Eeyore attacked at school!

[JJJ]

The school nurse just called. She said Eeyore got pushed down by another boy. When I spoke with Eeyore he said the boy grabbed him by his shirt, dragged him out of line, started punching him, threatened him and then knocked him to the ground.

Of course, Eeyore doesn't tell all of that to the asst principal because he was scared and she already has the other boy in her office so I'm waiting for her to call back.

 

[crazymama30]

Wow. Poor Eeyore. I hate bullies, and I hate it more when it happens when the teachers are supposed to be watching.

 

[JJJ]

The asst principal called to tell me that the stories they are getting from both boys and the two witnesses don't match. They have two more witnesses that she is interviewing and she will get back to me later. Eeyore is going to an 8th grade Special Education room because it has the least amount of kids this morning and he doesn't seem ready to go back to class.

Eeyore has such poor social skills I wonder what the true version of events was and if we will ever know for sure.

The teacher stepped in when Eeyore was shoved into the wall and to the ground but I don't know how much she saw.

 

[gcvmom]

Ugh. I really sympathize with you. difficult child 2 endured several years of bullying in school, and much of it stemmed from his poor social skills.

I hope you are able to get to the truth of what happened and help Eeyore process and learn from the experience, and that he's not too traumatized from it. These kinds of events can have a lasting impact on our kids (unfortunately) Can't wait to hear his side of things. Sometimes what they tell adults at school (like you've already indicated) is not what they reveal to us when they get home.

 

[rlsnights]

In our case, I would never accept difficult child 2's version of events at face value. He is so deep into denial about his feelings and the effect of his actions and words on others that his perceptions are never congruent with those around him.

difficult child 2 will stand there and insist (quite sincerely) that he did nothing to provoke the attack. He clearly believes the attack was a random act of violence.

In fact you saw him get angry when the other kid cut in line. He gets triggered by the unfairness, leaves his place in line, shoves the other kid out of the line while yelling at him, calling him names and telling him to go to the end of the line. The other kid, humiliated, goes volcanic right back and shoves difficult child 2.

When you say to difficult child 2 that you saw what happened and that he started the fight, difficult child 2 may eventually agree that he told the other kid to go to the end of the line but that is as much of an admission as you are likely to from him. He truly believes that he didn't "do" anything.

His psychiatrist refers to this as poor reality testing and extreme ego defense.

I just know that there is always more to the story than difficult child 2 can tell me and I have to turn to other sources of information if I really want to know what happened.

Hope it works out OK and neither boy is suspended or humiliated publicly by an adult. For difficult child 2 the second would be far worse punishment than the first and result in attempts to revenge himself on the other kid. Bad news.

 

[JJJ]

Okay, I have about as full a story as I am going to get. The school has video! So we know for a fact the Eeyore walked up to a group of 8th grade boys and spoke briefly then walked away; a few minutes later, Eeyore returned to the group of boys and then D shoves him and Eeyore shoves back, there are multiple pushing and shoving but no punches. There is little to no agreement about what was said and the video doesn't have sound.

So, Eeyore received an ISS that is being served today with a Special Education teacher. He also received some social work support on how to better handle the situation. I hope that he is able to get caught up on his homework during this ISS and maybe it will be a blessing in disguise.

It will be interesting to hear his full version tonight.

 

[susiestar]

I am so sorry. Poor Eeyore. This sure screams a need for ice cream.

Sadly, the version you get at home is probably more of what Eeyore thinks truly happened. Fear really gets in the way when our kids try to tell others what happened.

Maybe if you worked with some dolls or action figures to help him describe what really happened it would help.

Make sure the school works hard to help him feel safe in the future. It truly can leave lasting damage including panic attacks and other things. One child I know who dealt with this soon felt that no one anywhere ever believed her and no one could keep her safe. It was very very scary for everyone involved.

Give Eeyore a hug for us. And that ice cream!

 

[JJJ]

Give Eeyore a hug for us. And that ice cream!

LOL about the ice cream. When Tigger was in 1st grade, they gave him an OOS for building a gun out of legos. When I came in to pick him up after explaining to them on the phone exactly what I thought of their decision, I invited them to join us at the local ice cream parlor cause we were getting a treat

I made it perfectly clear that if I thought that the problem was theirs that I would not support it, but if I agreed with the sanction I would back them 100% (and I have on many occasions). Only twice with Tigger did I not support them, and the 2nd time was a 5-day suspension because a teacher got hurt doing a restraint. Honestly, if you touch my kid he will defend himself and in our county, the teacher could have been charged, not Tigger.

So, I will see what Eeyore's version is and determine what we do from there. I'm assuming he felt threatened so my default is to be very supportive of his feelings and give no further punishment and hope that he will talk about ways to deal with it with either husband or I.

 

[susiestar]

I didn't see your post about the video before I posted. That does put a different face on things. I mostly reacted because I have seen thank you be picked on and hit and he usually has not even said much.

Given the video, and more info from Eeyore, I also think the ISS might be a blessing in disguise. Esp if the Sp Ed teacher can give him more help on the homework than he usually gets.

Kudos to you for rewarding Tigger after the restraint. So many of our kids have tactile defensiveness and touching them makes everything so much worse. It is just so scary to them when they are touched.

 

[TPaul]

Denial seems to be such big part of our childrens reactions when an incident occurs. I know with Levi that when something happens at school it has always been blamed on another student, or the actions of a teacher. Never has it been him that had anything to do with or cause such. I guess that is part of the ODD that goes with many of our other phsyc conditions at play.

 

[Marguerite]

According to what you said, it seems that Eeyore MAY have said something to the other boys. But it wasn't Eeyore who shoved first. Which means - the other boys should also get ISS.

Where was the playground supervision? CCTV is no substitute for someone on the spot to prevent this sort of rubbish.

We used to het this with difficult child 3. An intense rule-follower, he got very angry if someone cut in line. But another cute little game the boys would play - they would push suddenly at the end of the line and send kids tumbling like dominoes. If difficult child 3 was one of those kids, he would sometimes blame the boy who pushed into him and not realsie the domino problem. I actually witnessed this a number of times on different occasions but could never get the teachers to do anything about it. difficult child 3 would be stirred up and iin a heightened state, and they would then punish him if he failed to do his work properly or was irritable.

The kids who shoved in difficult child 3's case knew exactly what they were doing. Most of the time the kids who got shoved were the ones regularly targetted. The oddballs, the nerds, the weird kids. The ones teachers preferred to not believe because they weren't so pretty or good at sports. I remember one time seeing difficult child 3 and another boy go tumbling, the teacher turning around and yelling at these two for "mucking around" while the boys who had shoved them walked away grinning. I had no opportunity to say anything, it would only have led to reprisals. I did have a word to his aide quietly and let her know that I had seen what happened. But the class teacher - couldn't care less. As long as kids didn't draw blood... and sometimes not even then.

Marg

 

[JJJ]

Eeyore said he isn't sure what happened, that he was so scared he kind of blackout. Turned out this is the major difficult child from 2 years ago -- he got an OOS for something or other as a 6th grader and retaliated by keying the principal's car/ Later that year he got in major trouble for some pretty serious threats. We didn't have anything to do with him last year as I didn't have a kid at the same building.

Heck, I would have been frightened. We worked with Eeyore on how it okay to just stay away from this boy and that if D is near some of Eeyore's friends to just find other friends to hang out with.

Eeyore did get caught up a lot on his work. Just a couple of things this weekend

 

[flutterby]

I believe him about blacking out. That's fear, as I'm sure you know.

Did the other student receive punishment as well?

 

[JJJ]

Yes, the other student also spent the day in ISS.

 

[ML]

I agree Eyore is likely telling the truth as he sees it. My heart goes out to him.

 

[tictoc]

I hope you and Eeyore are having a nice weekend. Poor kid (and mom, too).

As for the Tigger story about the Lego gun...Seriously, OOS for making a Lego gun??? Bug would never be at school if his school did OOS for Lego weapons!

I think you have a great approach to supporting or not supporting ISS or OOS. Sometimes the school is right and other times it is just plain wrong.

 

[svengandhi]

JJJ -

Just a thought. Years ago, I used to teach trial technique classes. One of my favorite parts was when the students would bring out their videos and watch them with me and a professional actor. We would critique them and go over what they were thinking, what they could have done differently, etc. Although it's not exactly on point, is it possible for Eeyore (by the way, I use this nickname for my own 13 year old but not on this board) to watch the tape with his counselor and discuss what happened at each point? I think seeing it might help him to comprehend how it appears to others. They could brainstorm steps he could have taken at each point to avoid D - like walking over to a teacher instead of just walking away and coming back.

My own Aspie son, now 19, discovered ISS after being attacked in school in grade 6 and fighting back. He lOVED it and would try to go whenever possible, LOL!

The Lego gun made me laugh as well. My 19 year old was almost suspended in middle school (surely the 7 circles of hell all in one) because he wrote "Anthrax" on an envelope. My now 10th grade honor student was almost suspended because he told the school psychologist that when he was grown he was going to come back to school with his army and show them. When the psychiatric asked if he had the army with him, he said "If you see them, you're crazier than you think I am!" I fought both suspensions.

Does Eeyore have a "circle of friends" group? Maybe they can set one up for him or get him a line buddy. Maybe then D won't bother him anymore.