Bullying

[mum22boys]

Just wondering how many of you have had to deal with bullying.

 

A child in M's class told me he was being bullied. After close questioning of m we discovered he is and didn't realise that what the other kids were doing is bullying.

 

I believe he is being taunted so he becomes angry and goes into a tantrum

 

Needless to say the Head will be expecting a visit on Monday.

 

I would be interested to hear how others have dealt with this problem.

 

Thanks

 

mum22boys

[butterfingersbimbo]

el has been treated like dirt by some of the children in her class, and by some of the teachers too for that matter....the hardest thing i have found is that el is so easily wound up, and certain people in her class know exactly how to get her going. or they get her to do stuff and she's so desperate to be popular she will go along with it.....

 

i'm not suprised she hates school most of the time....thing is she is really looking forward to going to senior school in september but i am quite dreading it as there will be even more kids to wind her up......

[curra]

This is a good poll! I answered yes to both questions because M has been bullied many times and on top of it he was usually blamed for causing the bullying. He has been bullied in the playground, in the classroom, on the school bus and on the street. The good news is that since he moved to a school with an ASD unit he has not been bullied. I think the difference is that the staff in this news school has better training.

 

Curra

[JsMum]

J has been bullied but doesnt as much now he is vulnerable to teasing and winding up, but as he has got older he has retaliated and hit back though it gets him into trouble with teachers, sometimes J is just too scared to hit back so it can be a very difficult, we try and nip things in the bud early and let the headteacher know if anyone in particular are bulling as usually its a group of boys and girls because bullies dont usually bully solo.

 

bullying happens in all schools, its how its managed and dealt with that is important, and teaching our children to respect ourselves and others.

 

We did a lot of work on respect and we also looked at why people may bully and most of them its because they are deeply unhappy, past rejection and wanting to feel powerful and in control.

 

So sometimes you need to look at why a person bullies.

 

JsMum

[David Matthew Baker]

The student I support at my present school I would say is bullied. I doubt if he realises it though. His peers seem to put a lot of pressure on him to give them things they want. For instance one of the people I know in the class who certainly is a bully (he has tried bullying me a few times - if he is willing to do it to a member of staff you can guess what he is like with fellow students) seems to use him as a source of chewing gum. Not found an appropriate way to talk to the AS student yet and then it will be a case of trying to explain why I class it as bullying. In this case I think it is because he is easily manipulated to do what his peers want him to. There not exactly who I would class as the best role models.

 

Even at the special school for autistic children a certain degree of bullying went on. If a student reacted badly to certain things they would often get wound up by others in their class just so they could watch the explosion that resulted. Occasionally you could 'nip it in the bud' (stop it before it started) but other times it very quickly got out of hand. The reasons the students tended to get wound up so easily was because of certain ASD traits they displayed.

 

That said I think anyone who is a bit different is a source for bullying. Through my entire school career I recieved it for my accent and some of my interests. (As far as I know I'm NT.) At first also I would always react badly to it (I.E. in a way that made them want to keep bullying me). After a while I learnt it was better to let it go over my head and laugh with them. I did once explode infront of a teacher though. Silly me called the teacher across and then slapped the student next to me who had been picking on me for quite a while. Some how I got off just with a trip outside the classroom to cool down (I think a bit of teacher favouratism was displayed - I had a rather good rep. around the entire school with the staff). I ended up getting congratulated by most of my year group for about a week afterwards too. Long term though it didn't have much effect. Short term though I had a resbite period from bullying.

 

If someone is getting bullied nowdays though my advice would be to keep a record of when, where, what happened and how I/they reacted to the bully. That way the teachers have some of the required evidence to sort out any problems. Especially if there are any teachers or class mates who have witnessed incidents and are willing to back you up.

[Brook]

I answered yes to both, at my sons old mainstream school one of the little girls told me that the kids

knew what would make my boy scream so they would do it and then laugh at him....

 

He has recently told me two kids names that used to kick and punch him.......wish he'd told me them

two years ago.......

 

Brook

[KarenT]

Yes to both, and all very similar to your own experiences.

 

J is deliberately wound up by children in his year group and I have witnessed it first hand on a number of occasions both inside and outside school (eg at a party, when two boys got up and followed him into the toilets and J came back throwing chairs - no idea what they'd done but they certainly knew what they were doing). I've even seen him tripped up in the line going into school, but strangely the teacher didn't.

 

School's response is "Well, he's very antagonistic towards them, you know" - of course he is, he has extremely limited social skills and doesn't know how to interact appropriately. I've seen him being taunted for his out of proportion reactions, and even the 'nice' children do it because school consistently refuse to discuss his AS with the rest of the class. As J frequently explains his difficulties by screaming "I have Asperger Syndrome!", the other children are developing the obvious opinion that this means "I'm a horrible child and I kick people".

 

I've checked the school's bullying policy (some of you may remember that the secretary was 'quite upset by my attitude' that I'd had the audacity to ask for it with a smile on my face and remembering to say please and thank you, God love her) and since it describes bullying as 'A person or a group who deliberately sets out to hurt another, either physically or emotionally' then J could, in their eyes, be regarded as a bully himself. They have no idea of the sensory implications for him or why he lashes out in anger.

 

Just another of the many reasons why I'm going to look at a school with an ASD unit tomorrow!

 

Karen

X

[mummy]

A lot of kids were prtty mean to my boy when he was at first school but his naiveity meant that he didn't realise they were being mean. It just went straight over his head!

 

No problems at High school though. he has some good friends and has been invited to a few parties in the three years he's been there

[Faithnomore]

Yes to both. He was bullied and because of the way he reacts he always got into trouble. He never noticed though, he even said to me the other day he was never bullied at school!! When he got to senior school the kids were even worse and picked up on his triggers very quickly.

[caren]

I answered YES to both lewis who's nearly 15 was bullied so bad police SS and lea were called in some kids tryed hanging him setting his uniform on fire , he's been stripped and had his uniform stolen the amount of times we saw the head master and his responds was well he's in your face and to hyper after the different people were called in things went pretty quiet and then we frought for a statement touch wood he's been ok since getting support

[Canopus]

The student I support at my present school I would say is bullied. I doubt if he realises it though. His peers seem to put a lot of pressure on him to give them things they want. For instance one of the people I know in the class who certainly is a bully (he has tried bullying me a few times - if he is willing to do it to a member of staff you can guess what he is like with fellow students) seems to use him as a source of chewing gum. Not found an appropriate way to talk to the AS student yet and then it will be a case of trying to explain why I class it as bullying. In this case I think it is because he is easily manipulated to do what his peers want him to. There not exactly who I would class as the best role models.

 

This is called taxing. Sometimes bullies are nice to kids who regularly supply them what they want like sweets or money, but when they stop supplying them what they want then they start to bully.

 

Even at the special school for autistic children a certain degree of bullying went on. If a student reacted badly to certain things they would often get wound up by others in their class just so they could watch the explosion that resulted. Occasionally you could 'nip it in the bud' (stop it before it started) but other times it very quickly got out of hand. The reasons the students tended to get wound up so easily was because of certain ASD traits they displayed.

 

This happened at my residential school. When some kids got stressed out they could explode in a very nasty way. The result was that it became a cult to wind these kids up for some cheap thrills. Most of the staff handled the issue badly, and because the school was EBD, they saw it as simply being a bad citizen and an attention seeker.

[Bambi]

I ticked yes for both and how very true it is for our kids, sorry i get angry when i think of the bullying. I even witnessed the bullying of T myself in the school playground and was anything done even when i put all issues and concerns in writing to the head teacher? nope not a thing! but he is no longer at school now as he came to the point of severe anxiety & depression and wanting to die so our GP told LEA he is unfit for school, been waiting since November 06 for home tuition for T and still waiting!!!!

 

Ts 'difference' stands out to kids and he is very immature he received verbal and physical abuse being called a baby and being tripped over and laughed at and called a 'loser' which i witnessed, i see that bullying is a problem and some schools say there is no bullying in their school yeah right! if that was the case we wouldnt have the bullying problems we do within schools.

 

Bambi x

Edited March 5, 2007 by Bambi

[Cariad]

I've just Emailed the headmaster in DS's school. Some of the other kids have been singing "Babycakes" to him in school, even though it sounds like nothing they know it is a trigger and starts him off being angry and lashing out!

[Alexandra]

just saw this, and voted

 

M came home today from school

 

very upset and angry as some boys in the year

 

above him, hit, kicked, poked him in the eyes and

 

shoved his head against a metal fence giving him a nose bleed.

 

he was so upset he didn't eat his lunch,and hid at the nexy break

 

has anyone from school informed us about this NO.

 

will be going into school tomorrow, I'm so .

[David Matthew Baker]

Thanks for giving me the technical name. I'm going to have words with the SENCO about the student who has been the cause of most of the trouble tomorrow. Going to have to write out what I need to tell him later. The particular student has just given me a hard time all afternoon. Problem is can't do much when the teachers get the same off him and put up with it or ignore it. I know from talking to them afterwards it is getting them down as well. He just can't not answer back or ever accept any responsibility. I've never had a student complain about an adult 'grassing' (telling) on them before. He hit another student on the back quite hard what did he expect to happen. Argh!!! Getting wound up again. Will just try and forget about it for the moment. Can see it been quite a list though.

[mum22boys]

Just to give an update.

 

I went to see the Head today about the kids bullying M. She took it seriously but did imply it could be a one off incident. HOWEVER, he came out of school and said it had happened again, this time he was kicked first and then called various names. He ran off but they caught up with him and taunted him some more. I think the Head may have witnessed this though as M said when they went back into class the boys were called to her office. M was called in afterwards and she told him she had dealt with it.

 

Lets hope so, unfortunately I doubt it as the ring leader is pure evil, and he's only 6.

 

Even the AA teacher who visited today implied it may be a one off then told me off for not taking M straight to his class and breaking his routine by seeing the head first. i told her if I had taken him straight to class he wouldn't have believed i had dealt with it and a tantrum would have followed. Her answer, perhaps you should have got to school earlier. Does she know how hard it is to get our kids to school on time, and she's supposed to know about Autism! Say no more!

 

mum22boys

[Brook]

The results of the poll so far are very scary aren't they!

[bluejean-genie]

Hi,

I have just read the poll and I've answered yes to both questions as my 15yr old DS has been so badly verbally bullied he is unable to relate to any children as he is afraid of what their attitude towards him will be. He is now out of the mainstream school and in an interim education unit with very few children but he is still finding having to interact with them in any shape or form very problematic.

[hedders]

Hi my dd was bullied when she started school at 4.5yr she was bullied about her speech and some odd behaviour she displays the teachers said children are too young at that age to bully another child,

I believe children often know when another child is different, even when approached by a child in her school at a superamrket she was made fun of,

however i have moved her since, im not sure if she still gets bullied but have heard children say that no one talks to her because she doesnt know or understand anything and they often correct her speech

Is that bullying i dont know ?

Are there any symptoms of bullying

This would be useful.

[curra]

Young children can also be bullies. With M it was not easy to spot that he was being bullied in primary school , but here are some of the signs that I noticed:

- In primary 2 he didn't want to go to school but he couldn't say why. He showed many signs of anxiety at home and clinged to me more than usual. One day an older boy , 8 or 9 years old, from the school suddenly approached me to tell me that M was being bullied everyday in the playground by a group of children and that nobody did anything to help him. The school denied it.

- Later M told me that his teacher has told another child who did poor work in front of the whole class, "Even M can do better than this!". This same teacher said to the class at another time, "Look at M how stupid he looks walking like that". He was coming into the classroom on his tiptoes. M was terrified of this teacher. That's when I moved him to another school.

- M told me once that he didn't want to travel on the schoolbus because other children "annoyed" him. I found out later that there had been a lot of bullying and blaming him of things he didn't do, and nobody wanted to sit next to him.

- He suffered a lot of tummy aches and night terrors during primary school. It could or couldn't have been related to bullying, but those are symptons that something is going on. He never wanted to participate in any school activity such as disco, Xmas fair or sports day.

- The worst bullying began in secondary school. The most obvious signs were depression, anger, anxiety, saying he wanted to commit suicide. Almost everyday he "lost" money, wristwatches, school materials, his glasses were broken (he has a visual impairment), his books were dirty and other children wrote insults in them.

One day he came home with bruises and a bleeding wound in his legs. This attack took place on the street and the school didn't do anything. Other clear signs were that he had always been a chatty, self-confident child and suddenly his work was poor, his marks were low, he lost interest in his favorite subject because he said that he didn't want to be called a nerd.

- He became obsessed with another boy whom he saw as an enemy (he was one of the boys who attacked him on the way home) and one day he attacked this boy in the school because he and others teased him calling him "wierd and retard" and the school blamed him for being teased. This is another sign in my opinion, when the school blames a child who is autistic of causing others to bully him and saying it's all part of "growing up". There's something not right in that policy and one has to be wary.

 

Curra

[baileyj]

My 6 year old is sensitive to noise, one of the boys in the year above, realised this got a rise out of my son, so kept going up to him in the playground and screaming down my sons ear, causing him to burst into tears. He got so anxious and didn't want to go to school.

 

Fortunately, my son told his TA, who kept close to him, made the boys in question apologise, told their teacher in front of my son that they were in trouble, so my son could see them be in trouble. But... it carried on, I then threatened to go to the parents house, but the school didn't want me to and so the boys parents were bought into school. It has stopped now, but my son is still frightened to go out into the playground. We have made an elaborate reward system to combat this, and the situation is monitored.

 

It was horrible though, I was so upset at the thought of my son standing by the classroom door scared.

 

We are lucky, its a small village school with zero tollerance on bullying.

 

Jo

[Annea]

My daughter now in yr 8 is also bullied because of naivety. The kids are never rough with her, but they do 'play' with her head, by asking her lots of social types of quesions and they laugh at her responses.

 

The recent bout of bullying is them asking her repeatedly whether she likes candy floss.... stupid huh? well my daughter has blonde fine curly hair and resembles the character on the front of the book candy floss by Jacqueline Wilson..... She now understands the question, and why they are teasing her, but still can't pluck the corage up to say some of the 'smart' replies we have given her!

 

These kids make me sick!!!! It's a sad world we live in!

 

 

Headers: In response to your posts

>> Hi my dd was bullied when she started school at 4.5yr she was bullied about her speech and some odd behaviour she displays the teachers said children are too young at that age to bully another child,

I believe children often know when another child is different, even when approached by a child in her school at a superamrket she was made fun of,

however i have moved her since, im not sure if she still gets bullied but have heard children say that no one talks to her because she doesnt know or understand anything and they often correct her speech

Is that bullying i dont know ?

Are there any symptoms of bullying

This would be useful. <<

 

I feel very strongly that bullying is not all about hitting and puching, or even being verbally abusive,

I like the following - Tattum and Tattum (1992) proposed the following definition. "Bullying is the wilful, conscious desire to hurt another and put him/her under stress" I think a lot of people say, " well kids are kids and they have to learn to cope with a certain amount of bullying.... This may be true and the world is full of it.... But maybe if kids understood the consequences of their actions, it might be a nicer world eventually....

 

Children have the right to feel safe and secure, both at home and school, and if they are constantly intimidated or stressed due to the constant actions of another person, then something has to be done.

In the case of your daughter, it might be that the children just don't know how to 'be' around your daughter and maybe a buddy system might work, the correction of speech would depend how it s done, they might just be mimicking how the teachers correct her... I know my dd often corrects the younger children at the school as she adores them and is a born teacher.... it's just how she is.....

 

It certainly sounds like she is isolated though so I would certainly meet with the teacher!

 

Anne

Edited March 29, 2007 by Annea

[mrs phasmid]

yes phas jr has been bullied all his life right from playgroup and everytime its been because he's different

once the kids reached 10 we took it right out of the schools hands and straight to the police. thae age of criminal responsibilty is 10 so it was then called assault each and every time

 

some of the things he has had

 

A bb gun held to his head and fired

held down whilst a bee was put down his shirt, because theyd seen how he reacted when one flew through the wndow

held down while theput grass down his back and told him it was a bee

bottles broken over his head

we had our door kicked in becasue they followed him home

we had to put cc cameras up and have a steel reinforced door fitted

 

amongst all of this were the little constant things

 

moving his desk set up around causing him to erupt

'borrowing' stuff

sitting in 'his ' chair

name calling

mimicking the way he walks

swearing, as he goes mad about that

 

this is just a small random selection

 

he truly is a gentle giant, and even when told by his form tutor that if he lashed out in retaliation the form tutor would 'see nothing' he couldnt do it. he's 6ft5 and a brown belt karate yet cant bring himselfto lash back

we went to a village 4 miles away the other day and he stayed in the car whilst we went into a shop, even there he had some oik from school put his head through the window and scream abuse in his face. thankfully the local youth leader saw all this and identified the boys- again police involvement i cant stress that enough

the dda has made abuse due to a disability as much of a crime as racial abuse, and its about time more of us stood up and used it in the face of headteachers and the like who constantly protect the abusers.the calling of a child the N word wouldnt get fobbed off as a one off. so why should we stand for it?

 

sorry rant over

[peppa]

So sorry to hear your child and family have been subject to such cruelty, bullying should not be tolerated at any level and i admire you for standing up to these bullies and doing something posotive.

My dd is only 3, so i'm hoping its a way off before i have this problem to deal with however her differences are becoming more noticeable so who knows. Needless to say its something i'll be vigilant in monitoring.

[curra]

Mrs phasmid,

 

What your son has been subjected to is awful and calling the police was the right thing to do. My son is also very tall for his age and he has suffered many of the examples of bullying you decribe. As a result he can't relate well to other children and he doesn't go out, living very isolated which is not what he wants but he says he has no choice.

 

CurraXX

[mrs phasmid]

Mrs phasmid,

 

What your son has been subjected to is awful and calling the police was the right thing to do. My son is also very tall for his age and he has suffered many of the examples of bullying you decribe. As a result he can't relate well to other children and he doesn't go out, living very isolated which is not what he wants but he says he has no choice.

 

CurraXX

 

thank you curra, i know what your son means though phas jr reckons its just to much hassle to go out in town

 

bullying as a word when an assualt has taken place belittles what has happened. if a child hits an adult it is asault if a child hits a child it is bullying

 

joyriding as an expression for taking and driving away without consent, has been dropped from usage lets get the word bullying dropped too

 

assault is assault wherever it takes place and to whom ever. lets start calling it that people power works IF enough people use it

 

repeated following and harrasment comes under the new antistalking measures use them

 

a school is just another building. not a magical place ruled by a magical king[although most HT would have you believe that] the manager of your local woolies cant stop you calling the police if your child was harrassed or assaulted within their premises, dont let the manager [HT] of the school do it either. their not there to protect your child but to protect the reputation of their school

 

for your chiildrens sake lets put a stop to it now.

 

sorry every one, can you tell im a bit passionate about it?

 

ETA Can i just point out, we live in a small sleepy market town, with long historic links, in deepest, sleepy suffolk, where time has a completely different pace to the rest of the world. not some urban inner city tower ghetto, with graffitti and dealers on every corner. so showing that demographics have no relenvance to whose child can be one of these little

Edited April 15, 2007 by mrs phasmid

[hedders]

I spoke to the senco about concerns i have with daughters speech and how other children have diffculty understanding her, her response was will keep an eye on her at playtimes, i also said that the teacher feels unable to communicate with her and the senco replied well you have to get to know her in order to hear what she says, i starting to inform some proffess now about the schools comments as i feel this is bullying and them trying to imtimidate me. The SLT was shocked when i told her about the senco comments i dont think they truly believe me, and the senco has refused the advice for dd with helping her speech and sentences from the slt so its back to me again.

[mandyque]

I think it is fortunate in a way that dd has such severe understanding difficulties, most of the time she has no idea if anyone is bullying her verbally, she doesn't understand and therefore doesn't care. There was one serious incident at a special needs soft play session some years ago, another child got obsessed with her and followed her all the time. As soon as he caught her he would beat the **** out of her She spent most of the next couple of sessions running away from him. His mother did nothing to stop it. The last straw came when I took my son who was older than him just to shadow dd and make sure nobody picked on her. I suddenly heard him AND dd screaming, looked up and this kid had the pair of them pinned to the floor, ds was laid over dd trying to protect her and this kid was attacking the pair of them. I flipped and told his mother to sort it out before I did They never came back to the sessions which is a shame because all our kids should have somewhere to go, but this particular lad needed a lot more supervision than his mother was willing to give

[BusyLizzie100]

Yep, both DS1 and DS2. For DS1 his classmates have said things like 'Your mum's broken her back' and 'I'm going to get a knife and kill you' because they know it will cause instant panic and meltdown. Even waving an apple under his nose to get a reaction - he's super-sensitive to smell and HATES apple- is a form of bullying to my mind.

 

It's harder to say with DS2, because I have much less insight into what goes on in his world. I have noticed, though, that his classmates will 'roar' like a tiger at him to get a reaction - it totally freaks him out. These days, though, he's more likely to push 'em over if they do it; he's even starting to get in there first, knock 'em down or pull their hair before they do it. Not good.

 

Lizzie

[JenRose]

yes M was bullied from reception until year 4 when he came out of school and had a complete breakdown.

kids used to shout and scream at him cos they called him "psycho miko" went he went into meltdown, he thinks

that it was good and that liked it.

he has now been out of school for 18 months due to anxiety/depression brought on by bullying and we are fighting at tribunal

next month to get him into a specialist school.

[Bat]

Both of our girls have been bullied, one so badly we ended up threatening school with police and legal action; htey dealt with it then.

 

Other little one is regularly bullied, she's moved schools once and she still has problems in her new school because she doesn't understand the social side of things at all. We've also found that friends children will goad her to snapping point, she gives a good floor show once she's melted down and then they all stand back with angelic faces to watch. Needless to say she carefully and discreetly 'policed' by us at social gatherings now, and things have improved.

 

Bat