School Bullies

A few weeks ago my 11-year old came home really upset from school. I asked her what happened and she said, "I hate ****!"--a boy in her class who's been giving her trouble the whole year.

I'd heard about it before from her, he slacked off on his class responsibility when they were partners on the job, he had hit her, he'd made fun of her for being a foreigner (though technically she's only half foreign and holds a Japanese nationality and was born in this country). He'd hit her friends too, and copied from her papers (they were sitting together in class). So, I took the first steps at that time to deal with the situation, I first talked with her about handling it, what she should ignore, what she shouldn't. Then I talked to her teacher about it, and he said he knew this boy was causing problems in general, and he would deal with it. Two months later, and the kid had just hit my girl over the head with a broom stick, along with one of her friends.

I'd had enough, I wasn't going to let some big 11-year old boy hit my little delicate daughter, no matter what she might've done or said, boys just don't hit girls, period. Fortunately, he lives right around the corner from me and I've been friends with his mom ever since we moved in. I also knew that this kid had been trouble pretty much from the beginning in kindergarten, a wild kid, uncontrolled, refusing to cooperate or listen to anyone, and his Mom had no control over him. But she's a really nice person, and I had hopes that I could just tell her what happened and ask her what to do about it.

I walked over to her house, and began by apologizing for having to bring up an unpleasant subject, but it seemed her son had hit my daughter and another friend at school today, and it wasn't the first time it had happened. I explained the various things I'd heard from my daughter over the past school year and the fact that he'd made fun of her for being a foreigner. I told her I'd already talked to the teacher earlier, but it seems like the problem is continuing, and since it involves physical force, I wanted to ask her help to handle it.

The Mom was quite shocked, she said it was the first time she'd heard anything regarding my daughter or the other girl and her son. She said she'd had one call from the school in his behaviour towards another girl, but not about these other kids. We talked about it for a bit, and she was very sorry that her son had been so nasty, and promised to talk to him, and made me promise to come right to her if anything else happened.

Boy was I relieved! This was the first time I'd actually dealt directly with the parent of a child who had been bad towards mine, and she took it really well and was really supportive of helping her son not be abusive towards other kids.

It then developed into a conversation about the present teacher, who it appears, is not very good and has many problems in the past with his classes. But that's another story for another post.

I then thought about another situation that had happened for a couple of years regarding my son when he was in 4-6th grade and a kid who was the class bully. He'd hit Jason several times, quite hard it seems, but I had been under the impression the school and teachers had taken care of it, talking to the boy, talking to the parents, etc. But in retrospect, I wish I had taken a more aggressive action from the beginning and talked to his mother directly, another parent with whom I've socialized with, and perhaps it could've helped avoid a couple years of trouble for my little guy. I felt bad that as a parent I didn't stir myself up more to stand up to the kid's parents and let them know what was happening. I apologised to Jason for that, and told him I would always try to be there for his defense if it ever happened again.

On a side note, the boy who had been bullying Jason (amongst others) recently hurt a child in school so badly the child had to have laser surgery on his eye to repair the damage, and I wonder if the parents are finally waking up to the sad state of their kid...