Bullying Support Group
Bullying is the act of intentionally causing harm to others, through verbal harassment, physical assault, or other more subtle methods of coercion such as manipulation. Bullying can be defined in many different ways, but one thing is clear: no one deserves to be bullied. If you or someone you know is coping with bullying, this is the place to share your feelings and get...
ShannonA
I really don't know where to start so I guess I'll just jump right in.
My son is 11 and has ADHD. He has always done pretty well in school up until this year. At the beginning of this school year one kid in his class apparently decided that it would be fun to pick on/bully my son. We tried for a month to get our son to just ignore the kid, in the hopes that the kid would get tired of getting no reaction and leave him alone. When that didn't work, I contacted his teacher and made her aware of what was going on. Many times I contacted her about this issue. Finally one day, after my son came home in tears with a discipline report, I went to the school to find out why, after as many times as I had contacted the teacher, my son was being written up. I found out that my son had not been doing like we had asked (of course it was kinda retarded of us to think that with our son's ADHD and being as sensitive as he is,(he bawled his eyes out over the movie The Green MIle, he cries over the Feed the Children commercials, and even animated movies that feature the loss of a character makes him sad to the point of tears) that he would be able to just ignore this kid. The two had been going back and forth, kind of a tit for tat kinda thing. The school tried to tell me that my son was seeking this other kid out, and I told them, he's only seeking this kid out AFTER he has done something to him. I did get on our son about not doing like we asked of him and replying and responding to this kid. I'm all about fairness, if my son is involved in wrongdoing, then he should have to tow the line. Our son has never really had any trouble at school with other children. But this year, all the sudden like, the principal and vice principal are trying to tell me that this has been a pattern all along. My question to them was, then why wasn't I told about this "pattern" before. None of his other teachers ever told me that my son was bullying other students, only that he would get frustrated with his work and at times would growl a bit or ball up his fists and stomp his foot. Never was I told, "Hey we got a problem, we think your kid might be developing into a bully."
I have always bent over backwards to try to help the school help my son. Unless I had a "gut feeling" about a particular thing they wanted to implement on his IEP, I pretty much deferred to their training and "expertise". I have always been one to try to work with the school as much as possible, up until now.
A week ago, my sons bully decided to up the ante with sexual insults (as if 4 eyes, cock eye, retard, and "are you pregnant?When are you having the baby??" (our son has a little belly, but is far from being overweight) wasn't enough.) He told our son that he did him a favor, that our son is here because he had sex with his mother! This is truly appalling. That is the kind of language you expect to hear out of adults, not fifth grade kids. We had just moved back into our house after a house fire in October and our water had not been finished, so I was waiting for the plumber to bring his happy hiney out and fix it so I could shower and go to school and again discuss this issue without smelling like an overworked mule. The plumber took his sweet time and it wasn't until 4 days later he showed up.
Unfortunately my husband, who normally stays out of things dealing with school (he had many bad run in's as a kid with really bad teachers and horrible counselors so his opinion of them is not very high so he has stayed out of things and let me handle them my own way) decided that enough was enough and went to the school after picking up our daughter at middle school to talk to them and let them know what was said. When he told my son to tell them what was said, our son started to tell the principal and vice principal, the vice principal cut him off without letting him finish and said "Well what did YOU do first?" At that my husband said that is enough we are done and told our son to get up that they were leaving. The principal jumped up and told our son to sit down. My husband promptly told her she was not to tell his son what to do after he had given him a clear command. She proceeded to step to him, getting in his face as much as her short self could (considering my husband is 6ft tall). He told her to get out of his face and she came back with a retarded answer of "How tall are you?" He told her and she said "Well how can I be in your face?" and he promptly told her to keep her psyco babble to herself that she knew damn well what he was talking about. Both the principal and the vice principal continued to be rude to him so he flat out told her "Bitch you don't run nothing but your mouth and this office and we are leaving."
Of course after he came home with our kids, it wasn't long before the police arrived at our home to talk to my husband. They went back to the school and then returned with the Chief Security officer and 3 car loads of police to give him a letter letting him know he could no longer come on the elementary school or middle school campus. Which that is the least of our concerns. I went to the school myself to let them know that this is ridiculous and that all we want is fairness in this matter. If you want to claim it is a tit for tat kind of issue, then punish them BOTH, not just one. If they won't leave each other alone and it is a mutual kinda thing, make them BOTH tow the line. Like I told them, I know you can't tell me what kind of punishment, if any, you meet out to the other student, but at least if I know you are implementing this kind of deal, that at least I will know that my son isn't being held as being totally responsible for this fiasco and being the only one to be made to tow the line. I was told that they would pull both kids out of class together and if it took all day to hash it out and come to some sort of agreement that it would be resolved.
Well they pulled them out of class Friday, after some talking, and the boy claiming that his sexual comment was really "I did your mom a favor and made you a sandwich." (which apparently they believed that bald faced lie) they sent the kid back to class. The worst part was this....They had 4 ADULTS sitting in the room with my son telling him HE was the problem, that he acts just like his dad, and that HE was the bully!!!!! I don't know about you guys, but I don't know of too many bullies that come home crying.about being picked on. Maybe they do, I don't know, all my experiences with bullies as a kid was from the perspective of being the one being bullied and abused. Because of that I REALLY have issues with bullys and bullying. My son knows how I feel about the issue of bullying and knows that if I think for one second he is responsible for being a part of bullying, that punishments will be handed out. I don't tolerate bullying period.
I am at a loss as to what to do, what our rights are, I've been trying to read up on the laws and policies, but most subjects I find deal exclusively with bullying or when it comes to the subject of special education and special needs kids that the only thing I could find was subjects deal with rights to education.
I feel like my son's school has failed him completely and has decided to place the blame on him, for whatever reason. I don't know what to do, I don't know if we have a basis for a lawsuit. I have written letters to several lawyers and advocacy groups to try to find out what we can do.
Well that is our story, sorry it was so long. I would appreciate any feedback, we are at a total loss.
My son is 11 and has ADHD. He has always done pretty well in school up until this year. At the beginning of this school year one kid in his class apparently decided that it would be fun to pick on/bully my son. We tried for a month to get our son to just ignore the kid, in the hopes that the kid would get tired of getting no reaction and leave him alone. When that didn't work, I contacted his teacher and made her aware of what was going on. Many times I contacted her about this issue. Finally one day, after my son came home in tears with a discipline report, I went to the school to find out why, after as many times as I had contacted the teacher, my son was being written up. I found out that my son had not been doing like we had asked (of course it was kinda retarded of us to think that with our son's ADHD and being as sensitive as he is,(he bawled his eyes out over the movie The Green MIle, he cries over the Feed the Children commercials, and even animated movies that feature the loss of a character makes him sad to the point of tears) that he would be able to just ignore this kid. The two had been going back and forth, kind of a tit for tat kinda thing. The school tried to tell me that my son was seeking this other kid out, and I told them, he's only seeking this kid out AFTER he has done something to him. I did get on our son about not doing like we asked of him and replying and responding to this kid. I'm all about fairness, if my son is involved in wrongdoing, then he should have to tow the line. Our son has never really had any trouble at school with other children. But this year, all the sudden like, the principal and vice principal are trying to tell me that this has been a pattern all along. My question to them was, then why wasn't I told about this "pattern" before. None of his other teachers ever told me that my son was bullying other students, only that he would get frustrated with his work and at times would growl a bit or ball up his fists and stomp his foot. Never was I told, "Hey we got a problem, we think your kid might be developing into a bully."
I have always bent over backwards to try to help the school help my son. Unless I had a "gut feeling" about a particular thing they wanted to implement on his IEP, I pretty much deferred to their training and "expertise". I have always been one to try to work with the school as much as possible, up until now.
A week ago, my sons bully decided to up the ante with sexual insults (as if 4 eyes, cock eye, retard, and "are you pregnant?When are you having the baby??" (our son has a little belly, but is far from being overweight) wasn't enough.) He told our son that he did him a favor, that our son is here because he had sex with his mother! This is truly appalling. That is the kind of language you expect to hear out of adults, not fifth grade kids. We had just moved back into our house after a house fire in October and our water had not been finished, so I was waiting for the plumber to bring his happy hiney out and fix it so I could shower and go to school and again discuss this issue without smelling like an overworked mule. The plumber took his sweet time and it wasn't until 4 days later he showed up.
Unfortunately my husband, who normally stays out of things dealing with school (he had many bad run in's as a kid with really bad teachers and horrible counselors so his opinion of them is not very high so he has stayed out of things and let me handle them my own way) decided that enough was enough and went to the school after picking up our daughter at middle school to talk to them and let them know what was said. When he told my son to tell them what was said, our son started to tell the principal and vice principal, the vice principal cut him off without letting him finish and said "Well what did YOU do first?" At that my husband said that is enough we are done and told our son to get up that they were leaving. The principal jumped up and told our son to sit down. My husband promptly told her she was not to tell his son what to do after he had given him a clear command. She proceeded to step to him, getting in his face as much as her short self could (considering my husband is 6ft tall). He told her to get out of his face and she came back with a retarded answer of "How tall are you?" He told her and she said "Well how can I be in your face?" and he promptly told her to keep her psyco babble to herself that she knew damn well what he was talking about. Both the principal and the vice principal continued to be rude to him so he flat out told her "Bitch you don't run nothing but your mouth and this office and we are leaving."
Of course after he came home with our kids, it wasn't long before the police arrived at our home to talk to my husband. They went back to the school and then returned with the Chief Security officer and 3 car loads of police to give him a letter letting him know he could no longer come on the elementary school or middle school campus. Which that is the least of our concerns. I went to the school myself to let them know that this is ridiculous and that all we want is fairness in this matter. If you want to claim it is a tit for tat kind of issue, then punish them BOTH, not just one. If they won't leave each other alone and it is a mutual kinda thing, make them BOTH tow the line. Like I told them, I know you can't tell me what kind of punishment, if any, you meet out to the other student, but at least if I know you are implementing this kind of deal, that at least I will know that my son isn't being held as being totally responsible for this fiasco and being the only one to be made to tow the line. I was told that they would pull both kids out of class together and if it took all day to hash it out and come to some sort of agreement that it would be resolved.
Well they pulled them out of class Friday, after some talking, and the boy claiming that his sexual comment was really "I did your mom a favor and made you a sandwich." (which apparently they believed that bald faced lie) they sent the kid back to class. The worst part was this....They had 4 ADULTS sitting in the room with my son telling him HE was the problem, that he acts just like his dad, and that HE was the bully!!!!! I don't know about you guys, but I don't know of too many bullies that come home crying.about being picked on. Maybe they do, I don't know, all my experiences with bullies as a kid was from the perspective of being the one being bullied and abused. Because of that I REALLY have issues with bullys and bullying. My son knows how I feel about the issue of bullying and knows that if I think for one second he is responsible for being a part of bullying, that punishments will be handed out. I don't tolerate bullying period.
I am at a loss as to what to do, what our rights are, I've been trying to read up on the laws and policies, but most subjects I find deal exclusively with bullying or when it comes to the subject of special education and special needs kids that the only thing I could find was subjects deal with rights to education.
I feel like my son's school has failed him completely and has decided to place the blame on him, for whatever reason. I don't know what to do, I don't know if we have a basis for a lawsuit. I have written letters to several lawyers and advocacy groups to try to find out what we can do.
Well that is our story, sorry it was so long. I would appreciate any feedback, we are at a total loss.
Good luck
I asked repeatedly for my son's school to change his track, change his class, anything to put some distance between my son and his bully. But I kept getting told it couldn't be done, they had no room in another class and that all the tracks were set for the year and there was nothing they could do. I have begged them repeatedly over the year to separate the two, even offering to come sit in class all day long everyday just to make sure that my son was not contributing to the problem.
I highly doubt, even if I contacted the school board, that my son's school will admit, much less apologize for dropping the ball. I still plan on contacting the school board simply because it was wrong to have 4 adults jammed into a room with my son placing blame on him in that manner but I am also seriously thinking about contacting a lawyer. I'm not looking for money, I could care less about that. What I AM looking for is to see that no other child has to go through the torment my son has had to go through this year, that no other child has to endure being bullied only to have the fact that they stood up for themselves being used as a sledgehammer against them.
My other step daughter heard that one of her friends was going to fight someone during lunch. She went and told a teacher so that the fight can be prevented. That did not work. The fight happened. A bunch of students decided to video tape the fight and post it online. The girl ended up getting kicked out of school and was put into a behavioral school instead.
My son was also claimed to be a bully. Come to find out - due to my son's low self-esteem with his a.d.d. he was a perfect target to be bullied. It ended up that the little girl in 6th grade had already had a police report for breaking into people's houses. At school to deflect attention off of her - she was picture perfect to the teachers - but a nightmare to the children when the adults weren't looking. My son could no longer tolerate her meanness and he was Much more obvious than the little girl. So he was labeled the bully. It was the Other way around.
What you are finding is the same as many are with children with a.d.d. They are very impulsive so they tend to get noticed more and labeled by very intolerant teachers and principals. Those same teachers and prinicpals I can guarantee you have little tolerance and patience within their own families and lives. They battle everything and our little obvious impulsive children - become targets for THEIR stress relief.
You need a school and a principal that understands and is an advocate for your son or you will always find yourself in this situation. Love your son when the world can't. He needs lots and lots of love and attention from you and your husband. He needs to know that he was wonderfully and beautifully made. Just keep at it. Most a.d.d. children will go on to be very productive adults. Our fears tend to believe the worst.
If it helps, read every book you can find on a.d.h.d and keep fighting. Just try not to get caught up in the teachers and principals fray with their bad personalities - that's a whole separate subject and battle. It's one we don't want to add to our already big battles in front of us.
I hope this helps. Keep trucking along and things will change. It's not going to be easy and you will have low moments, but you can make it all work. Keep your eye on the ball and don't let the schools distractions and problems become ours. Your son needs you more than ever right now and so does mine. Good luck and my best to you...Faithfully.
I have contacted the area superintendent and our districts school board member to make them aware of this issue. I also told them that I was considering contacting an attorney. I told them considering, because I want them to feel they have the opportunity to fix this before having to deal with a possible PR nightmare. No school wants their name negatively splashed across the media headlines, especially when it deals with a child with disabilities. That seems to not go over too well with folks.
Again thank you all for the support, replies and hugs
I will let you all know how things go and what happens from here.
Hang in there. I hope things get better. Try to keep your cool when they are not. Do everything you can to make their bad behavior while you keep your grace while under fire. It will become more and more obvious who the problem is, but have to keep your faith. You can do this.
I hate that your son is having to go though all that. It is obvious that she is getting some sort of sick thrill out of tormenting your son, and you have done better than I would have, it sounds like you are living an nightmare, and I cannot say with clarity that I wouldn't have already decked a teacher and wound up in jail (which we all know doesn't help our kids, makes it worse, but it's hard not to want to throttle idiots when it comes to our children.) Hang in there yourself, it may take time but eventually you will be heard, someone will hear, and someone will help/take the needed action. Not everyone in the educational system are complete retards, but those who are make it real hard for the true stars to shine. You'll find your star, like we will, we just have to keep at it.
Much love Faithfully...
My daughter had bruises on her arm. Middle school got involved and tried to say my husband did it to her. Found out also that daughter had gotten some "ribbing" as she put it from the lady up in the front office asking "Is your dad going to come down here and yell at us?".
I have been sitting in class every day that my son has been back in school. I sit there and watch my son to make sure that "my son, the bully, doesn't bully anyone" (heavy sarcasm here). Yesterday I was sitting in his class when the principal walked in and asked if she could talk to me. I had the Ipod at the ready to record should any BS arise. She told me that a guy was there to talk to me about my daughter and that he had just come from the middle school. So I went in and talked to him. He told me my daughter had some bruises on her arm and that the school had called and that he found it odd that they requested that someone come out almost immediately and that they wanted them to talk to my daughter alone without us. I told him if he wanted to he could talk to my son alone without me in the room there at the school. I also told him about how the elementary school has done us and our son. He said he wondered why the elementary school principal had so much to say about my husband. So I set it up so he could come see us that afternoon.
So he comes out, sees how we talk to our kids, talked to our daughter about the bruises, and came to the conclusion that there is nothing there to investigate. Every question in the CPS questionnaire was checked as a NO. We sat there and explained everything to the guy about our sons trials at school.
We believe that what happened is the Salem system tried to use my daughter's mental illness and the fact that she self injures, despite the fact that we are active in working with her psychiatrist and her therapist in trying to stop this with her, as a way to try to discredit us..HOPING that my husband HAD done something so that they would have a sort of messed up "leg" to stand on should this thing go to court.
I'm still waiting to hear back from the Superintendent, but at this rate, I don't hold out much hope. But I have vowed to see this through. I have nothing to hide, so there is nothing they can dig up on me or my husband that is going to change or mediate what the school has done.
I know they are going to get tired of seeing me EVERY DAY sitting in class with my son. And the teacher is playing all nice, coming over and talking to me off an on during the school day, asking me to read to the students, and asking me to participate in class games. All that ass kissing is getting no one no where with me.
I'll keep you all up to date as stuff comes down the pipeline. Much thanks for all of you guys and gals replies and support!