School bullies picking on my son.....any advice??

Okay, fine, that's different - but not all cases are going to be that.

I agree, but it is happening. I'm saying, if you can step in and correct the behavior at 6, will that prevent this nonsense at 12?

I honestly don't know...it's a good discussion.

I know no women will agree but you also have to teach your kids to fight their own battles. The bullies obviously have to be addressed but kids aren't going to be able to run home to mommy every time they get their feelings hurts. Like Rocky said, "nothing hits harder than life".

Yup! I'm so glad my parents allowed me the opportunity to stand up for myself. My mom was livid I came home crying every day because of this stupid bully. But she told me to fight back. And I did. It shaped who I am today. I'm not a pushover...I'm a fighter

Edit: And I'm not really talking about the non-consent photos here. What about those cases that are not those 'some cases' you describe?

Sexting gone public.

After a bully catches one in the nose, he typically stops.

This has been my exerience also.

My son constantly gets bullied. We have made the teachers, principle and coaches (yes even his football team picks on him) aware of what's going on. They have talked to the children and informed the parents, but we also know that we have to teach our wee one how to deal with it appropriately. We tell him that sometimes it's hard to walk away, and a LOT of the times it's because the bullies don't feel good about themselves so they have to take it out on someone. We teach him what to say "I don't like how you're treating me" or "You aren't acting like a Charger". We have taught him steps on how to deal with someone that isn't listening to his wishes. Tell the child twice that you aren't happy, go to the teacher and tell them, and if that doesn't work then come to me. We have gotten to the point where we threatened the parents to call the cops if their kid didn't stop beating the p*ss out of ours every time he went to the park. I even got in a screaming match in the parking lot with one of the parents of the kid who would choke our kid every time the little brat saw him. I told her that if it happens one more time, the police will be involved and I will be charging her little angel with assault. I was pretty proud of our little linebacker the other day, one kid on his team was teasing him incessantly, even after being talked to by the coaches, and mine turned around and said "I'm not scared of you, you can stop your crap talking now" and it worked. I know it's tough, and yours is really young (mine is 11) but we've been dealing with this since mine was 6 as well. It doesn't get easier, it just gets scarier (guns, knives, bigger fists), but if you take control, make sure your child has a ton of self esteem and confidence to stick up for himself, and threaten the cops involvement, hopefully your wee one will get past this. And yes, we did tell our kid that if he's getting physically beat up, to throw punches like he's in the MMA and we won't get mad that he got in a fight.

send ur son to the kick boxing classes ....problem solved.

This is rather unconventional advice..and I add instantly it was my final straw. My beautiful daughter was hit by a car and her face was scarred not awfully but quite badly and her nose and leg were broken. When she returned to school she was teased horrendously about being an ugly scar face etc etc. when she finally told me after floods of tears and bed wetting I went to her school. I was told it would be dealt with. It wasn't. My daughter stopped eating, lost weight and said she would rather die than return to school. She was 8.. I went back again to be told girls could be cruel. My daughter needed to toughen up... My daughter showed me which little (******} were doing it. I punched the first one's mother straight on the nose.. Told her everytime her child bullied mine i'd come and bully her.. I don't condone violence. But I was beyond desperate. If school don't solve it. The education
Authority will do something if you write they have too... There's always my method as a final straw

You could be thrown in jail on assault charges for what you did. Then your daughter would be dealing with this while having her parent in lock up over it.

My eldest got beaten black and blue at primary school over a period of thirteen months... we tried working with the school, meetings, you name it we tried it... I have now been home schooling my son for two years and don't regret it for a second.

My son lost all confidence in himself and its taken those two years to get him back tbh. Its worked for us as a family

I skipped about 4 pages of replies, so if this has been said already, I'm just saying it again.

There seem to be some underlying themes to the replies.

Here's my 2 cents ( Canadian )

In BC, we have had some very high profile cases of bullying recently, which have had tragic results.

First, I don't disagree with all the posters that have said, he should stick up for himself, learn martial arts, etc.... Having more self-confidence and knowing that he can defend himself, would be great. The posters that say, he should fight back, might be missing that he's 6, and he's being picked on by multiple 8 year olds. Unless your son is Chuck Norris, I highly doubt he can take on multiple 8 year olds. If he decided to fight back, I'd back him 100%, and like others have said, I would never back down or allow him to accept any punishment for fighting back.

However, you're looking for a resolution on Monday. Here is just my humble opinion.

The whole 'anti-bullying ' campaign that schools try to project, may or may not be effective, and much of it may just be lip service. I've heard from other parents that they've followed the 'program' and it's been completely ineffective. That said, I have no first hand knowledge of it, and every school is likely different.

So, I think what I'd do if I was in your position, is....

Make an action plan
Go to the school Monday, and be 100% firm, but try not to be confrontational... ( I would fail at this )
List what has been happening, and what you expect to be done.
Given their response, decide if you need to list what you will do, if things aren't fixed, immediately, or wait to do this.
If things move in a timely manner, and the school deals with the bullies and the parents, and things get better... no need for further, immediate action
If things do not improve immediately, give the school notice of your next actions. Contacting the media is probably an excellent choice. Explaining to them that if your son retaliates, that you have documented all the episodes that led up to that, and that you'll also contact the police.

I would not contact the parents directly, unless you know them.... at least not at first, I'd let the school do it. There is at least a 50% chance that the parents are @$$holes, too.... and regardless are very likely to be defensive about their kids.

I also would never ( very difficult to hold back, I know.... ) try to deal with the bullies myself, directly. An adult trying to discipline someone else's kids, in any way, is never going to turn out well.... this will almost surely turn the entire situation into your fault, and would take turn the situation into something criminal for you, and the bullies would become the victims, and your son would suffer worse for it.

IMHO, bullying is a far more difficult issue to solve, than the schools and media make it out to be. Simply 'adopting a No Bullying Policy,' doesn't really DO anything for your son, does it? They need to realize that this is a HUGE deal for you and your son, and that you will be relentless in dealing with it.

As for martial arts... if your son is interested, by all means, it seems to do wonders for self-confidence.... but that isn't going to solve your problem by Monday. If your son is capable of defending himself against the bullies, I certainly wouldn't stop him from doing so. But, I'd advise the school beforehand, that your son is the victim, not the aggressor, and that any altercations are NOT his fault, and that he won't be doing any 'time' for them.

We went through a bullying situation over a year and a half ago. I would not advocate having your kid strike the other kids back UNLESS it is in self-defence. Otherwise, you are simply putting them at risk of being disciplined by the school as well.

One thing that worked for us over the long haul was documentation. Document EVERYTHING that happens. Who, what, where, when, and why if you're able to. Make sure you take notes about who saw what if there are witnesses. If you can, get statements or save screen captures of texts or private messages if you're forced to resort to them to prove your side. This is what saved us in the end and got a bad staff member moved out of our school. Once we had enough proof, there was no question on the part of administration that they were required to act.

Hope this helps.

I was bullied (Canada) and my Dad was a RCMP (police officer). With many transfers to new towns/cities I was always the "new kid" and had to put up with bullies trying things on the new kid most of the places we went to. Mostly, if I ignored them it went away and I made new friends fast. I can guaranty you that bullying is EVERYWHERE - small towns and big cities. Finally, in Grade 7, a couple of girls just went too far and things culminated (they threw rocks at me hard enough that I had to shower to wash the blood out of my hair). I went home and told my Dad. He wouldn't do a THING except to coach me in what he thought was appropriate (which was defending myself). At the time, I was flabbergasted, he was my hero and should go and arrest them or something shouldn't he? Wasn't this assault? I couldn't possibly handle them myself? These girls lived on my STREET! He did show me a few ways to defend myself, (as did my brothers) and told me that he would back me a 100% if I had to lose my temper in order to not be physically hurt. Mentally hurt was something that happened in life, and he told me that regardless of what they said, I was the one who could choose to believe it or not but was never to react physically to that.
Now I realize that he did exactly the right thing. I felt empowered to handle it myself. There is no better way to teach a bully a lesson than to take their power away by defending yourself. The following day, they called me a name during class and were asked to leave the room. When class was dismissed, they were waiting in the hall for their "punishment" and called me another name, loudly, while I was at the other end of the hall. I dropped my books and took a dead run at their little group and literally straightarmed one girl so hard that she flipped right over. The other one I sat on top of and pounded until my arms couldn't hit anymore. The other one hid in a locker and started crying at my apparent leave of sanity.
When a teacher finally hauled me off, the whole hallway erupted into APPLAUSE. Many of the other students had been bullied by these girls and I understand that several teachers "took their time" coming to the bullies rescue. I was never bothered again (word gets around when you lose it) and those girls never bothered anyone else either.
That story felt good to tell, and I feel that until bullies get a feel of what happens, and what it actually feels like, from SOMEONE their OWN AGE, they will continue. Self defence is the best policy my Dad ever taught me.
Side note: A year later, one of the "bullies" vandalized a car on our street and was caught. How was she caught? She vandalized my Dad's ghost car (police vehicle) and he followed her tracks through the snow right to her front door. Her Dad tried to play it off as not her, right up until he saw my Dad's badge. Best scene ever was her showing up at my front door, balling from the lickin she'd just received from her own Dad and having to apologize to my family and complete the police report with my Dad.
Karma can really be a mean girl too!

My 6-year-old son was pushed, tripped, sworn at and had his hood from his winter coat thrown away by a couple of 8-year-olds from the same school. They also punched other little kids and caused another boy from his class to bleed. This happened over the three recess breaks they have during the school.

Our school would have taken action right there, and we are lucky with that.

However, both of my boys have had instances of bullying in other situations. I always find out who is responsible and I find the parents first. We haven't had to escalate beyond that yet. We do have a kid in our neighborhood that is always starting stuff with my one son, and even talking with his non-parenting parents does nothing to dissuade him from it. Last night the kid and another boy started throwing rocks at my youngest and he went to confront them, they twisted his arm. As the story goes, my son ended up with one of them in a head lock though. My fear isn't that my son CAN'T fend for himself. My fear with this particular boy is the reason why he picks on my son is that he feels inferior and jealous of him, and if I let my son take the low road and just beat the crap out of him, that feeling inferior would escalate and this kid is just dumb enough to get a knife or gun. And again, his parents wouldn't even know or care.

Really, I am working on the next step myself. It will be something between turning the other cheek and standing up for himself.

Throwing rocks? Twisting his arms AND his parents don't care? Noo. I'd definitely get the cops involved. Who would let their kid do that to another person? There's something going on there. Who knows what else he'll do to your kid or someone else. I'm really not the type of person to just put up with stuff from people. I'm all about teaching people lessons so that they don't do it again. Turning the other cheek is just giving them the okay that the behavior is acceptable.

my dad used to tell me this when i was builed
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you're hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life

my dad used to tell me this when i was builed
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you're hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life

your dad huh

Was this your Dad?