Bullying

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Permalink Reply by julst632 on March 6, 2010 at 4:28pm

Well hopefully some ideas will come about. I experienced bullying big time when I was at school. It was never really dealt with and as a result I'm feeling the repercussions now.

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on March 6, 2010 at 7:15pm

i was bullied in 2nd form by a couple of boys ... they were teasing me about an incident that happened in primary school. i put up with it for a while then told my mum and she went to the school. the boys were given the cane (that tells you how old i am) and the bullying stopped.

i think it was pretty minor in the scheme of things - it didn't go on affecting me into high school. but what i do know is that bad bullying, or longer term bullying, can affect people's mental health (depression, anxiety etc) throughout their adult lives. it's very serious.

i agree, i wish there was a national strategy about bullying, and i wish schools were more effective at dealing with it and stopping it from happening. and if there is already a national strategy, how come it's so poorly publicised i don't even know about it?

as a parent my main experience of bullying was my own child doing it to another child. granted, they were very young indeed, both of them having just turned 3. there was also a four year old boy involved. the child being bullied was responding by kind of curling into himself and just putting up with it (it was quite physical, like rubbing dirt on his face or piling a whole lot of cushions on top of him and sitting on him) - understandably, he was only three and he was a lovely boy but very quiet compared to the other two and much less boisterous). anyway my child's caregiver talked to me about it, we came up with a strategy and how to put on a united front, i spoke to my boy about it and it never happened again. so a good outcome.

i felt quite bad about it at the time, but i recognised that my boy was being somewhat lead by the older boy whom he liked a lot (becomes less of an excuse the older they get, i realise) and also that the little boy being bullied gave a response that just encouraged them to keep going. obviously our intervention was aimed at the two boys doing the bullying, but i do think it's also important to work with kids being bullied to make sure they aren't doing anything that maintains or allows the bullying to continue.

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on March 6, 2010 at 7:25pm

was sufficiently interested to have a quick look online ... here are some interesting sites ... (both international and local)

http://peacefulschoolsinternational.org/?gclid=CPTrw6O8o6ACFYgtpAod...

http://www.kenrigby.net/

http://www.nobully.org.nz/guidelines.htm

http://www.youthlaw.co.nz/page/Bullying+in+School

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Permalink Reply by Vania on March 7, 2010 at 9:09pm

anyonne see this article in the NZ Herald yesterday?

What should have the bus driver done? Seriously, if an adult can't intervene in a bullying situation for fear they will be charged with assault?... Our society is going slightly mad?

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on March 7, 2010 at 9:38pm

... but he got off ... which is how it should have been. i agree ... it's like parents hanging back when another person's child is being a ratbag, rather than sensibly intervening. if my child was misbehaving or about to do something dangerous, i would rather another adult did something about it, not just stand there and watch.

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Permalink Reply by Jen on March 7, 2010 at 10:26pm

I was the shy sweet kid in primary school who got picked on, we went to a country school and the whole school started picking on me in my first year of school (there were only about 35 kids in the school). Teachers and Principal didnt do anything so my parents pulled me out of school and homeschooled me, however they put me back into the schooling system at intermediate and the same kids were there who bullied me, so i become the bully.. looking back i totally wish i never did it... Children can be so cruel, i think there needs to be some kind of education, monitering to prevent bullying

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Permalink Reply by Ceilidh on March 8, 2010 at 12:38am

I was bullied throughout primary, intermediate and high school - my mums attitude was always "just ignore them". Yeah, like you can really do that when someone's trying to physically beat the crap out of you! Teachers also turned a blind eye (one teacher even walking out of class in high school art when the students began throwing clay at me - pack mentality pretty much meant once one or two began, the rest joined in. She didn't go for assistance, she just left the class and left them to it.)

My parents finally agreed to pull me out of mainstream high school and enrolled me in an 'alternative'. (Go Metro!) Even though the bullying ended there, I never quite managed to stop looking over my shoulder. Being the subject of bullying is definitely something that's affected me throughout my life, and I'm still shy of social situations, find it difficult trusting people/making friends, suffer a lot of anxiety and so on and so on. Then again, I think that's just me - that's what led me to getting bullied in the first place! :/

My daughter (now 14) was bullied on and off at primary - mainly on account of her red hair. And in actual fact at one point she was getting bullied for being white. The teachers/principal just swept it under the carpet. On on occasion an older girl punched her in the stomach and when I went to the school about it they quickly tucked the situation out of sight, and on a worse occasion my daughter was approached on her way home by an older girl from the school who held her from behind and told her to pull down her pants because she wanted to touch her vagina... !!!!! The school dealt extremely poorly with that incident too, and told us the girl 'had some problems' and basically made excuses for her. If it weren't for the fact that it was the only school in our zone, I would have pulled her out of there, but unfortunately the two 'better' schools near us are just out of zone, and when I inquired about transferring her, was told they had no spaces left for out of zone students.

Her school supposedly had this anti-bullying policy/program, but it was all crap - probably to try and push up their ERO rating or something. In my daughter's final year there, they were told in assembly one day that if someone was bullying them, to not come to the teachers about it because they had to deal with it themselves. This was the opposite to what they were told the previous year in an anti-bullying workshop about how if they're getting picked on they need to talk to a parent/teacher/principal and just keep on talking to adults until someone listened!

I was horrified to read my daughter's bebo page one day and learn of how "last year I wanted to kill myself. So glad things at school have improved this year." It scared me because she never told me it had affected her to this extent, even though we've always been very open with each other in discussions, and she knows of how bullying effected me. Sure it can be easy to want to hope your kid is just saying this for a bit of attention, but unfortunately suicide does happen as a result of bullying. Every now and then it even becomes a news item. But despite the public outcry that might be generated at the time, what really is ever done about it? Nothing. :/

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Permalink Reply by Liesje Bradley on March 9, 2010 at 12:41am

It's such a concern, my miss 3.5 was worried about what to wear today cause a wee girl at daycare tells her she looks funny and pushes her! Where do they learn it??? Made me feel sick seeing how stressed and scared she was about what another kid would do, I wasn't expecting this until school. I still have such vivid memories of mean kids at school and the torment.

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on March 9, 2010 at 8:07am

i would definitely talk to the staff at daycare about that liesje! they need to keep an eye on that and stop it before it gets any worse.

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Permalink Reply by Rebekah Ann Manley-Campbell on March 16, 2010 at 1:45pm

Liesje, one of my daughters was getting hit while at Kindy, and she has such a generous nature that she would just let himhit her, and not complain about it. What we did to help her was to practise self defence techniques with her at home so she could feel more confident about it there. So we got her to yell loudly to stop it or go away, we got her to put her foot or hand out to stop the boy from doing it, we got her to stand up strong and tall, and use her abilities to stop him rather than run away. I think this has helped her a lot, as he stopped picking on her as soon as she stood up to him, and she stands up for herself a lot more now. Part of her problem was she didn't want to hurt anyone, and I completely understand that. So we taught her ways she could be strong without hurting anyone. I would also say that it's important to deal with the institution she is in, and if they don't do anything about it, then take her somewhere else. There is no reason that your child should have to go somewhere everyday to be abused. The Kindergarten was very good, and worked with both my daughter and the boy involved.

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Permalink Reply by Zoe on March 16, 2010 at 8:24pm

Ok, so I, thank goodness, have never been bullied but I was chatting to my cousin's youngest daughter this morning, who is 9 and lives in the UK and she told me all about a girl at school who bosses her around and has been doing so for about 4 years. I tried to get as much info out of her about it and to find out what was being done but she said that her parents have told her not to go near the 'bossy' girl, but by the sounds of things she is struggling to stay out of her way. Apparently the teachers, including the head teacher, know about it but have never caught the girl in the act so haven't done anything about it.

Anyway, she sounded really upset when I was chatting with her, she told me she was in her room crying and couldn't talk to anyone. She said she has no friends as the 'bossy' girl takes them all off her. She also said that her schoolwork is being affected too and she is moving to secondary school this Sept so will have some exams to do at the end of this school year. However, the 'bossy' girl is also going to the same secondary school so she is worried that it is going to carry on.

She has been through quite a lot lately, her parents have split up and my cousin was diagnosed with cervical cancer about 18 months ago (she is in remission now - phew).

Anyway, as she is in the UK I, obviously, cannot be there for her in person but I promised that I would do something to help her out. Does anyone have any suggestions?

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Permalink Reply by julst632 on April 16, 2010 at 12:21pm

Hmm not sure about the UK's policy on bullying etc. My SIL is a live in nanny for a family in Wimbeldon UK, would you like me to see if she can have a chat to the family she lives with about where to go, what to do etc in the UK in your cousin's daughter's situation? What area of the UK do they live in? Maybe an online search could be helpful? It sounds like in the mean time you are doing what you can and I'm sure just having your support is a huge relief for her and her family.

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