because they are better at manipulating others with their behaviour they have successfully got the focus on the vulnerable child by saying that she broke the phone screen.

This is their intention, this is not a six of one half a dozen of the other, it is entirely caused by children being unpleasant to a vulnerable child. No other cause.

The girl hadn't lost her comforter though , someone had taken it and hidden it.

Xpost

Your posts have gone from talking about your dd "beating up" another child to now saying she was just trying to pull her off her friends bag/stuff.

Because that is what has emerged from talking to the victims mother and both girls.

In the op it says she has been excluded for beating up the victim. Not for hanging off her

Sounds more horrific by the minute. Poor girl dealing with a bunch of bullies.

Windymill is right this is why people move heaven and earth to get away from bad parenting.

I would not tolerate even exclusionary language from my dc (they wouldn't) let alone physical violence.