Can anyone help us stop our daughter being bullied

olibrofiz

Really feel for you OP. When DD was having problems at secondary I rang childline and they put me on to parentline (never knew it existed), speaking to them was helpful. I eventually sent an email to school advising of my formal complaint, and advising that parentline thought the school was dangerously close to breaching their own anti-bullying policy as the school wasn't a 'safe' place to be for her. Fingers crossed all has been quiet for the last 4 months, & she only has a couple more to go.

Sorry to hear of others having gone through such bad times at school, & those who's kiddies are going through it.

mishkanorman

I had a sister and 2 best friends who were bullied through high school, my sister was a year above me at school and had a girl in her class who was bullying her and the girls friends then started joining in. One day we were walking to get our lift home, when 4 of the girls started following us, bully leader was chipping my sisters ankles when sis spun round and with one good punch stuck her on her !!!! in the gutter. I will never forget that day

My 2 friends never did stand up to their bullies and were tormented on a daily basis till we left school, I was never bullied. The only reason I can attribute to this is because I simply didnt react on all the little minor comments and stationary throwing that went on, I didnt bow my head or flinch or hide from them. When one of the boys got brave (stupid) and shoved me I squared up to him, pointed out his huge ears and fat !!!! and advised him very firmly that no-ones perfect and he really shouldnt pick a fight he wouldnt win.

Im fully prepared for my gorgeous little speccy geek son to be bullied, and he has had a very minor taste of it already, so far he shrugs it all off and thats the reaction I will continue to install in him. I personally dont believe parents stepping in helps the child, they need to learn to deal with it, in whatever way works for them. Bullies are in all walks of life, they pick on those 'weaker' than themselves and use the pain they inflict on others as a way to detract from their own pain/problems in life.

OP, if I was you I would be talking tactics, what does your daughter think of the bully ? when did it start ? could your daughter have some (verbal) ammo to fire back next time ? Why did your daughter let this girl get close enough to slap her ? is this behaviour normal for the bully ? I wouldnt be trusting other people to get this situation resolved, i would be coaching my child into dealing with it themselves. You may get the teachers to deal with this bully, but thats only a short term solution.

mishka

PS big hug from me goes to your girl, im not as un-caring as i may sound, ive seen the damage bullies can do so many times.

Organic12

Former Primary School Governor (vice chair) hoping to help. I agree with those saying make a nuisance of yourself. It's usual policy that if you're not happy with the Head, you go to the Governors. Please do so, they should be able to help you out.

Track down the Chair of Governors, the school office will tell you how to contact them, if they won't tell you, make a fuss. Chair not available, go to the Vice-Chair. Your Parent Gov. might help but your DD is facing abuse daily which needs to be right stopped now, so go to the top.

If worth their salt (admittedly some Govs are just useless), once they've listened to you, they'll investigate (eg. speak to Head and Class Teacher) and then contact appropriate people to help resolve the problem. They may decide to take immediate action by some other means. Without knowing the set up of your school it's difficult to say. They should keep you informed too.

I hope your DD has a much happier time in Secondary school. I'm saddened that no one is helping you all. Your DD is lucky to have such a great Mum. Good luck with the role-playing too, I hope it works.

kippers

Thank you for all your replies. The chap at the LEA didn't get in touch with me or my DH yesterday and no one at school has done anything about reassuring my dd, all she has heard from her teacher is the deputy head is dealing with it, so she has gone since Thurs thinking that the bully will "slap her f..cking face" on top of everything else.

I rang the LEA welfare officer four times yesterday and i kept being told he wasn't there...but surely he would have looked at his emails at some stage and could have least have emailed me back to say he wasn't ignoring our email which we titled 'urgent'.

Yesterday i contacted the doctor and he faxed over details of our worries to the school nurse who apparently can help our dd with bullying.

Last night my dd went to bed with a sore throat and feeling sick...this is her way of saying she doesn't want to go to school tomorrow (we have had so many of these days). Everytime this happens i try really hard to get her to school which is draining to do....but today i don't think i can cope with it anymore and i think i will just take her to the doctors and see if he can write to the school or at least put it down to stress on my dd notes.

My dd refuses to do martial arts, role playing and won't stand up for herself and i don't know what to do now. Kidscape yesterday said that my dd won't talk about it as it's too painful for her as she as to relive it and they also said that they think the LEA will just side with the school, as it's just one word against another.

I am really failing my dd as i can't seem to do anything about it. I can't seem to stop crying this morning, i really need to pull myself together before i wake my dd. She says she still wants to go to school (we have discussed home-schooling until Sept when she starts new school), she says she wants to go on the school trip next week (but we won't be there to give reassurance if the bullying happens there) so what do we do?

Sorry if i sound so down this morning. I don't know wether to sit at the school and not leave until something is sorted. I don't know whether to give out leaflets and form a protest outside the school telling everyone the school are not dealing with the bullying and invite the local papers or just wait for the welfare officer to contact us. What i do know is i've had enough and i'm finding hard now to be strong though i know i have to for my dd sake

SDG31000

kippers I remember that feeling of helplessness so well, but that fact that you are worrying about this means that you are a good Mom and that your DD is lucky to have you in her corner. You aren't failing her, the system that is meant to be in place to protect her is failing her, but not you.
Do you have a copy of the schools anti-bullying policy? If not, then getting a copy of that and highlighting where they have breached it might focus your thoughts a little.
Personally I would see if the Welfare Officer contacts you today and what they say. If you aren't happy then let your Mommy Bear instincts come to the fore. It's amazing how scary a woman who is completely calm but simmering under the surface can be. I also found that finding the right person to burst into tears in front of worked well.
The best of luck to you and your DD xxxx

DUKE

Oh how I hate bullies! My husband has 2 kids from his first marriage, because they were big kids for their age he always taught them not to hit out as they may do the smaller kids some serious damage. Anyway one particualr little s*** kept making fun, hitting him & making his life a misery .... But because his Dad had told him not to hit out at the smaller kids he didn't. So eventually his Dad had to tell the lad to stick up for himself. This led to the other kids Dad going to the school & threatening my stepson who was only 11 at the time. So my husband went round to see the bloke at his home & very nicely explained the situation. Then he told the bully bloke that if he didn't sort his kid out then everytime that kid hit his kid then my husband would be going round to hit him. It worked a treat. Although I understand that you may not the confrontation .... I can only agree with what others have already said & enrol your daughter in self defence or something similar to boost her confidence. Good Luck!

pinksleepybear

Krav Maga. Both of you should go, make it a family activity.

Fuzzy_Duck

Having a smart mouth doesn't always help unfortunately. I was very lippy at first when I was bullied at school and came up with some fabulously witty comebacks. It gave me a chance to escape whilst said bully struggled to work out what I'd said but it was a lot worse the next day when the bully finally understood they'd been insulted.

Likewise when I later became very depressed and could no longer respond even if I'd wanted to, it didn't put them off. It just encouraged them to try harder to get a reaction out of me, and despite me remaining zombie-like it didn't put a stop to their fun. As sad as it sounds it didn't stop until I'd left school (in which time I attended as little as possible to avoid the bullies) and it took a few years to come out of the depression. Even today at 23 I still have low self-esteem, anxiety and anger issues.

I know that's not helpful but from what you say it does sound like your poor daughter is suffering and counselling might be an idea. It is so easy to start believing that something must be wrong with you and you deserve it, and it must be particularly hard on her at that age. Counselling (even if it's just with the school nurse) will give her the chance to blow off some steam and hopefully help her get back to how she used to be, so she can think about attending the self-defense classes and boost her confidence.

When she is at secondary school the bullies will be the small fry and it will be easier for her to make some nice friends who will support her and help shield her from any bullying. I do hope things work out- you sound like a lovely mum and your daughter must remember that there is nothing wrong with her- she is clearly a sweet girl who would never bully anyone else, and sadly that's all it takes to become a victim.

danielle1977

Kippers-give your daughter a phone and have her call 999 and ask for police whenever something happens as she is being assualted and no-one is protecting her. A bit extreme but if your not getting anywhere, people arn't returning calls etc what choice do you have. You already have it logged with the police that the mum came to your house.

Sweet_Pea_2

OP I feel so sorry for your poor DD. Now is the time to be enjoying the end of primary school. I can understand exactly where youare coming from with having difficulty getting anywhere with your daughters school. When my DD2 was having a problem (luckily it wasn't bullying) I wrote a very polite letter to the headteacher, fully expecting it to be sorted fairly quickly. I was amazed not to even get a reply. It's only when I wrote another more insistant letter and the headteacher could see I was not going to let the matter drop did she (very reluctantly) a) do the minimum she could to help and b) apologize. She even acknowledged the fact that she had received my first letter but not replied. It made me realize that that all the fine sounding guff on the schools website is just that and you really do have to fight to get anywhere. This is from a very popular and oversubscribed church primary. Luckily DD2 is now at a secondary school which has not such a good reputation, but I can't believe the difference in attitude from the school.

My DD1 had a problem with bullying, from some boys in her form. I advised the "smart mouth" which looking back I probably would not have advised if her tormentors were girls, because I think a lot of girls have smarter mouths than boys anyway. It worked well, even the bullies thought it was funny and earned her a grudging respect.

I really hope you get this matter resolved for your daughter.