School Bullies

[Zed]

a bunch of us were bul;lied at school by one kid, we cornered him ina toilet. ALL 9 or 10 of us. the problem stopped at that point... we DIDNT talk it out...

[Barry_White]

Silent I can relate to the bulling. My solution was that I made real good friends with the biggest toughest boy in the school who was actually a gentle giant but I never ever had any more problems in the three years at high school.

[Zed]

being a namby pamby does tn help. hit him back - whether you win or loose dont matter. they eventually stop if you keep hitting and showing them they can expect a fight ever time. bugger political correctness....:mad:

I wish I knew that as a kid... theres a few blokes I'd like to meet now. all 100Kg of me...:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[E. maculata]

Silent I feel your dismay, but with concerned caring parents like you it will be resolved, I wasn't bullied often as a child by other kids at school, even though we changed schools more times than I care to remember. I was bullied by my darker polynesian cousins, but not seriously enought to matter. The thing with us was/is we were brought up fairly hard, and were indifferent to school social hierachy.... didn't seem important dunno why always been like that, all that mattered was our bikes, fun and us, most other kids saw us as crazies who stuck together.
My next younger brother "A" was picked on by a alcoholic teacher in a pariochal country primary school,.... once........... he told Dad, end of bullying by that teacher anyway. Then when he follow me into high school an older boy (than me as well) went for him as he'd been unsucessful in raising any response from me, dumb choice "A" has always had and still has a mean cold streak in him, was a very quick nasty confrontation, & "A" was never ever even smart alecked again by other kids in that town.
My daughter has been bullied a few times, again nothing too serious, she's a 50kg, 150 cm tall 9 yr old, who races BMX bikes for fun , apparently this helps her to handle it ok, and a coupla times SWMBO has had a quiet word with people who can fix it the right way. Also having "surrogate" big brothers from both BMX riding and from our social circle at the same school doesn't hurt my kids either, maybe thats another approach worth exploring, if available with friends or relatives nearby.

[ian]

Just got back from the school. The teacher can't really confirm or deny the allegation. He's the bad boy in class no doubt - but she thinks that could make him an easy target for blame. We know that something is troubling her. She hasn't settled down in class this year. We've arranged for a counsellor to talk to her and see if they can get to the bottom of it. As she said, things can go on in the playground that she would never be aware of but she hasn't noticed anything in class.

I saw the kid when we were there, he's not the same one I was thinking of. Looks like a little smart@rse but otherwise harmless enough - big for his age. My wife pointed to him and said "that's him". I will keep a very close eye on this. We have to be careful not to jump in boots and all.

Funny thing is I thought we wouldn't have any trouble with her, it's the son I was expecting to have the trouble with.

Silent,
I haven't read the rest of the thread, but what you report about the teacher's response is UNACCEPTABLE.
The school has a duty of care to your daughter. No IFs no BUTs.
If they don't discharge that duty they are liable. You as a parent shouldn't have to threaden to take out an AVO against the bully before he school acts. A principled school administration will figuritively stomp on any bullies.

what ever you do, DO NOT LET THE TEACHERS / PRINCIPAL DO NOTHING

sorry for shouting

Ian

[Schtoo]

Wongo, it's the Yakuza here, but the same modus operandi no matter how old you are.

Most of them are reasonable enough, in their own way I guess.

Doesn't mean I do anything to attract attention from them though...

[dazzler]

Silent,
I haven't read the rest of the thread, but what you report about the teacher's response is UNACCEPTABLE.
The school has a duty of care to your daughter. No IFs no BUTs.
If they don't discharge that duty they are liable. You as a parent shouldn't have to threaden to take out an AVO against the bully before he school acts. A principled school administration will figuritively stomp on any bullies.

what ever you do, DO NOT LET THE TEACHERS / PRINCIPAL DO NOTHING

sorry for shouting

Ian

Quite right Ian

Plus an AVO only teaches a child that others will take care of thier problems for them. Plus they mean NOTHING unfortunately.

Dazzler

[silentC]

Thanks for the input one and all. At this point we are "monitoring the situation". The teacher is going to have a chat to her. I think it's important that we make sure something actually did happen before any steps are taken.

On bullies in general, I was talking to my wife about this yesterday. There are two types of bullies: the ones who want to show off or be accepted by their peers; and the ones who are just bad kids. The former are easy to deal with. If you stand up to them, they turn to water.

The latter are a problem. They either have a mental problem or they have been abused themselves. They are the ones who, if you stood up to them, they would be waiting for you outside the school gates and would king hit you with a lump of wood. We had a couple like that, and as I said earlier, at least one of them is in gaol. One other guy I went to school with went to Sydney a couple of years after dropping out of school. He and a mate hired a cab, got him to take them up some dark back street in Sydney, grabbed him, tied him up and put him in the boot, and set fire to the cab. He wasn't so much of a bully though, he just used to bash the teachers.

Anyway, the point is that it's not always a great idea to use force, unless you know you can handle it when things get out of hand. I just can't see my little girl, who weighs 20kg ringing wet, taking out a kid who is a foot taller and twice her weight. I'm not really sure I want her to. She's a lover not a fighter! And it would make me sad to see her turn into something else because of this. I know you have to stand up for yourself and we as parents can't just make all the problems go away, much as we'd like to.

They teach the kids to get together and tell bullies that they don't like what they are doing - try and shame them into stopping. It might work on the young and not so serious bullies. I personally think that some kids can't be helped but good on the ole education department for trying.

It's a tough one, I wish I had all the answers. My Dad thought he did when he told me to deal with it with my fists. It's easy to say but when you are a little kid faced by a big angry bully, you tend to forget your Dad's words of encouragement. As a parent, I'd like to wade in boots and all, confront the parents and the bully. But I'll go for the soft option first. We'll do it the teacher's way and see what happens. If we see no improvement, then we'll move it up a notch.

[Phil Spencer]

As I have just discovered, a very worrying and frustrating time in a parent's life is when one of your kids comes home from school and tells you that they are being picked on. Yes, our 7 year old daughter has told us that an 8 year old boy, by the name of Reece, who is the biggest kid in her class (she's in a mixed class with year 1 & 2 kids), has been calling her names and picking on her in the playground. It got to the point last week where she did not want to go to school. We asked her what was wrong and she eventually told us about it.

So my first reaction is to find out who the kid is and confront his parents. I mean what sort of cowardly little #### are they raising that he gets his kicks out of picking on a little girl? Then I'd like a few moments alone in a locked room with him. I think I know who he is. I used to help out with Auskick last year and I'm pretty sure he is the same fat little ##### that I took an instant disliking to. He never did what he was told and used to bully the other kids around, especially the little ones.

Bullies are all cowards and if you confront them, they turn to water. But this guy is at least twice the size of my daughter. So, we've made an appointment to go up to the school and discuss it with her teacher. I will be suggesting that they get his parents in and have a little talk about it. I'd love to be there too. Kids usually get their behaviour from their parents one way or another. If I ever found out my son was doing something like this to a little girl, I would kick his backside so hard he wouldn't sit down for a week and then I would tell him that there is a difference between respect and fear and if he thinks that making other kids fear him is getting him any respect I will give him something to fear.

I have you in my sights now, Reece, you fat little ####.

Had this problem when my daughter (now 27) was at school, this fat little twerp was picking on her and hurting her physically, we went to the school their solution was to make the offender sit on the steps at lunchtime didn't work. Had a word with his mum (a single mum off her head with drugs) my final solution was to lurk around the gate at knock off time and place a firm hand on his shoulder and have a little talk with him pointing out the theory of cause and effect and what would happen to him if he kept bullying my daughter. The problem stopped and we had no more problems had to use a firm hand and make sure that I left no bruises and did not get caught.

Regards

Phil

[bennylaird]

I was a big kid at school so never suffered much. That is except for one small guy, think most of his family are now enjoying housing from our justice system. He would insight a fight and if you retaliated his brothers would come and join in. Sometimes you just have to walk away from a no win situation. Those types will never let it rest and have no morals to live by.

[Wood Borer]

Thank goodness none of my family were victims of bullies that I know about.

From what I have seen whilst at school and in work places bullies rarely carry out their threats, most of the time they are not capable. It seems that their solution to solving their own inferiority complex problems is to control others through something they are afraid of – fear.

If this is true, then the logical approach would be to fix the element that is broken ie the wiring in the bully’s head rather than create an environment so the effects of the bully’s behaviour have less impact on others.

The trouble is, there are too many do gooders who seem to be batting for the rights of the bully including the parents of the bully. The schools wish it wasn’t happening and tend to go into denial fearing an endless amount of paper work, legal implications and lesser promotional prospects (you were the teacher involved in that legal case about bullying that was in the newspapers – go away trouble maker).

The parents of the victims can’t stand around and watch their kids lead a miserable life with possible life long effects so they take the law into their own hands. Bashing the bully, physically separating the bully and victims etc.

This seems to be an issue that education departments and governments are paying lip service to and not addressing the problems long term. Perhaps convincing the politicians that fixing this problem will improve the god like economy might see some action, maybe make a link to terrorism – the enemy within our midst.

Until something thorough is done about this problem, I guess people with mental problems will continue to be bashed and tortured whilst seeking out other victims who cannot retaliate.

What becomes of the school yard bullies later in life, who knows – serial killers, rapists, paedophiles or perhaps politicians.

[echnidna]

I had a kid picking me for weeks at school.
He started on me again during one lunchtime while I was eating my pie.
So he ended up with a four and twenty right in the face.
Then he beat me up.
Coupla days later I said I was sorry for poking the pie in his face, as I had to go without lunch that day. No troubles after that

My outlook is if you can't avoid a fight then inflict maximum pain,
Thats more important than winning the fight.
No one picks someone who will hurt them.

[Bodgy]

That's mainly because too many parents here should be drowned at birth IMHO.

Thats an interesting philosophical proposition, Schtoo, when you think about it.

[Schtoo]

I was wondering when someone was going to pick that up.

Kinda like the chicken and the egg, kinda...

[HappyHammer]

This is an issue I'm dreading as well from either side of the equation.

When I was 11 I was bullied at school and over a period of six months I went from one extreme to the other from bullied to bully. We need to be careful when preparing our kids for these situation that they do not go too far. I managed it all on my own as my parents were totally unaware I was being bullied as I was too embarrased to tell my Dad it was happening.

I think my daughter will handle it verbally by bringing them down a peg or two without resorting to violence. My son on the other hand is a little softer and I play rough and tumble with him regularly to try and avoid him suggesting he's getting bullied or hit when in fact it's just boisterous behaviour in the playground. I will also teach them to punch properly and I have already told them both that if someone hits them on purpose they should hit them back.

If self defence doesn't work I think we'll approach the school and then the parents and if I felt it (or me) was going to escalate out of hand I'd move them to another school. Whilst moving school would be a trauma the continued bullying could have worse short and long term affects. This decision would erk me considerably but it's not what's best for my ego it's about what's best for my kids in the short and long term, they go to school for an education after all both scholastic and social.

HH.