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Am I overprotective, how can I solve this?
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 392317" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>OK, multiple problems here, all accumulating nastily.</p><p></p><p>First - teacher and parent are wrong when they say, "boys will be boys, ignore it." I'm wondering if the teacher is taking the lead from psychology graduate parent in this, because it also gives the teacher permission to do nothing. If this is the case, you need to put on more pressure in the opposite direction to do something. </p><p></p><p>Second, sadly, it is possible that the school won't do anything. That was our experience - the school's attitude was to let the kids sort it out for themselves, then to tell me (or my son) that what we knew had happened, had not actually happened (difficult child 3 being very naive actually believed them) and to tell difficult child 3 to stay away from the bully. Which of course never works, because a bully who is determined to hound his victim will not stay away - the victim can try to avoid (although morally that is wrong, the innocent victim's freedoms are more curtailed and they shouldn't be) but a determined bully will seek out the victim and also seek out opportunities to bully. </p><p></p><p>With apologies to any psychology graduates out there, I have found more instability and dysfunction in members of that profession than in any other. I keep meeting examples like this. Maybe the profession is too heavily padded with people who choose to study psychology because they know they have problems and this is their way of trying to get help. I don't know. But too often, I keep meeting real weirdos who turn out to be qualified psychologists. Mind you, lately I've been meeting some lovely, SANE psychologists. But they are still outnumbered by the nut jobs.</p><p></p><p>A good friend of mine has been dealing with similar problems to you and your child.Almost exactly the same - families who are also friends, removed their children from the local school and sent them to another school. Because the new school is further away, the parents need to car-pool. My friend relies on the relationship or she would have to remove her daughter form the school, but the psychologist's son has been bullying my friend's daughter, quite badly. HE actually broke her wrist badly, by knocking her over a pile of chairs and then stamping on her wrist. There were witnesses. The boy is jealous of this girl's abilities (both are in the school's gifted program) and I felt this was a direct attack on the girl's ability to perform in class and in the orchestra. You can't write or play an instrument with a broken wrist. But despite the witnesses, the boy's parents maintained the attitude of "accidents will happen" and did not even ask after the little girl. They referred to "the accident" and even commented on the girl's clumsiness. </p><p></p><p>What does a parent do? In this case, my friend went directly to the principal. She made the complaint formal and was prepared to cut her friendship with the other family if it came down to it, but she left the responsibility for actin with the school, so they were the evil ones with the psychologist and not her. However, my friend is still on speaking terms with the boy's family, although she says she will never rely on them again nor trust them again. All parents will tend to take their child's side in an incident, and previously she had found these people unreliable - a car pool would be organised and at the last minute, they wouldn't turn up. I also have worked with both families and that is why I side with my friend. I like the boy, he was one of my prize pupils, but I can see the problems there that his parents are ignoring.</p><p></p><p>With your son, he needs to be given lessons in resilience. He also needs to be supported by the school in feeling safe. I tell you now, the school is likely to drop the ball. But you have to try.</p><p></p><p>What you need to do - document everything. Follow it up. Insist that the school work actively to keep your child safe. "Stay away from the bully" is not acceptable, since the bully won't stay away from him. Also, the harm is not coming merely form proximity, it is coming form other more distant tactics (including distant name-calling).</p><p></p><p>Next - monitor. Document. How are things progressing? Don't cut your ties with your friend unless you have other reasons. While you maintain your friendship (with your own compromises) you are in a better position to influence her. But stop trying to convince her there is a problem, she doesn't want to know. Like my friend, don't waste your energy trying to change the unchangeable.</p><p></p><p>Next - if the problems continue, and if you are still on friendly terms with this woman, invite her son over for a play date. No, I am not crazy. make sure whatever activity you have planned, you are there in the midst of it. If you see ANY mean behaviour form either child, deal with it promptly in front of both. be kind, be gentle but make it clear - that behaviour is unkind, is not acceptable and makes you sad to see it in such a nice kid. Especially in a six year old, they sometimes are very confused, very angry and have no other way of expressing it. Depending on how the play date goes, you may have success or you may finally realise that this kid is a lost cause. But it will also model for your son, the right way to handle conflict.</p><p></p><p>With my friend, her daughter is highly skilled at managing conflict. Perhaps too skilled, for such a young child. But despite being a frequent target for bullying, she has good self-confidence and is doing well. A major part of that has been due to her mother being very proactive about bullying in the way I described (let the school handle it/insist they handle it and follow through to make sure they do, with every incident and quote the law to enforce this if you must) so her child has seen that she is worth this effort and deserves to be treated well. Also, she does not engage the parents in the problems if she realises they do not want to deal with it. Don't waste the breath.</p><p></p><p>Final option - change schools again. This is extreme and sends a message that the easiest option is to run away. However, if you do try all these things and there is no change, then it is not running away, it is changing direction yet again.</p><p></p><p>Your child has a diagnosis of ADHD. He is being vilified and subject to physical assault (having your possessions dipped in urine is physical assault). Therefore he is being discriminated due to his disability and the school has a legal responsibility to ensure this does not happen. Failure by the school to deal with this, is a breach of the law. And it is not just US law, it is international convention of human rights. </p><p></p><p>As far as possible, make this official and through official channels. If the class teacher won't handle this, go to the principal. If the principal won't handle it, again go higher. If this is a religious-based school, there has to be a head office somewhere as well as a policy on bullying and vilification. Also make sure you go in with some positive suggestions - find out the contact details and other info on an anti-bullying program the school can utilise, or someone who can come in and work with the school to assist staff to manage the problem. </p><p></p><p>In other words, make yourself both useful and annoying, in such a way that it is easier for the school to do what you want, rather than ignore it all. Hopefully the end result could even be the boys becoming friends again and the bully being helped to deal with his own confused emotions.</p><p></p><p>Another angle I have used with the bully - I can't guarantee it will work, but I took the bully aside, said I knew he also often felt angry and upset, but that did not give him the right to then pass those feelings on to my son. "Passing on that nastiness will do nothing to make the bad feelings inside yourself go away," I told him. I also said that beating up on a kid with problems such as ADHD was no glory. And that difficult child was no threat to him in any way, so why choose to be mean? I went on to say that because of the ADHD and autism (in our case) difficult child needed others to watch out for him and help him stay safe, rather than be a target. I said I would value the friendship of any kid who looked out for my son.</p><p></p><p>End result - good relationship now with the bully, and no more problems (after years of sometimes serious problems including unprovoked physical assault - he just walked up to difficult child 3 one day and bloodied his nose, then walked off. But never again after we had our talk. In fact, he has rescued difficult child 3 a couple of times.</p><p></p><p>It can work. But you will need to use official channels, and also get proactive. However, this also teaches your son how to be proactive and also teaches him that he deserves to be safe.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 392317, member: 1991"] OK, multiple problems here, all accumulating nastily. First - teacher and parent are wrong when they say, "boys will be boys, ignore it." I'm wondering if the teacher is taking the lead from psychology graduate parent in this, because it also gives the teacher permission to do nothing. If this is the case, you need to put on more pressure in the opposite direction to do something. Second, sadly, it is possible that the school won't do anything. That was our experience - the school's attitude was to let the kids sort it out for themselves, then to tell me (or my son) that what we knew had happened, had not actually happened (difficult child 3 being very naive actually believed them) and to tell difficult child 3 to stay away from the bully. Which of course never works, because a bully who is determined to hound his victim will not stay away - the victim can try to avoid (although morally that is wrong, the innocent victim's freedoms are more curtailed and they shouldn't be) but a determined bully will seek out the victim and also seek out opportunities to bully. With apologies to any psychology graduates out there, I have found more instability and dysfunction in members of that profession than in any other. I keep meeting examples like this. Maybe the profession is too heavily padded with people who choose to study psychology because they know they have problems and this is their way of trying to get help. I don't know. But too often, I keep meeting real weirdos who turn out to be qualified psychologists. Mind you, lately I've been meeting some lovely, SANE psychologists. But they are still outnumbered by the nut jobs. A good friend of mine has been dealing with similar problems to you and your child.Almost exactly the same - families who are also friends, removed their children from the local school and sent them to another school. Because the new school is further away, the parents need to car-pool. My friend relies on the relationship or she would have to remove her daughter form the school, but the psychologist's son has been bullying my friend's daughter, quite badly. HE actually broke her wrist badly, by knocking her over a pile of chairs and then stamping on her wrist. There were witnesses. The boy is jealous of this girl's abilities (both are in the school's gifted program) and I felt this was a direct attack on the girl's ability to perform in class and in the orchestra. You can't write or play an instrument with a broken wrist. But despite the witnesses, the boy's parents maintained the attitude of "accidents will happen" and did not even ask after the little girl. They referred to "the accident" and even commented on the girl's clumsiness. What does a parent do? In this case, my friend went directly to the principal. She made the complaint formal and was prepared to cut her friendship with the other family if it came down to it, but she left the responsibility for actin with the school, so they were the evil ones with the psychologist and not her. However, my friend is still on speaking terms with the boy's family, although she says she will never rely on them again nor trust them again. All parents will tend to take their child's side in an incident, and previously she had found these people unreliable - a car pool would be organised and at the last minute, they wouldn't turn up. I also have worked with both families and that is why I side with my friend. I like the boy, he was one of my prize pupils, but I can see the problems there that his parents are ignoring. With your son, he needs to be given lessons in resilience. He also needs to be supported by the school in feeling safe. I tell you now, the school is likely to drop the ball. But you have to try. What you need to do - document everything. Follow it up. Insist that the school work actively to keep your child safe. "Stay away from the bully" is not acceptable, since the bully won't stay away from him. Also, the harm is not coming merely form proximity, it is coming form other more distant tactics (including distant name-calling). Next - monitor. Document. How are things progressing? Don't cut your ties with your friend unless you have other reasons. While you maintain your friendship (with your own compromises) you are in a better position to influence her. But stop trying to convince her there is a problem, she doesn't want to know. Like my friend, don't waste your energy trying to change the unchangeable. Next - if the problems continue, and if you are still on friendly terms with this woman, invite her son over for a play date. No, I am not crazy. make sure whatever activity you have planned, you are there in the midst of it. If you see ANY mean behaviour form either child, deal with it promptly in front of both. be kind, be gentle but make it clear - that behaviour is unkind, is not acceptable and makes you sad to see it in such a nice kid. Especially in a six year old, they sometimes are very confused, very angry and have no other way of expressing it. Depending on how the play date goes, you may have success or you may finally realise that this kid is a lost cause. But it will also model for your son, the right way to handle conflict. With my friend, her daughter is highly skilled at managing conflict. Perhaps too skilled, for such a young child. But despite being a frequent target for bullying, she has good self-confidence and is doing well. A major part of that has been due to her mother being very proactive about bullying in the way I described (let the school handle it/insist they handle it and follow through to make sure they do, with every incident and quote the law to enforce this if you must) so her child has seen that she is worth this effort and deserves to be treated well. Also, she does not engage the parents in the problems if she realises they do not want to deal with it. Don't waste the breath. Final option - change schools again. This is extreme and sends a message that the easiest option is to run away. However, if you do try all these things and there is no change, then it is not running away, it is changing direction yet again. Your child has a diagnosis of ADHD. He is being vilified and subject to physical assault (having your possessions dipped in urine is physical assault). Therefore he is being discriminated due to his disability and the school has a legal responsibility to ensure this does not happen. Failure by the school to deal with this, is a breach of the law. And it is not just US law, it is international convention of human rights. As far as possible, make this official and through official channels. If the class teacher won't handle this, go to the principal. If the principal won't handle it, again go higher. If this is a religious-based school, there has to be a head office somewhere as well as a policy on bullying and vilification. Also make sure you go in with some positive suggestions - find out the contact details and other info on an anti-bullying program the school can utilise, or someone who can come in and work with the school to assist staff to manage the problem. In other words, make yourself both useful and annoying, in such a way that it is easier for the school to do what you want, rather than ignore it all. Hopefully the end result could even be the boys becoming friends again and the bully being helped to deal with his own confused emotions. Another angle I have used with the bully - I can't guarantee it will work, but I took the bully aside, said I knew he also often felt angry and upset, but that did not give him the right to then pass those feelings on to my son. "Passing on that nastiness will do nothing to make the bad feelings inside yourself go away," I told him. I also said that beating up on a kid with problems such as ADHD was no glory. And that difficult child was no threat to him in any way, so why choose to be mean? I went on to say that because of the ADHD and autism (in our case) difficult child needed others to watch out for him and help him stay safe, rather than be a target. I said I would value the friendship of any kid who looked out for my son. End result - good relationship now with the bully, and no more problems (after years of sometimes serious problems including unprovoked physical assault - he just walked up to difficult child 3 one day and bloodied his nose, then walked off. But never again after we had our talk. In fact, he has rescued difficult child 3 a couple of times. It can work. But you will need to use official channels, and also get proactive. However, this also teaches your son how to be proactive and also teaches him that he deserves to be safe. Marg [/QUOTE]
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