Last Friday, my 12-year-old son finally told me that he’s been bullied by two boys in his class since about a month before the end of the last school year. They pinch him on the chest, give him smacks on the side of the head, yank his chair out from under him … you get the idea.
His class switched the whole line of teachers at the beginning of this year (partly because this was an ongoing problem and we parents suspect they wanted to shake things up and give the class a fresh start). We emailed his teacher earlier in the week, giving the details and asking for an appointment as soon as possible. Today, he called and said he will talk to the boy that is the main instigator, as well as the boy’s mother, and my husband and I will meet with him on Monday to discuss what has happened and what will happen.
Last year, several students in the class were left back, including the worst bully, and we had hoped that the whole class environment would become healthier. This smacked us out of the blue.
My son has been home with severe headaches and stomachaches since Monday.
Last night, we were lying around reading and I noticed several healing bruises on his chest. I asked about them – they were from last Friday, when he was picked on by these two jerks. He says that there’s another boy in the class, a friend of his, who is being attacked even more mercilessly and has multiple dark bruises.
Holy shit. Right now, my thoughts are swirling around tar, feathers, big sticks, and riding these two thugs out of town on a rail, after I kick their worthless asses from here to next Thursday, but I doubt that’s the appropriate response. What should I do? I want this handled and handled hard, so that it never, ever happens again. Christ. Seventh fucking grade.
You could call the bully’s parents but that might not be any better. They could be ones themselves. The most efficient thing to do is to call the school principal and report it. That is his/her job and those things are taken pretty seriously these days. Follow up on it as much as you need to. Bullys are an age old problem for kids and teens but it causes a lot of damage and he shouldn’t have to deal with that. This certainly won’t be the first time the school has had to deal with something like this. Tell them that you trust their expertise and expect them to handle the situation.
The only way to really beat bullying is to make them look for an easier target - when easy targets run out, they will be forced to take it out on some poor pet!
If your child is taking all this abuse without even losing his temper and giving one of them a smack back, of course they are going to carry on doing it!
I really do think ALL kids should be doing basic self-defense from the age of 7 upwards. This way, the bullies can be spotted at an early age and can always be paired off against some particularly talented kid of their own age and size( or better still, smaller and younger), who can teach them an overdue lesson in humility.
And as mentioned above, you’ll find most bullying kids have a bullying parent, who probably also needs a good smack off someone they can’t intimidate!
Indeed, call the principal and superintendent,but first read your student handbook and rehearse what you want to say, stay rational but firm. I would be sure to insist that physical contact or verbal abuse be addressed swiftly by the school.
Follow up and make sure they follow through as well. Don’t demonize the bullies or their parents, but make sure that they know it is going to stop one way or another. If the school system is soft on this kind of stuff and would rather not create a respectful safe environment then you’re in for a rough road.
What can you do to help your son hold his own against the kids? Probably not a whole lot that you haven’t talked about already,eh? Ugh what a distraction, hope you can get control of the situation quick.
Does the school have an in-school police officer? If your son has bruises, PHOTOGRAPH THEM, and show the photographs to the officer. He should be able to tell you where to go from there, IF the school doesn’t quickly put a stop to this behavior. 7th graders can be arrested for assault, at least here in the U.S., and informing those 7th graders (and their parents) of that can be effective. Being pulled aside by the police officer and told the facts of real life, not school softness, can go a long way to scaring bullies straight. It doesn’t work for everyone, of course. Of course go through normal school channels first, but you can escalate this with proof of physical abuse like photos of bruising.
I would report it - in writing, with copies to the teacher, principal, and possibly even the school board. I would stress my demand that the school keep my child physically safe during the period that he was within their control.
And then I would teach my kid the importance of fighting back, as well as how to do so effectively. Next time one of those kids touches him he should say loudly so others can hear, “Touch me again and I’ll kick your ass.” Second touch, no need for more words. Better to go down swinging than to be a perennial victim.
My son (now 20) was bullied horribly, and I wish I had followed the above advice when he was in elementary school. His situation finally improved in 7th or 8th grade when he kicked the main bully’s ass. Well worth the suspension. Wish he had done it years earlier, but I had consistently told him that fighting was NEVER appropriate in the school.
Please call the parents of the other boy who’s being attacked, and make sure they know what is happening to their son. See if you can, together, come up with plan to cover both boys.
I am a thirty-year-old man who was bullied exactly like this in seventh grade. I don’t want to scare you, but it fundamentally altered my personality and I still struggle with the scars that it left.
Supposedly everyone is “taking it very seriously” these days, and for your son’s sake I hope it’s true. When I was in middle school, everyone was “taking it very seriously” then and that didn’t stop anything. Conferences, both principles getting involved, the other kids’ parents getting brought in…nothing.
It got to the point where I was having constant Columbine Massacare-type revenge fantasies, making hierarchies of who I would target first and how I would carry out the whole thing. With a Dad who hunted and a house full of guns, this was not the most remote possibility.
You’re not going to like this part, but what it ultimately took was me flipping out on the main guy and beating the fuck out of him in the middle of a science class lab - I’m talking kicking, punching, biting, crying, etc. He also beat the fuck out of me in the process. Contrary to the power fantasy myth, most bullies aren’t big 'fraidy cats who cower the first time anyone stands up to them - they’re hard-wired, tough abusers. He put me in the hospital with a concussion at age 12.
Yeah, Grade 7 would be about right - that’s when I remember having problems with it. I made the wrong choices back then and became a collaborator. We all changed over the course of the year, but I still feel terrible about how I allowed people who should have been my friends to be treated 35 years ago.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of most school boards, the ‘going to the authorities’ solution is the right answer, but the problem with it is that it does nothing for your son’s self-esteem, and the bullies know that.
Among the problems with fighting back are
it teaches the bullies that violence works, and that the bullies just need to be tougher and more ruthless.
it costs the victim the moral high ground
it can escalate the violence against the former victim
it can escalate the violence against the other victims
it can lead to the bullies ganging up.
The same thing applies with you - I fully understand the emotions this raises (and I know you were only describing your feelings, not outlining a course of action), but but it’s not the best approach if you get involved with the bully kids or their parents yourself.
You can, however, take all that anger and channel it into ensuring that the teachers, the principal, the school board and any other authorities (the school cop?!?) do their jobs and follow through so that this stops. Same with your son - make sure the authorities know what it’s costing him to come to them and not fight back himself.
All that being said, a Karate class, or Tae Kwan Do, or Kung Fu or whatever is available, is a really good idea. Among other things, it may be reassuring for your son to know what he could have done but chose not to do. It may also help him to understand that he is a better person for not resorting to violence.
While personal experience ought not be determinative, I would be interested if posters were willing to indicate whether they or someone they were close to were on one or the other side of bullying.
6th through 8th grades were a miserable time for me, constantly picked on, shoved, punched, locker vandalism, teasing, whatnot. Sometime late in 7th grade my dad taught me to fight back: close your fist, aim for their face, swing HARD. Some would call that excessive, but that’s the point: this is not a consensual game of tit-for-tat to see who gives up first, you want to cause this other kid a lot of pain as quickly as possible so he stops doing whatever he’s doing to you NOW. The act of fighting back like this was for me sometimes even more traumatic than the bullying - if it’s not your basic personality to fight back, it takes a whole lot of gumption to fucking punch someone in the face, and the tension/release invariably left me in tears. But it worked. Each time, one punch ended the immediate incident, and in most cases I didn’t have to take any more shit from that kid. After handing out a few bloody noses, gradually word got around that I was not a consequence-free target, and life got better.
Well, it worked most of the time. There was one incident where a kid deliberately cornered me and started spitting in my face, hoping I would take a swing at him. he, quite literally, beat me to the punch. Left me with a fat lip, but earned him a suspension.
This was 25 years ago. I don’t have kids, but I gather school policies may be different these days, with very little tolerance for physical violence even when exacted in self-defense. Which I think sucks. You may want to talk to the school to see whether their policies are sensible in this regard. If not, it’ll take more involvement from you and the school authorities and possibly the police, talking to the bullies (and their parents) directly to achieve results.
I was bullied once when I was in 5th grade by a couple of 7th graders, after shooting us with BB guns for days they finally made the mistake of getting too close. I beat the hell out of the main kid and put him in the hospital with a broken nose and a concussion and was suspended for 2 days. My Dad took me out for ice cream every day of my suspension.
Funny thing, I never had a problem with bullies again.
I was bullied quite a bit in 4th, 6th, and 7th grades. Fortunately there was very little physical violence, but I got robbed of my self-esteem every day. And yeah, it had lasting consequences.
I never did take my dad’s advice. He was bullied when he was around that age, and one day he snapped and punched the bully in the nose. They were best friends ever since.
That and $5 will get you a school lunch. Which is to say I agree in theory and I hope other approaches work, but the moral high ground doesn’t heal bruises, and this needs to stop.
I’d say start by going through the school route, then, if nothing improves, consider the cops. If you start with the police and it doesn’t pan out, you have nowhere to escalate.
My response isn’t going to be popular here, but it is what I was taught, and what I believe. The way to deal with a bully is for the victim to punch him right in the nose as hard as possible, then fight the bully with all the fury the victim can muster. Kid may lose the fight, but he learns to stand up for himself, and the bully is likely to try easier targets.
I sent my son to Tai Kwando classes. Before he actually got his black belt, people heard about it and left him alone. That is all i wanted, he was left in peace. He was a little guy with glasses. A perfect target. But he became less fun to pick on .