He’s in Germany. Those of you telling the OP to head to the authorities would do well to remember this.
I can’t imagine it’s SOP in many countries to head to the cops when an 11-year-old is getting picked on. It may be done occasionally in the US, but it may get you laughed out of the precinct elsewhere.
Let me guess. You aren’t a defense attorney by trade, are you.
My anecdote : I was bullied off and on until I joined the high school wrestling team - even getting my ass kicked in front of 1500 people put the bullies on notice that I was learning to fight. Even before I won a few matches, they had ‘drifted away’. Plus, it really boosted my self
confidence to the point that I would not sit still for bullying.
However, at the age of 11, this was still years away. In my daughter’s case, she was being bullied (bitten) by another kid in daycare at the age of 3, and after meetings with the daycare and the parents of the biter this persisted. I finally taught her to punch my palm with her fist and put her shoulder into it. Then to pop the nose of the kid who was biting her with the same motion - one pop did it.
Of course, months later, during a ‘tickle battle’, she’d had enough and did the same to me - all I could do was hold my nose (to stop the bleeding), and tell her ‘good, good - that’s how you stop unwanted attention’. Since then, she’s never had a problem with ‘unwanted attention’ and is now 25.
Somewhere in there may be a solution, I don’t know…
shantih,
Here are some resources regarding (pdf) bullying in Germany.
And bullying of expat children.
I just saw this article mentioned elsewhere. It’s got some interesting points about how to stop bullying (although it focuses quite a bit on what doesn’t work), but it also has some specific ideas about how the parents of the bullied child can approach the issue with their kid.
A few select quotes
Some people think the kid is being picked on because he has no self-confidence. That is blaming the victim. Maybe, just maybe, the kid has no self-confidence because this bully is picking on him and nobody seems to give a damn.
If an adult was assaulted walking down the street, would you say, “Well the muggers hit because she was just the best target. If she was less of a target it wouldn’t have happened.”
A person, adult or child, does not need the ability to ‘kick ass’ to live in peace. That is why we live in a society. When a member of the society is attacked, the society deals with the problem by punishing the attackers. It is the bully who must change his behavior and encouraging vigilantism, either by the victim or by turning old ‘kids’ into hired goons is not a good idea.
When the law is broken the authorities must get involved.
]
I just talked to my friend who is a cop in California and he said that unless there are major injuries requiring a hospital or the bully is over 13 then his department policy to simply give a stern lecture to all of the adults and children. If there are major injuries or they are over 13 then there is the possibility of referring the case to juvenile probation.
He agreed that it is very rare that even police intervention will end bullying on the first try.
That’s absolutely true. It won’t end bullying on the first try. Just like the first time cops go to a domestic disturbance call, the domestic stuff isn’t likely to be altered. But it’s additional documentation that can affect things like restraining orders later. I’ve never taken out a restraining order for a child against another child, but I do know a woman who has. After contacting the police three times, twice for significant arm bruising from grabs, and once for a broken nose rubbed in dog feces, she had enough evidence documented to get a restraining order and real legal help.
From a thread a couple of years ago:
This.
So, in reflection it seems you should
1.) Be in touch with the school, about the bullying. Do not lose your temper what so ever, be reasonable, demand to know what the school is prepared to do about the bullying, remember they are in loco parentis until school ends, and are responsible for what happens to your child during school hours (and in the UK at least, probably in Germany too) until the child returns home (for any given value of home)
2.) Should the schools response to the situation be not enough to deter the bullying, report it to the police as assault. Have the pictures of bruises as evidence. It doesn’t matter if your kid doesn’t want to take his shirt off, you’re his parent, until he’s an adult it’s your call if you think it’s to his benefit.
3.) Should that cause no joy, give your child permission to use violence, knowing that any consequences of the violence are his responsibility however it affects the bullying. If he gets caught and given a month of detention/suspended/whatever, let him know that this is the consequence of his actions, and that sometimes life as adult requires extreme action but it needs to be ‘paid’ for.
Have the results and evidence of 1.) and 2.) as backup to cover yourself.
4.) If that doesn’t work, a return flight to Germany from the UK will set you back a few hundred Euros, send it to my Paypal and I’ll beat the living fuck out of these kids.
I expect the flight costs to be covered in currency and payment for my actions in pie 
It seems to me do all of the above…
Contact the authorities and teach your kid to fight.
Yes some kids may be too timid to fight but practicing at it can only help. Teach him how to punch and where to punch. Get him used to being hit, it hurts but you can still fight through it.
I didnt know anything about fighting when I was bullied. When I finally got mad enough to take a swing, it was a weak, slow punch and so I got my ass kicked.
It’s already been said but being bullied is a very scarring experience. I am a pretty well adjusted 41 year old and would gladly burn to death my bullies to this day.
Oh and tell him to stick together with his friend. It makes it harder to for one guy to pick on them. Also, while one is getting bullied the other can run and get an adult.
Camera phone with video. A picture is worth a 1000 words. Get your friends to video tape the bully as he goes about his daily chores. That is something that can also be practiced in advance.
I had a really weird approach that worked for me in high school, by virtue of at that time being neopagan.
A kid in a horticulture class was bullying me, at one point holding a trowel up to my throat and whispering in my ear how easy it’d be to cut my throat. As I did on such occasions, I grunted noncommittally. Later, I somewhat ostentatiously drew a knot in the air while pointing at him with my left forefinger and whispering a binding ritual I’d cribbed from some book somewhere.
It and similar behavior got me a reputation as a scary hoodoo motherfucker at my school, and I was left alone.
I rehearsed scary-sounding curses (such as planting the seed of a tumor in the bully’s mother’s pancreas), on the belief that if someone cornered me, I’d freak them out. But I never ended up doing so, because once I got my scary hoodoo motherfucker reputation, I just didn’t get cornered.
Physical violence is one way to get a reputation; there are other ways. Obviously they won’t work for everyone, though.
Lawsuit threats stop this right quick. Talk to your local lawyer.
Germany…ah. Well, I’d take a lot of the advice (including mine) in here with a grain of salt, then. Here in the U.S. my concerns would be, in no particular order:
[ul]
[li]A) I want the kid to learn to use proper channels instead of using violence.[/li][li]B) might doesn’t make right[/li][li]C) The problem can escalate instead of being extinguished.[/li][ol]
[li]The kid may have access to guns,sure, but anybody can get a knife[/li][li]The kid may have gang affiliates[/li][/ul]
[li]D) There can be some real legal issues in the US when you take the law into your own hands.[/li][/ol]
Some of those things may not apply to Germany, e.g. gangs. But as I recall Germany has had some problems with immigrants (Turks?) and if the bully is part of such a group, well, the people in the ghetto do tend to stick up for each other.
So the Germans are content to “let kids be kids.” OK if they laugh you out of the police station, then when your kid defends himself they won’t do anything if that kid’s parent complains, right?
Maybe some training in the fine art of verbal self-defense would help? If bully brings friends with him, I’d say, “If you’re so tough why do you need friends to help you?” If you haven’t watched “The Karate Kid,” maybe this would be a good one to watch and discuss with your son.
If the bully is bigger/tougher, he’s going to enjoy the same advantage tomorrow as well. Karate or whatever is great but it will take a long time to get your kid up to speed. Still, here in the US at least we have some basic self-defense classes and learning a few tricks could help. A few things I’ve picked up from those who have been…
Hit the nose as hard as you can. Besides hurting like hell, it makes the person’s eyes tear up, he can’t see, and that of course is a huge advantage.
If grabbed from behind, step down as hard as you can on the instep of the bully. Also, hit hard with the elbow.
A couple others as last resorts, e.g. the other kid has a knife or a couple goons with him:
Hold your keys between your fingers and aim for the eyes (this one is taught to women who might be assaulted in a parking lot, to avoid rape).
The time-honored kick to the family jewels, aka Peter and the twins.
Pepper spray.
When I was a kid, in the US around 15-20 years ago, I got bullied pretty big-time for being the smart kid in a poor Appalachian school district. In 4th Grade and again in 7th Grade I got bullied pretty heavily, and what ended up working for me was figuring out which teachers were actively anti-bullying and which were adamantly kids will be kids. In front of the former, I’d take dives and loudly draw attention to the bullying, getting the bully in administrative trouble. In front of the latter, I’d stand ground and fight back, knowing no one was getting in trouble unless there was serious bloodshed. Either way, the combined strategies worked for me to basically avoid being bullied except when transitioning to a new student body (basically, when I moved up to 7th grade, I had to prove to the jerks from the OTHER elementary schools in the district that I was smart but I was also not easy to bully).
I’d say this strategy probably wouldn’t have been appropriate in an environment where the bullies were inclined to escalate to more deadly violence, but in the environment I was in (toughness being a virtue, bullying as a function of boredom and power trips) it worked out–inevitably, fighting back with any degree of effectiveness put you on the same social tier as the bullies in their eyes. If the bullies tend to be the clique of “tough kids” that’s when fighting back is particularly effective–if they tend to be better described as “a gang” or “troubled loners” then maybe not so much.
The only bit of advice I would give is to give your son room to make friends and make it so that that environment – which is school - no longer matters.
Fighting back doesn’t really work when either bullying is psychological (if you’re a girl, this will be the case) or the other kid is just bigger – most bullies tend to be. (Plus, if you’re a girl and you react by hitting the other kid – you just end up being singled out by teachers AND students. Been there. It’s amazing just how many bullies are really good at manipulating the system in their favor.)
Most of the bullying I experienced was psychological; typical girl nonsense. I moved around a lot and I was a convenient target for that; quiet, overweight, without established friends. I hated school.
I got through it by reading, writing and discovering online communities, which made me realize that I wasn’t some sort of a social outcast or completely inept at life.
My parents never took it that seriously; they were of the ‘Should learn to deal with it myself’ school. I’m not sure how it would’ve turned out if they were more proactive.
There is no easy answer or quick fix; but having a community outside of school, a hobby that one excels at no matter how trivial it may seem now – does a lot for long-term self-esteem.
In short; School sucks. Treat is as a necessary evil, and to paraphrase a great mind, don’t let it get in the way of your education, or your life.
I was bullied, too…“picked on” would be better to say, I guess…but I just ignored it and went on with my life. When I stopped responding to the bullies they left me alone. Not sure if that works in all cases, but did for me.
Also, what really helped was something my dad told me: “20 years from now they’ll be working shit jobs and you’ll have a good life. Then you’ll get the chance to laugh at them and rub their faces in it.”
My dad was a sage, indeed! I looked up one of my worst jr high bullies on Myspace a few years back only to find out about his full-time “career” at Walgreens and discover his rambling blogs about his third (!) divorce and money problems. He also posted a picture of one of his Jack Daniels tattoos (he has 3, apparently). He also ballooned up to 200 lbs.
I sent him a nice, long letter forgiving him for all the shit he put me through and made sure to mention my college diploma, nice house, happy marriage, fulfilling white-collar job, and fat-enough-for-me bank account. Never heard back (imagine that).
I was bullied as a kid. One day I decided enough was enough.
I waited around a corner and when bully came into range I smacked him full in the face with a tree branch, he went down like a sack of spuds. I jumped onto him and proceeded to beat the shit out of him. I got suspended for 2 weeks, he was in hospital for 2 days.
Neither he or anyone else ever bullied me after. It seems that word went round that chowder is one fucking mad bastard, don’t fuck with him.