What this mum did to deal with her child’s bully is awesome.
I need to start off by explaining exactly who I regard as a bully. I’ve been arguing with my son’s school about this for two years. To me, a bully is anyone who targets another repeatedly and injures them, physically and emotionally. There are different levels of bully and as bullies go, my son’s was far from the worst. There was no verbal campaign against him, no groups of children following him home taunting him and no social media insults being hurled.
When the bullying began, my son was eight and so was his bully. There’s only so much an eight-year-old bully can do, and boy did he do a lot of it.
It started on day one of the school year when my son was kicked in the balls while lined up to go to class. A new kid had joined the school and sadly for my son, his spot on the line was right in front of him, giving him perfect access to my son's privates.
After a week of this my son and I discussed strategy. He didn't want me to intervene so I said he needed to start protesting loudly and repeatedly. Instead of quietly cupping himself trying to prevent himself from further attack, loudly say, "Don't kick me," whenever it happens to call the teacher's attention to it. Do it every time so the teacher knows it's happened. This worked, for a while.
Other forms of physical abuse began after that. At recess, at lunch. This kid didn't have any friends so would latch on to my son's group and in the absence of any friend-making skills, would hit and kick and punch.
My son was miserable and began dreading school for the first time ever so I contacted the school. We had a meeting during which I was told that my son wasn't really being bullied, but also that this child had 'behavioural issues' they were aware of and were trying to deal with.
"But who protects my son while his issues are sorted out? I won't send him to school to be treated like a punching bag," I insisted. They promised to try and keep an eye out. The child was encouraged to make other friends besides my son.
We enjoyed a short reprieve.
Then, two weeks after starting a new job located one hour from home, I received a phone call from my son's school. He had fallen over in the playground and landed on his mouth, smashing his front four teeth. I shakily rang my mum to pick my son up who was apparently in shock and I boarded a bus. I knew that kid had something to do with it.
I wasn't wrong. The teacher had sent my son and the bully to the toilet together during class. As they made their way back from the toilet they began running. The kid gave my son a shove and he landed on his face. The school denied this had happened but offered to pay for Philip's dental work. I was incensed. I tried to calm down and think of a course of action.
My mum wasn't so restrained. She dropped Philip off at school a few days later, marched right up to the boy and yelled in his face, "Leave my grandson alone".
I knew this boy was in a world of hurt because the school was taking more severe action towards him and his family had been notified. I also knew 'open class' day was coming up.
When I showed I up spotted him straight away and he spotted me. Obviously my mother's verbal bashing had pre-warned him that our family was angry with him, and unafraid to show it.
Philip showed me around the class. The kid kept an eye on me and I kept an eye on him. My son had told me that the child had apologised to him but he's done that before, then returned to his violent ways.
As soon as I got the chance I went up to him and said, "Hi. I'm the mum.
I know you don't mean to hurt my son so much or so badly, but you do, and you have been all year. I forgive you for smashing his teeth. I know you pushed him.
"I also know you don't have any friends. My son wants to be your friend but not if you keep doing this.
"You are no longer allowed to touch my son for any reason. Not for fun, not during sport, nothing. Then you can be friends.
"I forgive you, but no more touching. Friendship only."
The boy nodded at me solemnly. I prayed it would work.
It did, with help from my son who got into the habit of loudly saying, "Don't touch me" whenever the boy approached but quickly followed it up with, "Now, let's play handball".
It's not a conventional solution but it worked for us. We befriended the bully and managed to greatly improve my son's school year.
I felt like a weight had been lifted, and my boy stopped begging to stay at home.
Have you ever had to deal with a bully at your child's school? What did you do?