Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

lostinrates

LydiaJ wrote: »

TBH I probably should have done more earlier. .

I think you have to be lead by DS. If ds is opening up now, then that is when he is being honest with himself that he wants and needs your help. Depsite his bereavement he is also a normal little boy with normal little boy problems and challenges to deal with too and I personally think you weren't as in the wrong as you seem to think to give it a chance to ''blow over'' or for him to find a way to deal with it, no more so than I now think you are in the right to stop that tactic when he's asked for help....

The problem with bullying is its so HARD to stop the consequences, even if you stop the actions/words. Just a bad look from a person who says or does nothing but has a history of being nasty to you can be withering and damaging if your confidence is low, but you can't ban boys from looking at each other. It can be kept to a level where the child has space to develope some robustness though...but that rising to the challenge can really only be done successfully by the individual I think.


Be kind to YOURSELF too Lydia.:)

tomterm8

silvercar wrote: »

An investor with no strings is excellent;
An investor with a daughter who he wants FCC to train is good;
An investor who wants to give the business to his daughter as a toy would be frustrating.

But then if we are talking 7 figure sums, there will always be strings.

Any opportunity to say to the money man, if you are doing this because it makes sense then do it without the strings?

To be honest, if I was the investor the strings he mentions are precisely the ones I would want. It doesn't make sense to buy an intellectual property business (which is essentially what FCC's business is) without the people who make it work.

It is a good compromise for FC to train someone else to replace her.

vivatifosi

tomterm8 wrote: »

To be honest, if I was the investor the strings he mentions are precisely the ones I would want. It doesn't make sense to buy an intellectual property business (which is essentially what FCC's business is) without the people who make it work.

It is a good compromise for FC to train someone else to replace her.

I couldn't agree more tomterm. High intellectual capital businesses are notoriously difficult to value because of the issue of human capital walking. Tie-ins are very much the norm.

I also have to apologise for asking a question last night that made limited sense because I was absolutely cream crackered, then going to bed before I fell asleep on the sofa for the night and not following up on PMs etc. Am working at mo so can't stay on line, just wanted to say sorry:o.

GDB2222

silvercar wrote: »

Similar houses went for 316k and 280k in 2010.

256k is too much, no profit in that ( or compensation for living on a building site).

Like I said, end users value properties differently from surveyors. End users discount some of the refurbishment costs, eg 'we can do that ourselves for next to nothing', or 'we can put it off until we get more money together'. In the meantime they have paid 256k and they are living in a 300k road. Provided their marriage survives the trauma of working all hours on the house and living on a building site, it may work out okay for them, whatever the surveyors think of it.

LydiaJ

OK so I have been to the school.

I talked to the (temporary) class teacher in the playground before the kids went in. I brought her briefly up to date on the mental health thing, and mentioned the bullying and the names of the 3 boys he says are mainly responsible. I think his perception of not having been believed was a misunderstanding. The teacher's immediate response to the names was, "I think they've been doing that sort of thing to a lot of people." I did get the chance to explain why he is not able to cope with that sort of thing, to ask her and the TA to keep a particularly close eye on what they do to him, and to express my appreciation for the TA's attempts to help him to integrate, but to ask that she hold off until he's had his first appointment and I can get advice from the therapist/psychologist/whoever about whether the school should be making him join in with stuff or letting him mope alone if that's what he prefers to do.

I also saw the office and got an appointment to go back half an hour later to see the head. I gave him a copy of the psych report from the summer, told him about the referral for next week, and described the bullying. He also recognised the names of the 3 nastiest boys as habitual sources of unpleasantness, and then turned the appointment into a general conversation about DS's mental health and how the school could best support him. I did try to get back to the bullying, saying, "I think generally school is doing the right things about most of what DS needs. I've come to see you for two reasons - because I think you need to know about what's going on with his mental health, and because he needs a greater degree of protection from X, Y & Z, because he's nowhere near robust enough to cope with that sort of thing." He did at least say he had "zoned in" on what I said about that, and that it needed "to be dealt with... err... to continue to be dealt with".

So we'll see what happens. I'm just not the sort of person who can go into school and tell them they are useless for failing to control the antisocial activities of these three little thugs. I'm more comfortable taking the line that "my son needs special care and you need to keep these destructive influences away from him". I feel faintly that that is letting down the "normal" children that are also on the receiving end of this kind of unpleasantness, but I haven't got what it takes to fight a more general battle against bullying, just the particular battle of protecting my own, and I'm more comfortable politely trying to get people's cooperation than adversarily trying to enforce what I think is right.

I'll see what DS says this evening.

Davesnave

lostinrates wrote: »

It can be kept to a level where the child has space to develope some robustness though...but that rising to the challenge can really only be done successfully by the individual I think.

I agree with this. DD2 wasn't very 'robust,' but we realised that we couldn't defend her 24/7. There were times when she just seemed pushed from pillar to post. Teaching her to be politely assertive was the most useful thing we did.

When she walked out of the unruly special needs dept and refused (politely!) to return, something happened. The school suddenly realised that they were not alone in controlling her education and she found new inner confidence.

Of course it wasn't all plain sailing after that, far from it. However, some of those who bullied later became friends, and as she got to know their home circumstances, DD began to understand the reasons behind much earlier aggravation. Bullies are usually victims too.

silvercar

GDB2222 wrote: »

Like I said, end users value properties differently from surveyors. End users discount some of the refurbishment costs, eg 'we can do that ourselves for next to nothing', or 'we can put it off until we get more money together'. In the meantime they have paid 256k and they are living in a 300k road. Provided their marriage survives the trauma of working all hours on the house and living on a building site, it may work out okay for them, whatever the surveyors think of it.

They have paid 256k to live in a 300k road, but they have no heating and winter is round the corner.

Your right, if they can make it work it makes sense. Just hope they have realised that they need to get professionals in to sort the ground that lurks underneath the back garden. Everything else they can do as and when.

If the location, location, location mantra is true then it should work out for them. That road is popular.

GDB2222

I didn't get that bit about the rear garden. What did your surveyor friend say was wrong? There were no photos of the rear garden in the particulars of sale.

lemonjelly

LydiaJ wrote: »

OK so I have been to the school.

I talked to the (temporary) class teacher in the playground before the kids went in. I brought her briefly up to date on the mental health thing, and mentioned the bullying and the names of the 3 boys he says are mainly responsible. I think his perception of not having been believed was a misunderstanding. The teacher's immediate response to the names was, "I think they've been doing that sort of thing to a lot of people." I did get the chance to explain why he is not able to cope with that sort of thing, to ask her and the TA to keep a particularly close eye on what they do to him, and to express my appreciation for the TA's attempts to help him to integrate, but to ask that she hold off until he's had his first appointment and I can get advice from the therapist/psychologist/whoever about whether the school should be making him join in with stuff or letting him mope alone if that's what he prefers to do.

I also saw the office and got an appointment to go back half an hour later to see the head. I gave him a copy of the psych report from the summer, told him about the referral for next week, and described the bullying. He also recognised the names of the 3 nastiest boys as habitual sources of unpleasantness, and then turned the appointment into a general conversation about DS's mental health and how the school could best support him. I did try to get back to the bullying, saying, "I think generally school is doing the right things about most of what DS needs. I've come to see you for two reasons - because I think you need to know about what's going on with his mental health, and because he needs a greater degree of protection from X, Y & Z, because he's nowhere near robust enough to cope with that sort of thing." He did at least say he had "zoned in" on what I said about that, and that it needed "to be dealt with... err... to continue to be dealt with".

So we'll see what happens. I'm just not the sort of person who can go into school and tell them they are useless for failing to control the antisocial activities of these three little thugs. I'm more comfortable taking the line that "my son needs special care and you need to keep these destructive influences away from him". I feel faintly that that is letting down the "normal" children that are also on the receiving end of this kind of unpleasantness, but I haven't got what it takes to fight a more general battle against bullying, just the particular battle of protecting my own, and I'm more comfortable politely trying to get people's cooperation than adversarily trying to enforce what I think is right.

I'll see what DS says this evening.

Sounds to me you did a good focussed job there mate!
At the peril of teaching you to suck eggs, if you drop the word "safeguarding" into the conversation, the head should sit up a bit more - but you probably know this.:o

I am sure you will monitor this closely & take the right course of action. I would suggest that if there are any repeat incidents & you have to see the head again, I'd be stressing that the head had the option to address the bullyinh at the first meeting, & apparently chose not to, focussing on your son rather than the bullying, which was a mistake.

lemonjelly

I went to see Bill Bailey last night. Aside from being a very funny man, he is a phenomenally brilliant musician!