Anyone else deal with this? What did you do?
School refuses to deal with it. We’ve contacted the bully’s parents who say the right things but nothing changes.
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That sucks, man. I’m sorry you’re going through that.
Have only experienced some very mild stuff that blew over and I’m not quite sure hit the bullying threshold. I’m obviously happy it didn’t escalate. If it did, then I’d have to do something and I’m terrible at dealing with people and especially bad in situations like this. I’d probably making this OP.
Hopefully someone comes along with some sage advice. I’m afraid I’ve got nothing.
My stepdad told me to hit them in the mouth and he’d back me up. I’m not sure I’d go that extreme, but I did haul off and hit a bully in the arm once in 8th grade. He never messed with me again after that. Being big probably helps.
Bullies just want easy prey imo. Any amount of fighting back and they’ll go seek other targets.
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More information? Gender, roughly how old, what kind of personality does the kid have, is this just one bully or do they have backup, what form does the bullying take, etc?
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Bullying sucks so much.
Start off by documenting everything. Every incident of bullying, your kids responses to the bully, your outreach to the school, and their responses to you. Get a paper trail of it all. Then threaten the school with a lawsuit if they continue to allow it to go on, and show them you’ve done your homework.
Wish I had better advice, but that’s the best I can come up with. I’m a non violent person, otherwise I’d tell you to teach your kid how to beat the shit out of the bully and figure out how to deal with the consequences afterwards. Most bullies need to have their teeth smashed in one time to change their behavior.
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My kids have been through just about everything, though I don’t remember much actual physical stuff. Threats though.
My wife’s reaction was usually about the school, the other kids parents, etc. I’ve always tried to focus on our kid, talking to and supporting them, etc. Both modes are probably important.
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This. Document everything you can. Try to have interactions with the school via letters/email.
We had some shit with one of our kids and the school would always use phone calls. It was like they forgot everything as soon as they put the phone down. They just wanted the easiest path out.
If you need to, seriously mentioning that you might take it beyond the school district will perk them up.
I haven’t dealt with anything like this, but one general bit of advice is to suppress your papa bear instincts and make sure you intervene in a way that teaches the right lessons. Discuss what you’re planning to do on their behalf and let them make real decisions about the approach when it’s reasonable. If drastic solutions like changing schools are or aren’t on the table, be explicit about that and explain why.
The bad message is that you’re going to fix this problem for them because it’s too hard or too serious for them to handle. (Even worse: you’ll only act on their behalf if they convince you it’s too hard for them to handle.) The message to aim for is that they don’t have the resources/knowledge/maturity to handle this problem on their own, so you’ll provide guidance and support to help them get it done. As much as you can, treat it like math homework and not like yanking a kid out of the street because there’s an oncoming car.
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Not a parent, so I’d disregard my suggestion to go beat the other kid up.
This sounds like a very frustrating situation. It’s crazy that there are schools today without strong and effective anti-bullying policies While I generally don’t like going over people’s heads, this is the type of situation worth taking up with the superintendent if the school refuses to help. The suggestions about helping your kid cope are good to, but it makes sense to have a backup plan.
Not a parent either but many decades ago that strategy worked for me, with two different bullies. Today though, you are more likely to get in trouble for that than anything else.
This sucks. I don’t have any advice, but just wanted to say that we’ve dealt with bullying and bullying-adjacent behavior, too. A few hard things:
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Very few of the actions were extreme enough that an objective person would look at the action in isolation and say, “That is obviously bullying behavior that needs an official response.” Instead, it was more of a low-grade, constant stream of actions that accumulated over time. This is what makes me agree with earlier comments to start documenting things and communicating them in writing. It’s one thing to say, “Kid X tripped my daughter” and expect the school to discipline Kid X. You look like a lunatic parent if you demand the school act over a seemingly trivial incident (even if that incident happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back). I think it’s a much more reasonable thing to say, “Kid X has engaged in a constant stream of belittling and demeaning my daughter over a sustained period of time. Here are several examples.”
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Adding to what bobman said, it was hard to balance the urge of “we need to protect our kid and vanquish their tormentors” with “we need to help our kid learn to deal with this stuff and learn how to distinguish real friends from people who aren’t your friends”.
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The hardest part for me is the fact that I can see certain behaviors that have likely prompted (that’s not the word I’m looking for, but it’s close enough) some of the bullying. My kid can be socially awkward sometimes, and we want to offer guidance on how to successfully navigate social situations and avoid predictable missteps. But sometimes it feels like when we do that, it could be sending a message of “it’s your fault that you’re being picked on”, which is just gross.
I don’t know, it just really sucks and I wish we knew how to handle it.
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Is there anything you can buy that would help?
As a socially awkward and badly dressed kid who was bullied, with parents who said “cool people don’t care what other people think” I would have been materially helped if they had just shelled out for two pairs of new Nikes and some new tshirts.
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Those other kids are just jealous of your Pro-Keds from Payless!