How can my son deal with Bullys

In My Humble Opinion
21

My kid was getting bullied and I went straight to the bullies. Told the little brats not to bother my kid anymore and that if I had to take time off work to come down to the school to settle the matter, I was going to make a big, ugly stink that involved their parents and teachers.

My kid was around nine too, but I’m not about to fart around waiting to see if he comes home bleeding before I intervene. I say go into the principal’s office screaming about my lawyer and lawsuit and see how quick they scramble to get it settled. I’ve attempted the polite, rational approach and gotten the we can’t do anything about it response with other school issues. Good luck to you and the midget. Keep us posted.

22

This thread almost made me cry.

Sadly, there are no easy answers. Practically everything you do, aside from removing your son from the situation entirely, will result in more bullying.

I’m of the opinion that self defense classes of some type, are in order. He does not have to be the agressor, but he should be able to defend himself. Unfortunately, the instant they hear "Oooooh he’s learning KARATE", it will become the subject of more ridicule (until he gets good, then a righteous bloody nose probably forthcoming and well justified).

23

Also, IMO, teens who are victims of bullying tend to gravitate toward being “bad” themselves and take to smoking, drinking, drugs, etc… possibly in order to gain acceptance with the “tough” crowd.

It will probably get worse before it gets better, but you can’t ignore it.

24

Pull a knife and threaten to spill the guts of the next ass-hat that touches him… at least, that’s what I did.

another vote for the Martial Arts here to. Make sure he doesn’t talk about it at school, or it becomes another vector for them to mess with him.

However, if he’s any good, once they attack him physically, he should be able to defend himself nicely, without resort to guns and knives, like I did.

Good luck!

25

I was heavily involved in Kenpo Karate about 20 years ago. I tought or helped teach the beginning class in our “family karate” dojo for about 2 years. Each and every frickin beginning class would have a scared kid whose Mom or Dad would encourage to tell me they were getting picked on.

My heart would go out to these boys and girls. I’d take 'em out individually for a walk. I would promise them that if they were serious about practicing that in 6 or 12 or 18 or 24 months, I didn’t know when, but at some point the self discipline, control, physical training and self confidence would stop the bullying. That martial arts was not the easy answer. That martial arts might even make the bullying worse for a while. But if they were willing to stick with it, at some point they would realize the reward that they wouldn’t be a bully target.

There are always jerks in the world, and sometimes true psychos. Martial arts can sometimes teach you how to recognize and use a violent solution to create a good ending. How to deal with fear and gain power.

My suggestion is to look around your neighborhood. Find a martial arts center that focuses on family martial arts. Family values. Where parents work out with the kids. It is not an easy solution, but with perserverence it will be a positive solution. Usually, by the time you can kick butt, you no longer need to because the unconcious signals being sent out to the bullys will cease, as will the bullying. If it doesn’t, a violent surgical response by a martial arts practicioner will stop a lot of the bullies. For the psychos, you learn how to really stop them, and again that boosts general confidence.

In the meantime, sending some positive thoughts to the little guy and hope you find a solution. Longer term, get engaged with martial arts.

China bambina is 2 and a half. Being amerasian and growing up in either China or the US, she’s going to have more than her fair share of bullying. Daddy is getting his fat ass back into shape so he can pass on the martial arts he’s learned to her. Its a major obligation I have to my daughter and to my sensei.

good luck

26

I can sympathize with you son, though, the harassing I got was never physical, it was *constant * teasing my this bully at our school who was a jock, a dork and a spaz and *I will never understand this * one of the most popular guys in our school. T
He tortured me by teasing me every day, all day, yet, I developed a very fast wit that I can only attribute to him and his posse of fucktards. And it was in school, right in front of teachers. ( Only one intervened, the rest ignored it.) But it was a different time than a sue-happy world we live in now.

**Bosda’s ** response is a very good one. (Though my first instinct was and is to “Pick the biggest guy out and punch him in the nose.”)

Being a parent is not a popularity contest. Your son does not want you to go to the principal, because he does not want to be ostracized, which I can totally understand. Even though you are a mom, you are a major source of embarrassment to your child just by existing. However, things are just not going to resolve themselves. By keeping things status quo, the situation will never change, except the bully will do this mental beating on your son that is worse than a physical one.

Go to the principal. Go to the bus driver’s bosses boss. Talk to the bully’s parents. Your son needs your intervention. Whatever you do, follow through on it until you are satisfied with the results.

( Or you could do what Mr. Ujest’s mom did. He was getting the same treatment on the bus every day by a couple of bullies. His mom told him to fight back. He said he was outnumbered. She met him at the bus stop after school where the bullies got off and she took two of the bullies hand and told her son to punch the third bully. And to be totally honest, I cannot remember if he did hit that kid or not, I just am floored by the action on my mother in law - she’s a bit of a mouse - that it blinds out the end of the story. sorry.)

27

Dragongirl, this is like posting “My child got hit by a truck and he’s bleeding heavily right now - should I call a doctor?”

Take a look at http://www.successunlimited.co.uk/bullycide/bullycid.htm which has a perfect summary of the child’s experience :

Your son is probably suffering more than you know. I went through a private hell of five long years of bullying at a boarding school. I was so ashamed of being a victim and of what was happening to me, that I almost never talked about with my mum. She knew it was happening, but I pretty much refused to discuss it.

Twenty years on, I can review my life and logically see how it was warped by that experience. There’s definitely psychological damage I should probably get expert help with one day, since I can’t just wish it away much as I’ve tried to. Stupid stuff like nervous overreaction… my girlfriend will reach over to, say, brush a hair off my shoulder and if I’m not expecting it I’ll jump five feet straight up. That started with the bullying.

Then there’s way more serious stuff such as severe depression the awfulness of which I’m sure I don’t need to describe. Take a look into the correlation between victims of bullying and teen (and pre-teen) suicides some time.
Here’s what I would do :
Find out who the bullies’ parents are and put the fear of God into them one way or another. You can threaten to sue etc, but I’d get the toughest and most intimidating man you know to make his presence felt on their doorsteps.

And definitely put dragonkid in the dojo like China Guy says. Giving him the ability to leather his tormentors IS the best thing you can do, and he’ll eventually get his confidence back too. Something I never did.

28

I can so totally sympathize with this! When my son was five he was being picked on on the bus by two brothers who were four and nine at the time. Apparently once the older boy found out my son takes tap dancing lessons he decided to taunt him by calling him a fag and getting all the other kids to join in on it.

It had been going on for a few weeks before I found out about it. I only discovered it over dinner one night when my son asked me “mommy, what does gay mean?”

My first impulse was to talk to the boys’ mother–totally wrong thing to do! She discussed it with her sons and said, “well, your son has been calling them names.” When I confronted David about it he admitted that he called them “insufferable brats.” Oh yeah, lady, that’s really comperable to them calling my son a faggot!

Anyway, I told her that since she wasn’t going to do anything about this I was going to call the school. And I did! I completely expected to get the “boys will be boys” bull, but that didn’t happen at all! The principal was fantastic. She said that David should tell her the next time it happened and he did. She then called the principal at the older boy’s school and both boys were given detention for it and it never happened again. In fact, a couple of years later, the older boy actually apologized to my son for being so mean to him. Wow! The kid actually learned something in spite of his rotten mother!

It’s a tough world out there for kids and these zero tolerance policies don’t make it any easier, but I do think there’s less of a stigma when parents intervene than there was when I was a kid–especially with the age group of the kids we’re talking about. Call the school and talk to the principal–and if that doesn’t work, have your lawyer talk to the principal. That second one is usually guaranteed to get results. Good luck!

29

My family moved around every four to five years, so I spent the majority of my life being “The New Kid,” which if you’ve moved around a lot, puts you about one rung lower on the totem poll than the “nerds, dorks and losers” as far as ridicule goes. I was raised to be non-violent, so I put up with all the teasing and jarring. Bussrides home were a fucking pain in the ass, but like a few others have said, it helped sharpen my witt and never turned too violent. Until one time in the third grade when I ended up taking the bus a good mile away and walking home in order to avoid the horde waiting for me outside. When my parents finally found me halfway home, they called the parents of the kids, and that stopped it.
For a while.
At that age, the only thing to do was wait it out. It was annoying, but I sat with my friends, we bannded together, and that helped ease some of the ridicule. Finally, about three to four years later, I was now amongst the “popular” kids in school, and then moved away and had to start all over.
In New Orleans, I remember this one group of kids that liked to call themselves “The Krusty Gang”. For them, the best sport was to chase me and my friends around the playground and kick us in the legs to make us fall over. I’m proud to say, they never once got me down. The teachers saw all this, they’d tell them to stop, and as soon as they walked away, it started again. Complaining about it did no good. Again, being passive, I put up with it. I fought back with kidness, ignored them, and made sure I was faster and better balanced then them.
What got me respect from this crowd was one day asking my mom “If someone hits me, is it alright for me to hit them back?” She said yes, and the next day when Jerrad Brubacker, the coach’s son, hit me in the stomach, I dropped both my bags and let my fists fly. He ran away crying, word spread, and from that moment on, niether my friends nor I got anymore shit.
I hate to say it, but violence works. But only if you win. If you fight back and lose, you just give a bully more self esteme because now he knows, no matter what, he can best you. Violence seems to work for some, but it’s not the only answer. Having your kid take a self defense class sounds like a good idea, so long as three lessons doesn’t give him too much of a head in thinking that he’s now the equivolent of a Shaolin Monk and starts throwing his wieght around. If it’s not much, it won’t get him far.
I like the idea of documenting the situations, reporting it to the school, and mentioning that if it doesn’t stop, you’ll seek legal action. In order for that to work though, you need a school system that takes it seriously. I worked at a day camp a few years back, were by 8:06 I had to send a kid to the office for punching another kid in the face. By 8:15, he was back in my room, and by 8:16, I sent him back to the office. If the school’s “authority” won’t stand strong against this sort of thing (like the busdriver), it will do no good.
Best of luck to your son. Tell him to hang in there, and I hope things go well for him.

30

When I was at school an older boy used to pick on my brother on the bus. When it became apparent I went and threatened him myself - loudly. And also told him loudly how pathetic and weak he must be to get a kick out of picking on a boy 4 years younger than him.

I’m not necessarily recommending this approach, but it worked. It is sad but it seems that bullies usually learn to bully by being bullied (often by a parent) and so they respond to it. We have all experienced bullies, either first hand or second hand, but I don’t think I have ever known a bully pick on someone who they knew was under the protection of someone they were afraid of (particularly of older children).

On another occasion, I had just started at a new school. I was 13 and there was a girl there who thought she was pretty tough and tried her hand at bullying me. Until one day she was walking down the corridor behind me and I slammed a door in her face. I didn’t particularly hurt her, but the weird thing is that after that she loved me - she’d go out of her way to say hi to me, ask how I was etc.

If your son could stick up for himself and fight back it would probably be the best thing for his self esteem, but alternatively, do you know any older children who ride the bus with him, who you could ask to watch out for him?

I agree with Dinsdale’s response, but if you try all those things and it still goes on - fight back. Good luck!

31

Martial Arts. Helps install self confidence and discipline, and the ability to defend yourself.

32

for those of you whop are advocating the “punch him in the nose” theory, this isn’t “Happy Days”.

dragongirl, I was bullied for years. Not physically (except on a few occasions) and always by people who I had done nothing wrong to. Being the shortest kid in any group sucked.

Go to the school. Don’t be afraid to get them involved. Make sure that your son knows that the bullies live on fear, not actions.

Does he have friends he can ride the bus with?
You could ask him to sit with his friends right behind the driver, so that the driver cannot say that he didn’t see your kid being bullied.

Adults who ignore a child in need are scum.

33

My daughter was bullied on the bus last year. This little bitch threatened to break my daughter’s glasses and routinely yanked the ponytail holder out of her hair and threw it out the window.

We told her to fight back. Punch, kick, scratch, whatever. The bus has video cameras on board so it was easy to prove she was provoked.

One instance involved a boy writing obscenities in her math book and pinching her. She showed the book to the principal who was horrified and suspended the kid.

I also wrote a letter to the bus driver and to the school, stating that since they were unable to maintain discipline on the bus my daughter would be allowed to protect herself and her property by any means necessary.

She has not had problems this year.

Dragongirl do not let this lie. Contact the transportation dept. Contact the school. See if there are video cameras on the bus. Threaten police action. The fact is adults would never get away with this type of behavior towards other adults. Adults are allowed to defend themselves. Do not let them dismiss it with “Well, boys will be boys.”

You may want to call a local television station to see if they want to do a story on bus bullying.

Please let us know what happens.

34

In the long term learning to defend himself will really help. In the short term he needs someone to defend him. Probably you. Don’t buy into that “he needs to work it out for himself or he will never be able to” crap. I’m an adult, and if I was set upon by a gang of other adults, I would stick up for myself but I would be terrified and majorly hoping that someone would come along and help me out. (preferably Lenox Lewis) Everybody needs someone to help them out sometimes - children and adults.

I can sympathise with Bosda - it is very difficult to stick up for yourself / fight, when no-one is backing you. Even bullies know that and mostly avoid bullying alone. If your son feels he has people (you / older children / the school authorities / friends ) who are on his side - really on his side and backing him, it will be a hundred times easier to cope with.

35

Here’s a thread where I got into it a bit with some onther folk on the issue of kids physically responding to bullying situations. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=97363&highlight=bullying

Also, my thread (linked above) about my son’s suspension yesterday confirms the necessity of informing the school and keeping a record. My kid and the other one had a history, which Mrs D had discussed with the assistant principal last year. This year there is a new AP, who apparently was not informed of this history. Yesterday the kid gets in 2 fights - with my son and another kid, and all 3 get equal 1-day suspensions for “first offenses.” I guess you gotta appreciate yet another opportunity to tell your kid “life ain’t fair.”

Another note, my son is in pretty good shape, tho he is not really athletic. And I am a rabid pacifist with a lengthy history training and teaching self defense, and competing full contact in various MA styles and NHB.

I have consistently told my kids not to fight. BUT, I have to admit I am rethinking that somewhat. I can imagine the events of yesterday might actually help my kid’s self esteem, as well as his standing in his community. He had not been physically bullied recently, but I guess this other kid regularly called him names and stuff. When he was giving grief to a whole lockerroomful of guys, my son told him to cut it out. When the kid proceeded to insult my kid’s mother, my kid got in 2 good shots in a 3 shot fight. Hard to imagine that turning out bad for my son in the twisted little world of middle school males.

Tough situation. No black and white. Just take some comfort in the fact that we are all muddling through these same type of things together. None of us has the right answer, and today’s right answer may be wrong tomorrow. Keep up the good fight.

36

I am not an expert, but the school doesn’t want publicity.
Threaten to go to the media. Of cours,e then you will be seen as the troublemaker.

This is why my son, age 9 does not ride the bus.
My dad drives us to school.:mad:

37

Wait. Walking a couple miles a day or getting a ride from a friend is a bad thing WHY?

38

I know my mom would be showing up at the school office or the bus office with my destroyed property and ploping on the desk of the boss and demanding that they pay to replace it. Trust me. Telling these guys to start handing out cash will get them to act.

Personally I’d move to have a new bus driver and to rearrange the kids on the bus. The two bullies must be seperated from each other on the bus and be seperate from your son. They are doing this to him only because he is there. What ever kid occupied the seat by Leopold and Loeb would get the business. With the age your son is, it is still a time for you the parent to step in and get the job done. But take your child along and have him watch as you calmly and rationally make your case and stand up for his rights. Let him learn from you how to go to who is responsible and resolve the differences.

Other than that your son should be putting some sort of mouse traps in his backpack.

Do they take his lunch? You can not imagine the feeling of watching your bully drink your pee out of your Brady Bunch thermos. ‘Hey! That’s not apple juice!’

39

Steps to take yesterday if not sooner.

  1. Call the police. You say that your son had had things taken and destroyed, that his backpack was damaged, etc. These kids are committing crimes. They’re not going to be put away, but when the police knock on the door to talk to thier parents. you can bet they’ll shit thier pants. Kids in the 9 year old age range don’t fare too well when a cop with a gun and handcuffs arrives to question them.

  2. Raise all sorts of hell. Make life miserable for the principal, school board, bus company, the drivers boss. Go see an attorney, most will write a nasty-gram for you for less than 50 bucks, implying an impending lawsuit.

  3. Remember that it’s not 2 kids against one unless they’re the only kids on the entire bus. The other kids see what is happening, some may even be affected by it. If your kid snaps and does pop them in the nose, I doubt he will be suspended, especially if you follow step 2.

  4. Get your son involved in martial arts. If he takes a liking to it, in a few years the idea of being bullied will be a joke to him.

  5. In the nicest way, get a grip sugar! As many before me have said, being a parent isn’t a popularity contest, and letting this continue for even one more day is intolerable. We can all understand your son’s desire not to be seen as a momma’s boy, but damaging his possesions and his person crosses the line where you’re supposed to be objective into protective tiger momma territory, or should. Making an issue of it will initially embarrass your son, and ultimately teach him that standing up for himself is the best thing to do.

40

If the bullying is only on the bus, why not take him off the bus? Unless you have no car or your work schedule makes it impossible, drive him to school.