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?

My children certainly aren't perfect, but if one of them was ever involved in anything like this, even as a bystander, if they tried to say it was the other child's fault for being annoying, I would be furious with them and very very disappointed that they could be so unpleasant. I'd be staggered and mortified and very worried.

What I wouldn't be is, first and foremost 'terrfied' for them . You and your dd need to own this, and sort it out.

As if three girls were found 'hanging off' another and got excluded for it!

Of course we dont have perfect children but if my dds beat up anybody I would be on her right away not tryi g to excuse her behaviour

YY Effic Nice to read a genuinely helpful response. It's obviously an emotive subject but the anger directed at a child on this thread makes me very uneasy (and I obviously agree the behaviour was unacceptable).

And I do tnink children influence each other but it is up to us as parents to make sure teenagers learn consequences of their actions

Hm, that’s quite a mixed bag. Pouring things on the floor is not the same as deliberately smashing things in anger, and there’s every chance someone put that teddy behind the radiator on purpose and I’m afraid you can’t just assume it was your DD’s friend, it could easily have been someone else stirring things up.

It's not ideal to just accept your DD’s word that she did not hide the teddy (even though you may be right!) You simply don’t know who (if anyone) hid it, and you will never know, and that’s where it rests. The thing is, your DD needs to understand that it’s reasonable for her to stay under suspicion because of her own behaviour afterwards, and also that she shares responsibility for the things that her friends do unless she actively tries to put them right and/or refuses to go along with them.

And I wouldn’t buy the “pulling her off” story at all. Sounds like spin to me. There are reasons why the victim and her mother might accept it , but you mustn’t take advantage of that. The victim’s mother may very much want her DD to keep in with the other girls, and the victim herself may not have a clear understanding of what is deliberate aggression and what isn’t (people with ASCs often don’t) The story doesn’t gel with the “being annoying” and “getting away with it”. You did say she was “helping them beat her up”? It also doesn’t gel with exclusion. My DS has gone into meltdown and kids have tried to hold him back physically and they don’t get excluded just for that. Instead, believe the teacher’s version and insist that your DD accepts it as a fair interpretation of events.

You don’t need to get your DD to confess all but you do need to get her to apologise, accept serious penalties, and make up for what she did.

You’re in this for the long haul, so stay strong and keep on keeping on!

What I wouldn't be is, first and foremost 'terrfied' for them

It is perfectly possible to be terrified of what they could become.

if they tried to say it was the other child's fault for being annoying, I would be furious with them and very very disappointed that they could be so unpleasant.

Clearly you have read the OPs posts differently to me.

I'm horrified and determined to deal with this, not minimizing it, just analysing the situation.
I have let her know how upset and angry we are

The only people who know what actually happened in that classroom are the children who were in that classroom.

J

The OP came here looking for ways to sort this out.

She does not deserve a kicking from a pack of baying hounds.

Saying the girl with ASD is annoying doesn't help. The behaviours she exhibits that others seem to be railing against can't be changed. Also if there is lots of provoking with things like hiding a toy, it's understandable that she reacts.

It could be there is a bunch of students egging each other on, and the school and the parents need to stop it.

And owl, people's advice and responses to her have been informed by her Teflon like inability to take this as seriously as it deserves. It is also extremely annoying that you are going through people's posts and pedantically highlighting what they have written, out of context, to rebut it all.

Actually partridge one poster did call her a shit parent. If it said 'you're showing shit parenting skills' I wouldnt have a problem with it but it didnt say that

Also YY to effic's suggestions.

Effic and MostWicked Brilliant posts.

It takes a good deal of maturity to stand up to a herd mentality (which can be as little as one or two people beginning something, because they like drama, because they have their own issues, because they have fallen out with someone, whatever). It would be a totally exceptional 13 year old who had that maturity.

OP, your DD needs to apologise unreservedly for her actions. No mitigation, no victim blaming and make reparations to the girl that she has hurt.

You need to understand that you are now in a power struggle with the bully. It is no longer acceptable (and could end up downright dangerous) for your DD to continue her friendship with the "alpha". Send her to her GPs while you and her father work out how you are going to deal with DD's friendships and behaviour going forward.

Wow. The OP came on here for advice and support and has got a real kicking. She has said that she is beyond ashamed, and I believe that. I don't think she is defending her dd's actions in any way. I would be devastated if I were in her shoes.

What the OP's dd did is clearly reprehensible. She needs to reflect on what she did, and to understand why it was so wrong. She also needs to try and make amends, and the victim should not be allowed to take any of the blame. The OP's dd has known the victim for a long time, and must be well aware of her disability. This makes the attack all the more shocking.

However, I can't see how branding the op's dd as "disgusting" and calling the OP a shit parent is helpful or appropriate. The OP's dd is still a child, and although she has done something very wrong, she shouldn't just be written off. She needs to really, truly understand why what she did was wrong, and the OP needs help and support with how to teach her this.

In the meantime, the school should be taking appropriate steps to protect the victim and make her feel safe. If that means permanently excluding the OP's dd, or other bullies, then I believe that they should do this. However, even if this is necessary, I don't think anyone should be vilifying the children who perpetrated the attack. They too need help and guidance.

I wish some of the parents of excluded pupils I deal with took this much responsibility.

As for the suggestion up thread of a permanent exclusion or a two week one and a stint in the PRU....it is incredibly difficult to exclude for more than a few days, and largely pointless. PRU places are like gold-dust. Permanent exclusion costs the school £6k - so four permanents equate to a teacher losing their job. Our hands are totally tied.

That's why I think education needs to be restructures You'reAllABunchofBastards. There needs to be far more funding for things like PRU's and alternative provision and heads should be able to exclude far more easily. If teachers were fighting for things like that I'd respect them a great deal more. DD's school lost DD because they weren't dealing with behaviour issues. I'd have given the school £10,000 towards a couple of exclusions - quite happily.

Do schools and the people who run them not understand that assault is extremely serious and should not and cannot be condoned within a civilised society.

We totally understand that assault is serious.

However, we also understand that a permanent exclusion can pretty much write off a child's chances of success. Look at the pass rates for PRUs. One isolated incident shouldn't automatically lead to a permanent exclusion.

Teachers are fighting for this. Gove's solution is to make all schools academies so they can do what they like. It isn't working - PRUs are losing more funding and gaining more pupils. The system is collapsing.

Most schools have a 'white room' or 'green room' which is a learning support area. Instead of exclusion, children could spend the rest of term attending these small, staffed rooms daily. They could earn their right to reintegrate by positive, self-esteem building activities, such as becoming a peer mentor, etc. They need to be helped to change, not excluded because otherwise they will just become bullying adults.

Yes, but these incidents rarely are isolated. I also find it extraordinary that the ringleader at dd's old school had a litany of offences behind her: insolence, foul language, knocking over a desk when angry, theft, beating up a girl in similar circumstances on this thread, smoking weed, internet abuse, fighting in the street with girls from other schools, etc., etc.. Guess when she was permanently excluded ....when she kicked the Assistant Head and called her the "C" word. OK to do that to other teenagers then because no permanent or robust action was taken up to that point. That's what really gets my goat - once a teacher got hurt, action was taken - when it was only other children excuses were made. IT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH AND THE PEOPLE WHO THINK THIS IS HOW SCHOOLS SHOULD BE RUN HAVE NO BUSINESS SETTING STANDARDS FOR MY CHILDREN BECAUSE FRANKLY THEIR STANDARDS ARE NO WAY NEAR HIGH ENOUGH.

Apologies for shouting but when school teachers start supporting the standards of good families I'll start supporting school teachers.

Owl I actually had more sympathy for OP earlier on - yes, I know she said she's ashamed etc, but when she stated she was going to ignore 'frothing' posters (ie just be sympathised with and not take any account of what's actually wrong here), I did lose sympathy.

I lost more when she repeated dd's comments about the girl being annoying, and more when she continually framed this as being essentially a story of 'ring-leader' and her power over dd, rather than of a group of girls who all did something very unpleasant to another child.

And it's all this which makes the title about being 'terrified for' dd sit ill with me. I think it's odd and wrong to see the problem here as 'how do I stop this ring-leader making my daughter beat people up', rather than 'how do I stop my daughter beating people up'.

Windy, permanently excluding a pupil is a complete pain-in-the-arse process that requires a billion files of intervention and evidence of failure of that intervention to actually stick. If the documentation isn't there, parents can appeal and the exclusion be revoked.

It's entirely possible that if the student had attacked the assistant head first, without the string of incidents behind her, then she might not have been permanently excluded. I certainly know of teachers being assaulted and students not being expelled.

In what way does permanent exclusion help the excluded one? I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong because it one important way of looking after the well-being of the rest of the students, but we are being asked to help this mother correct her daughter.

Windymill, there will have been plenty of fixed term exclusions before the permanent one, I guarantee it. Schools do everything they can to avoid permanent exclusions- not least because it rarely ends well for excluded one- and it's in everyone's best interest to try to turn a kid round.

People clearly were frothing, I dont blame the op for not listening to those posters