I fucking hate bullying and what it is doing to my son

[sassymuffin]

Iv'e just had my 15 year old son sobbing on my shoulder because of how he is being bullied in school. He is so lovely and funny and intelligent but I have just been hugging all 5 ft 9 of him and telling him everything is going to be ok like I did when he was a small child. I hate the damage what these little shits are doing to him emotionally.

School are now at last becoming pro active, I am in daily contact with the head of his year and school have also arranged on site counselling for him.

The problem is it isn't just one specific bully, but numerous boys who will say "its only banter" They act individually at opportune times. It is not in any way organised but my DS is a general "easy" target. He is academic not sporty, wears glasses used to wear braces and is gay. At the end of last term and now in this new term they have done the following: name calling, jeering and laughing at him in class so he doesn't answer questions anymore. Putting curry powder in his rucksack and ruining his books and stinking his bag out. Throwing food and drink at him on the yard during break. Shouting insults to him in the corridors. Its all got on top of him and my beautiful boy is starting to break.

He has always coped with the name calling and laughing and always insisted he didn't want me involved and he could cope but last June he cracked and his teachers picked up on his low mood.

THREE days he has been back in school and he has had food and drink thrown at him for the last two school days.

He says he does't want to wake up in the morning and face going to school.

Sorry for the rant I'm just so angry and upset.

I would say there was an element of bullying that was homophobic last year, I recently found out that some boys had started a nasty rumour that DS had had a relationship with another boy while on a school trip that was completely untrue. DS is very straight acting - excuse the clumsy phrase and is intensely private about his sexuality at school. Only a few close friends are aware he is gay. He does not feel ready to have any kind of relationship with anyone at the moment probably due to fear and low self esteem.

A large part of the bullying is base on him being a "nerd" and not fitting in with the popular crowd. He is interested in history and politics and is an avid gamer on the pc. Like I said wearing glasses and braces (now removed) made him an easy target for unoriginal name calling such as swot, freak, weirdo etc. When he has had food and drink thrown at him there is no name calling it just seems to be something that the bully's find amusing.

He refuses to do PE any more as the bullying became relentless, he has dyspraxia so has very poor balance and hand eye coordination.

Everything has just worn him down and got on top of him and when it started up yet again on the second day of school last week he just couldn't face it anymore.

It sounds,like the school needs to step up it's plan!

Is the tutor or HoY any good?

Keep a dialogue going with the school and demand appropriate action

Ask for the school's anti bullying policy, pull them up on it. Involve the governors.

Step it up where you can.

This hateful bullying needs to stop, and the school is failing your son.

Discipline seems to broken down at the school, in your position I'd challenge the school about this.

Have a look at the complaints procedure - it's should have information about bullying and how they handle issues

For example - parents will be informed, have they? Complaints will be looked into within 5 days deadline, have they?

I'd agree that there is a lot of victim blaming and underestimating about the impact on the child and the parent (and extended family) it's horrible and they should be kept in isolation or moved from your sons classes, even an outdoor exclusion zoned be would limit contact

Keep emailing, follow up meeting with 'as discussed today, you intend to do X Y Z by A day

I'm so sorry. Your poor ds. He sounds lovely and they sound vile.

I just wanted to echo what others have said about sixth form. My DD experienced bullying through school, she's also Dyspraxic and 'nerdy' - she had a few good friends but it seemed like the rest were against her - everything you say resonates. The 'banter' (no school, sexually explicit innuendo is not banter), the relentlessness of it all. She got through and got good grades and developed a fairly thick skin for it all. Looking back, school were crap. Utterly rubbish.

However, she's just started sixth form college in a completely different area of our region. She comes home smiling every day and says things like 'people don't stare at me all the time. People just sit and chat with me like I'm a normal person. No one has said any horrible words to me at all.' taking her out of the situation has been the very best thing.

I wonder if it might be best for your Ds too, even though he feels he wants to stay. Perhaps get through y11, with the schools support, and you being on their case at every report of anything at all, then. Trying somewhere completely new. I don't know what it is - whether it's just that they're all older and college is a different environment, but it seems nothing like school for DD, and that has been such a good thing so far.

I feel for you so much. Bullying is shocking and schools find ways to be apologists for it or minimise it or even deny it. I'm so angry about what DDS school allowed her to go through. Some day when I have the strength I will write them a long letter, but sadly it'll make no difference. They were the minimising type. Boys will be boys, girls will be girls. No. Behaviour like that needs shutting down.

I hope this year goes better for your Ds. I have a geeky DS too in y9 who doesn't like sports and likes gaming. Why can't other lads find it in them to appreciate that they don't all have to be the same and like the same things?

God this makes my blood boil. Poor DS.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if there's a homophobic element that's a hate crime, which is more than 'normal' bullying -- which means I'd be taking that straight to the police.

Also second getting him round other 6th form colleges and encouraging any other interests out of school. He sounds exactly like my DS who is a lovely, lovely person and would probably love to be his friend. Sending support to you both

I would go absolutely nuts about this.

When my daughter was very mildly bullied on just one occasion, her school removed the perpetrator from all her lessons and put her in isolation, there was no talk of my DD having to have counselling/ take evasive action/ whatever .. the onus was all on the bully and stopping it quickly and firmly.

She stopped immediately because the school were so firm. What are the school doing? They should be identifying each bully and pulling them out of their lessons, involving their parents and excluding them if they don't stop

Anything less is just pandering to them and letting them get away with it. I truly believe in a really firm and quick approach, totally zero tolerance, otherwise you end up with a culture of it in the school

I'm sorry for your son and I hope this is resolved. The school can stop it but to do so they need to go in like they bloody mean it

Tell your lovely DS about the replies and support you've had from sensible mums on here, the main gist of this is your DS sounds lovely and he'll become a lovely young man and the bullies are hideous, obnoxious people (at the moment, hopefully they'll change as they grow up....I know I might be being too generous there..)

I'd like to say two words to you loud and clear, they are ZERO TOLERANCE. It's been said in most of the other posts in a more roundabout way. Any rational sane person would say these bullies are behaving in the most awful way, no one should have to put up with it. We see this sort of behaviour most weeks on the national news, it's called terrorism, it's the same sort of thing scaled up, people forcing nasty destructive behaviour on other innocent people who just want to live a good peaceful life. Sorry, I don't mean to dramatise things OP, I;m just making an analogy re the nasty behaviour Don't put up with it, show the school you are not putting up with it, and yes to say you are involving police if they don't take it seriously. If I were a head teacher this would make me sit up and take notice (if they are not already which they should be).
And as much a pain in the arse as it is, please try and log every issue/event your DS had and every phone call, visit, email you do.

I have a positive feeling you will win, stay strong.

Just seen Frankysteins post, yep, totally agree, well done with that reply. And agree that the bullies need the counselling, not your DS!!! They are the ones with the fucked up brains, sorry about the language, just soooo annoyed about your DS going through this.

Oh bless him. How bloody awful.
Banter is an excuse twats use to excuse their twattery.
FWIW. (And I'm aware at the moment it may be no use at all) Nearly 20 years of secondary school teaching has shown me that lovely lads like yours mature into lovely adults. Arsehole bullies become. Well no. They don't suddenly become lovely and happy people. They stay miserable and nasty.
I wish your boy every success and happiness. He needs to be proud of who he is.
And yes. Report every SINGLE incident. EVERY time. Witnesses. Names. Dates. CC everyone in. Bastard bullies.
Rant over!

Sorry, the school sounds incredibly weak.
They need CCTV? Despite this continually going on, obvious comments, food being thrown? Bloody hell.

I could have written this about my sane age dd.
Started with a few and then others joined in, even her so called friends.
Even kids from other schools would verbally abuse her in town or social media.
She became depressed and withdrawn and school were useless trying to make out it was "just girls" and that dd was in some way to blame.
Last easter I took her out of school and home educated her whilst applying for an early college placement.
She started this term and is happy, making friends and learning again.
No she won't get the 9 GCSEs she was predicted but she's doing maths and English and a Btec in performing arts which she wanted to do next year anyway. It's a three year course so she's just started a year early.
She's building back her confidence, socialising again and enjoying her life.
Would that be an option for you?
I hate bullies with a passion and am thinking of starting a petition to force schools into taking much a more proactive stand on it.

Just girls? FFS that's as bad as just banter!
Schools are supposed to equip their students for life as young adults. Surely dismissing bullying as just one of those things is a complete failure in this duty of care?

wolfie the problem is that when this is happening you are so busy supporting your child that you can't cope with complaints etc. I went to many meetings and involved police, education dept etc but we were also trying to do our jobs and look after our other child and have only just started to recover from the trauma of it all.
It really is disgusting the schools reluctance to admit they have bullying and come diwn really hard on the bullies.
My daughters bullies are still at the school, most of them will not pass any exams and are still making others lives a misery!
It's outrageous.
My daughter was harassed in pe despite being a dancer so very fit. She was harassed and ganged up on in the corridors.
The school suggested she miss pe and leave class 5 minutes early to avoid the corridor!!!

Your poor son.

The school needs to deal with this much better, keep on at them everyday. They have a duty to protect your son as well as educate him.

Thinking ahead to college. He may be better going to the college with lots of schools feeding into it. There will be such a mix of kids, personalities etc.

I originally went to my schools 6th form but changed to college after a while to get away from the ones who still acted like they were 12. I found college full of much more mature people. The whole atmosphere was so different to school. There were clear groups, as there are anywhere, but no group bothered any other group negatively.

I hope he is ok. Just let him know there are so many nice people in the world that will totally accept him....school is probably the hardest thing, socially, that he will ever have to deal with and he is so close to finishing now.

It so good that he feels he can talk to you....he will be a better person than any of those bullies will ever be. x

Ah OP so heartbreaking...

Your DS sounds amazing!!!
the whole banta thing is rubbish

You are a brilliant support to him-believe..

Leave PE 5 minutes early. That's rubbish.
I can never understand schools or teachers who allow this to continue. The effect bullying has on those who are subjected to it is deep and long lasting.
And you did the right thing to make your focus your child. I'm so sorry this happened to her.
All schools have bullies. They do. All schools need to deal with bullying. I sometimes wonder if they find it easier to tell the bullied to keep their heads down and try and pacify their parents than deal with the nastiness of those who bully and the homes they come from.
No teacher should ever let nasty comments etc go unchallenged. Ever. They should be on the look out for interactions designed to make students uncomfortable and should follow up ASAP any reports of bullying. Always.

I'm so sorry for your DS. This is heartbreaking.

I often wonder if the parents of bullies have any idea what they do.

I was teased/bullied at a point in school and I spoke to my DC about never ever being mean or horrible to another child. I explained the long lasting effect this could have and how awful it would be for another child to recall them as a bully.

I was in bits when my DD was bullied, but the HT, dealt with it really well.

Update: The school have spoken to the culprits in the recent food throwing incident. Parents have been contacted and after school detentions sanctioned. One particular boy had the pathetic excuse that DS must have done something to make him dislike him..... funny that he couldn't recall what that could be though.
Every lesson teacher has now been briefed and are checking with DS each lesson. The school counsellor has so far been a good experience. The anti bullying peer group support (fellow students) have been in touch with DS and they have been keeping watch on the yard at break times. I know it is impossible to stop every single jibe but the food throwing appears to have been addressed and has stopped.

I think DS just feels relieved that he has spoken about it and that there has been no ramifications at "telling" teachers. The counsellor is worried that DS is showing signs of depression so a trip to the GP is booked for next week.

Nearly all of the bullying has been verbal and about his appearance and personality so I think it will be a while before he regains any confidence. There was an element of homophobia last year with horrible rumours but he is not "out" in school and it appears to have lost traction and stopped at the present time. I didn't know about this at the time so couldn't intervene.

Sadly I suspect there will be further issues, as this has been going on in some form for over a year. Hopefully now that I am in contact with the school anything can be dealt with swiftly.

Thanks for all of your advice, I have noted all of your suggestions and feel much more confident in tackling the school to make sure they deal with all issues.

It is so bloody heartbreaking that bullying still takes place everyday in most schools across the country. Everybody knows what it does to people long and short term and in some cases it can have a tragic ending.

It is bloody heartbreaking but with you in his corner and the school finally stepping up he can move forwards.
And re confidence is there anything he can do out of school that he would enjoy and would help rebuild his confidence and lift his mood?
I still think he sounds lovely. And he's lucky to have you. for you both.

for your ds.

Makes me so angry and sad. Schools definitely need to improve their game on this front and take it far more seriously. We would not accept such shitty behaviour from adults so why is it 'just how kids are' in school! Even low level bullying in schools needs to end.
Ledkr - start the petition

Hopefully now things will be much improved for your son.

Please tell him that once he gets out of the school system it will be so much better. People are more open minded and it's easier to just avoid those that are not.

The world of work and career is much better than school in my opinion.

I'm so pleased things have moved a bit in the right direction OP. I think you have got your foot in the door now, so to speak and you need to show the school you and DS are taking no nonsense.

Some of the other posts make me that schools can have such a bowing down attitude to the bullies, whilst making the bullied person think they are the one with the problem...just beggars belief really! Ledkr, I would back you up on any petition or how about even a some sort of Mumsnet Bully Action Plan could be started. I'm just thinking all the parents on here who have a wealth of experience of how schools deal badly or deal well with it. Perhaps a separate thread where we could jot down some key points ? Maybe MNHQ would help?