The bullying has begun. Any suggestions?

[kdryan]

The day I have known is coming for years has finally arrived. Alexander is having trouble with other kids in class teasing him and he is noticing how much it sucks.

I can face facts. Alex is a bit of a wimp. I love him to death, but he cries at the drop of a hat, picks his boogers and eats them, chews his nails, is shy, and awkward around others. It's a good thing they don't have an opportunity to catch him chewing on his toe nails! Bullies gravitate towards kids like him the same way ants are drawn to sugar. He's smart (tops in his class, or very close) well behaved, great manners, and wears his caring about others on his sleeve for all to see. More factors bullies hate (but as a parent I love and encourage wherever possible).

I really don't know what to do. Half of me wants to tell him to ignore them until they quit, (which my own experience has shown is a bunch of crap), the other half wants to tell me to man up and stand up to them and fight them if he has to. If he doesn't do something NOW, if he accepts this then being bullied will be the norm by the time he gets to Jr. High, where it will REALLY start to hurt.

I'm just up in the air about it and am not sure how to proceed. I've made sure his teacher knows, but what else?

Kevin

[Father_0f_7]

How are they bullying him? You said teasing but are they also hitting him?

If it's hitting I say you tell him to fight back. If it's teasing then I would like to know to what extent. I could try and tell you to let him tell the teacher but my fear is that would only encourage them to tease him more.

[kdryan]

Mainly just teasing, with a couple of pushes here or there, but I can see it developing into something worse.

[Father_0f_7]

Do the teachers know what's going on?
I've never really dealt with this but if it's pushing and shoving and stuff like that I would say fight back, but i'm not sure how you feel about that.

I always told my kids if they were ever hit, to try and solve it rationally first then if it didnt work, kick ass and take names IF YOU NEED TOO.

I remember I was picked on once in elementary school the kid hit me in the stomach and I said "oh your fist must have slipped into my stomach, and if you do it again i'm not responsible for what happens to your face".

But then again, I actually knew how to fight, I dont know if Alex does or, again, how you feel about fighting.

About the teasing, i'm sorry I really don't know what to tell you other than kill them with kindness but I know that's not easy to do when you're that age.

[Antoinette]

boys are so violent... i got bullied a bit in Primary school. a girl who i didn't like called me a Skank. i didn't even know what a skank was LOL i went home and researched it, i discovered it was the polar opposite to me.. funny thing is now i look after her twin children (who are amazing kids and i love them by the way)

i want to say tell the teacher but that is only a good idea in theory.. i think in practice it could make it worse.. bullying is so hard on kids, i hate it so much

[kdryan]

Well, one thing we did do is a couple months ago we enrolled him in a local Tae Kwon Do class. It's done wonders for his self confidence and he's been talking to his instructor about it. The guy is a genius with kids and he was telling Alexander about when he grew up and how he dealt with bullies. Great stuff...

[Father_0f_7]

I did Tae Kwon Do for 13 years and it was amazing. I only used it when I had to though...and it really helped my self esteem and it helped me later in life.

I think it's a great idea. He will be able to stick up for himself if he needs to. My oldest daughter also did Tae Kwon Do for about 5 years. and My youngest daughter started about a year ago. Dylan and Dane dont need to learn how to fight, they already have that covered lol. Billy has been doing it for about 5 years now.

Anyway...back to your problem lol

[TabascoNatalie]

cool! my Marvin Luke does Tae Kwon Do as well.
at my home, code of honor is -- never hit first. but if someone hits you -- fight back. i really resent my parents, who taught me, that "nice girls don't fight", and that every snot-nose in school was having fun spitting at me or kicking me, and i was just being a "nice girl".

on the other hand, (i don't wish to offend anoyne), but somehow victims of bullying happen to be nice, good, pleasant kids. maybe parents push them too hard to be nice and too obedient? these kids don't know how to resist, how to fight back, how to "scratch eyes". maybe that's what makes them easy target?

[JM47]

Now, in light of what I discussed elsewhere on this forum, you would know that I would say that this -- bullying -- is critically important. You need to stop this bullying. Both because as you pointed out quite correctly it will very likely have serious repercussions on his development and because as you noted, it does indeed suck. Unfortunately, you don't have total control of this situation, but there are a couple of things in your power.

Everyone has made a lot of solid suggestions in this thread. One of those most obvious things is to talk with your son and ask him to stop doing these things that make him a target. Of course, there's only so much you can do here, because you can't change his timid personality, so there are limits. But if the problem is teasing (basically, the children’s way of assigning him the low spot on the status totem pole), trying to curb some of his unusual/not socially acceptable behaviors might help improve his lot. But again, there are limits to how far you can go here.

The next thing you can do is report it to the school and get them to stop the bullying when they see it happening. Here too there are caveats; you don’t know how forceful the school is going to be in enforcing anti-bullying measures and this may even backfire if he gains a reputation in the school as a snitch.

Another option is to change schools. If possible, see if there is a placement into a school, particular one with bright students. But again, his personality will follow him wherever he goes, and especially at this age while this may curb physical bullying, teasing/rejection may still occur.

And finally you are already doing martial arts training, so he can defend himself, which is a great idea. If that is helping his self confidence then that is definitely a plus. I’d also recommend additionally considering a pacifistic martial art like aikido (because, although I gather this is unlikely from what I’m getting from you, you don’t want him to go too far and become a bully himself).

While this will deter physical bullying, as for teasing, you may want to try an academic-oriented school for bright students, particularly one with a tolerant culture, if possible.

[kdryan]

Well, I had a long talk with him this morning. I had woke up REAL early, and he is an early riser as it is. We will often find him up having breakfast or watching tv when we get up.

I started by telling him a wanted to talk and that he was in no way in trouble here. I explained that this bullying was a lot more important than it seems and if he didn't start doing something right now that it would follow him for a long time. I also told him that we and his teachers would do what we can to help, but in the end, he is going to have to handle this himself and no one could do it for him. He's pretty intelligent, and even at eight, I feel I can talk to him without editing myself too much to correct for his age. I told him that people like this were only doing this because they generally feel insecure about themselves and that I knew him and he is highly intelligent. Then we went on to this is the kind of thing kids like that are jealous of and the only things that make them feel better about themselves is if they make you feel worse.

I saw one of the kids the other day and he looks like he might have been held back a year, and Alexander says the other is 10, so I'm pretty sure he has as well. The third kid, I have yet to encounter.

So then, I made my decision and told him straight up that he shouldn't take anything from these kids any more and that he's better than them. If they start pushing him, then he should push back. He asked what he should do if they push back harder and he might get hurt, to which I replied that it was a possibility, but even if that happens, he will at least have the pride of knowing he stood up for himself and he would be amazed how good that feels. He asked what if he got in trouble, and I told him no matter what, I would back him up and I thought Miss Locke (his teacher) would also see the situation and take that into account.

I could have gone the other route with the 'Ignore them, it means nothing' thing, but to be honest, I think that's a bunch of crap. If he keeps ignoring it, they aren't going to stop and will just try harder to get a rise out of him. That's experience talking. Kids this age just aren't going to say to themselves 'Gee, I think I'll stop.'

We discussed a few other things, but mostly I kept the emphasis on he was better than these kids and he was not required to take any crap from them, and that it was important he handle this situation now.

So, let's see how it goes.

Kevin