What to Do About the Bully

Hmmmm, how about taping an ipod to her, with the record on. My you could record a situation that happens and use as proof that there is more going on and if you have proof, then they will have to do more than just make promises that they don't keep.

That could be seen as discrimination or preferential treatment, and your daughter is being "singled out" and treated like a "whistle blower."
Thus, she is harassed more.

The school... does nothing about it. That bully's Mom, is equally at fault....

MOST schools/Stateshave a zero-tolerance policy for bullying which ALSO includes any behavior from faculty and/or staff... and of course other kids.

Contact an Attorney. ANYTHING you correspond to the school about, put it in WRITING. DOCUMENT everything... since the inception of the incident as well.

Your daughter is being more than bullied... and she has a medically confirmed ADHD condition. She is being preyed on.
Me, I would NOT allow it to happen.
I would, contact a Lawyer.

It will not be solved by talking to them about it. They are ALL bullies. And they will continue to jerk you around... meanwhile, your daughter is targeted for daily mistreatment.

All the best,
Susan

wow,
i am astonished and heart broken that children this young can behave this way. Being a mother of a 5 yr old girl I would march my butt RIGHT up to that school and have first, a sitdown meeting with the principal. make her aware you know exactly what is going on here and it will not be tolerated. secondly there is violence and threats invlved, make her aware you will go STRAIGHT to the superintendant if u have to and if something happens to your daughter becaus ethey choose to be negligent they can have a lawsuit on their hands! THEN, I would demand a sitdown meeting with the principal, your daughter, the other girl, and her mother. I don't care who she is or where she works she needs to be told directly that, her little girl is to steer clear of your daughter. it is unacceptable to let a child bully another and would frankly be embarrassed to just look the other way. maybe mother to mother she might understand. and keep a close eye and ear on this whole situation until it fizzles. good luck to ya

My daughter is 10, chubby, immature for her age and is ADD. She has been bullied at school as well. At her last school (charter), 2 kids were expelled from the school and 2 others were suspended for 3 days. Her current school (public) has a zero tollerance for bullying. I have had a couple cases where my daughter has said something happened and I contacted the teacher and also brought it up with the teacher, school psychologist and prinipal during her IEP meeting and it was immediately addresses. I would go right to the school board in your district and as the other person said below, document EVERYTHING! As parents we must always fight for our children and never give up. Good luck!

Hi A., I would go to the school and address the issue again. I would also ask to set up a meeting with both the principle and the bully's mother. I would go into the meeting with an open mind and talk with them about coming up with some solutions to prevent any further incidents. An other thing that may help is to try and set up a play date with the bully. I know this seems strange, but it has helped my son. Come to find out the boy who was bulling him was feeling very bad about himself and lack of friends ect. So by setting up some parent monitored play dates they have now formed a friendship. I know how broken hearted you feel. Do not leave it up to them to work out and stand your ground with the school. Good Luck.
L.

Lets not forget that these are 7 or 8 year old little girls and it's up to us as parents to teach them respect and acceptance. Hiring a lawyer seems a little like jumping the gun to me.

A., let me start by saying that my heart breaks for you. I cannot imagine how it feels to see your kid go through this. That being said...I think that you need to do MUCH more about this. Please don't take this the wrong way but are YOU also the type to let people push you around? Are you almost TOO nice to people, partly to gain their acceptance? I ask because it seems from your letter that you may be. You need to go up to the school TODAY and DEMAND a meeting with the guidance counselor, teacher and principal. This will be your fist step. If you don't feel they are on your page you go to the superintendent. Please don't stop until you get this resolved. If you really and truly cannot then I would absolutely change schools. Does this mean the bad guys win? You bet. But you know what...your daughter's self esteem is worth it. I can tell you that that would absolutely NEVER in a million years be allowed to happen in my school. They are so all over ANY kind of bullying. It starts in K where the teachers use every opportunity to discuss the golden rule. Any incident however minor is treated with intervention with the guidance counselor. So there are places out there that your little girl will be OK.

One more thing....I just want to say that I went through life wanting to be nice and to be accepted. I never spoke my mind and let people pretty much walk all over me. Something happened in my late 30s not sure what but I began "talking back" to people. It feels so good, let me tell you. It is empowering and it builds on itself. I know that I am making assumptions here about you and forgive me if I am wrong-its hard when you don't have much to go on. But anyway...don't stop until you get resolution. I would even think of a campaign to spread the word throughout your community of the huge "bullying" problem at your school. You would be surprised how a little negative PR can get attention and resolution.

Good luck to you.

susan is just right on the money.
you know your daughter is being bullied. you know the bully has not received proper punishment, and at this point, detention would not be enough. she needs to be asked to not come to school for a week at least. the bully's mom is just as much as fault. the principal is not doing his/her job, and you as a mom should be fuming by now. even without ADHD and anxiety problems your daughter could not handle the situation herself. add to the mix her ADHD and anxiety and this is recipe for depression. she has shown signs of low self esteem by taking off the shirt and not wearing the same shoes. you need to become your daughter's hero. you need to show her by example how one stands up for oneself. you may end up swtiching schools, as, by now, they will know who the whistleblower is. but i hope you don't change schools before raising hell on those people. i am angry for you and your daughter.
-ok now that i calmed down a little bit, try find a pro-bono lawyer that deals with school issues. any communication you have with school should have a cc sent to your lawyer. begging, pleading would have worked in the beginning but they did not step up to the plate. now put on your serious hat on. i hope you resolve the situation and keep your daughter's emotions intact.

start by saying it hurts your fillings

You got a lot of really good advice from a lot of different people. Let me just say that I was bullied as a child, it started in the 3rd grade and continued on into my teens where I eventually started to skip school to avoid the bullying and eventually dropped out. I truly loved school and felt like learning came easy to me but I gave it all up out of fear. No one did anything about the kids bullying me. My Mom talked to the teacher once and got the kids will be kids speech and the teacher said she would watch us closer. My Dad made me feel embarrassed for not being tough and socking the kid. So, as the bullying continued I was ashamed to tell my dad what was going. I know first hand how horrible it is to go to school with that pit in my stomach wondering what was going to happen today. I could go on and on about my story but you get the just of it. Please don't give up! DEMAND this stop and if it doesn't, change schools! Show your daughter this is not acceptable behavior and you will protect her no matter what!

I feel for you and your situation. Is your daughter involved in any sports or activities that could maybe help her gain confidence and make new friends? My daughter is in several activites, some through the school (cheerleading) and swimming at the YMCA. I think those experiences help her with social situations and she has met a lot of new friends.
My daughter has the movie Chrissa ( it is an American Girl movie) and it is about bullying. We got the movie at target, but you can probably rent it. It was a great movie with beautiful message. She could also maybe get some ideas on how to handle the bullies.
Also point out the fact that the bullies don't seem to think twice about hurting her feelings, so she shouldn't feel bad about sticking up for herself.
good luck!!

Does anyone here have a child who is the bully? These kids obviously have issues and they probably result from years of parents telling their kids to avoid them, no play dates etc. Perhaps this one-sided and unsympathetic approach is part of what makes some kids angry and helpless, and later labeled bullies?

Yes! Go up the chain of command to the superintendent of your school district. I can't believe that kind of behavior in a 2nd grader! If the principal is unwilling to do anything about it because of who this child's mother is, then go to her boss, the superintendent. If he/she is unhelpful, then try to get your child transferred out of that school! Your daughter should NOT have to tolerate this behavior - EVER!!

Hi A., I'm sure somewhere someone has said this, but I'll say it anyway. Talk to the Teacher & the Principal again....be professional but MAD! Tell them if they can't seem to get this employee's daughter under control ASAP then you will sail right over their heads and go to the superentendant! Then do it if you have to. YOUR child has the RIGHT to a peacefull education It doesn't matter if she has ADHD...it doesn't matter if her hair is green and her eyes are purple...every child in the USA has the right to attend school and feel safe and secure while they are there. No ifs, ands or butts about it. I've been through this, my oldest went through this (we were "fat") and it hurts and leaves scars that last a lifetime. In 2nd grade some girls are not ready to stick up for themselves....my daughter didn't until she was in 4th grade. The teacher sat in front of us (me, hubby and daughter) and told us she never got teased or taunted when she was "in the room". I asked my daughter and she disagreed with the teacher (that took guts I was proud of her!) I made it perfactly clear that I would not accept any more excuses and if she couldn't control her class then I would take my daughter out of the school and have her job in the process. You can only be reasonable for so long....and if they can't deal with it YOU have to do whatever it takes to make your daughter safe! Sure it's name-calling and making fun of clothes now...but soon it will become physical. Best wishes and good luck!

I have not looked at the other responses but my question would be...why is no one ever witnessing these "attacks" on your daughter? Are the kids left for that long to allow this to continue? I would definitely be going back to the school. Make sure the other mother is present at the meeting and let them know you will take this higher up if the issue is not resolved. Talk to her teacher too. Tell your daughter to stick close to the teacher who watches over the kids at recess or whenever the attacks are happening. It saddens me to hear how bully's treat kids. I hope that she sees some resolve and can move past it. Best of luck to you!

This was me in school when I was a child. I have to say it was a horrible and damaging experience for me and has made making and keeping friends difficult for the rest of my life. I did not want my Mom to do anything, I was afraid the kids would be worse to me and I told my Mom not to do anything, and things just got worse and worse. I ended up in detention myself for not having homework that one of the other kids stole from me to get me in trouble, I was teased and tormented daily and as the kids figured out nothing would hapen to them it got worse, they eventually started pushing me and stealing from me(lunch money, homework, etc.) and I grew so isolated after a few years of this. It started out just like you described. I think kids pick one other kid to do this to and I really don't understand the need or dynamic of it perhaps because I was on the receiving end of it, but it seems to be something that kids just do, and if left alone continue it. Please, please intervene on your daughters behalf even if she doesn't want you to. Follow up and make sure the kids get their punishment/discipline or they will continue and even after the first few times it may continue, so keep after them. Call the school and the parents and make sure they know how damaging this is to your child! Make sure they know if it happens again after that child serves detention and that she gets it again until she learns she cannot do this to other children. If your daughter can't stand up for herself, you need to do it for her, or she will never learn it for herself. I spent my life like that and just started learning it as an adult. I lost so much, because my Mom thought she was helping me by doing what I asked. All I can say is fight for your child so she knows she is worth it and that being bullied is not okay and running away or hiding from it is not okay. It will be hard on her initially and initially the kids may be worse and that is when I told my Mom to stop and I didn't realize it would only get worse and I was kid and didn't know how to handle it, and I was a bit shy and had some anxiety issues and I lived with the torment for years. If my Mom had known to stand up for me, maybe I wouldn't have lived in shame for all those years, maybe I would have had a chance to learn to stand up for myself and developed some friends. Honestly I don't know if any of that would have happened, and maybe the bullying would have continued, but at least I would have had an advocate fighting for me and I would not have felt as if it were all just about me and left alone to eventually just withdraw completely. It could not have been any worse than someone doing something. So please, please do something. Explain to your daughter why you are doing it. But do it even if she disagrees. I hope this helps some.

;

I'd be at the principal's office again - TODAY and wouldn't leave until there was a clear plan of action in place. If I needed to, I would contact the principal's boss (district superintendant?). I would also have a face to face with said girl's parents. DO NOT tolerate this bullying of your daughter. She is young...you need to fight for her! If you don't stick up for her now, she could have problems which last for years. I have an ADHD child, I know they have difficulty sometimes with relationships, but it is your job to be her advocate NOW.

Please teach your daughter to stick up for herself. She may not know how to, so you're going to have to teach her how. Do some role playing to show her what to do. Sadly this other little girl is probably looking for attention, since her mother obviously doesn't discipline her. But please teach your daughter how to defend herself. Good luck.

Hi, A.:

The school does not know how to handle bullying. Your daughter does not know how to stand up for herself.

To help your daughter gain self-esteem, she needs to be able to learn some skills that she can feel good about herself.

I would suggest that you find someone to mediate this conflict. I will give you her e-mail address and name and you can share with her what you are
sharing here and tell her you would like to have this issue mediated.

Lynette at ____@____.com

You can tell her I recommended you to her .
Hope this helps.
Good luck. D.

As a parent, you may be interested in a university study about how kids think about other people's thinking. We will ask you to watch with your child three brief, online videos of puppet actors and then to record your child's answers to questions about what the puppets are thinking. We will also ask you some general questions about yourself, your child, and your household. Participation would take less than 15 minutes, and it's a great way for you and your child to contribute to our knowledge of how children think. For more details go to the following address:
http://www.milestoneshome.org/current/thinking/

Best wishes,

Kimberly

Since there is obviously a conflict with the mother being an emplyee of the school, principal not following through with punishment, etc. I would take it to the next level - call the superintendent, or sometimes they have someone in the administrative office that handles problems by school/age. Good luck

You need to print out this EXACT LETTER that you just wrote, give a copy to that employee and mother of bully, AND to the principal and let them both know you WILL definitely be taking this higher.

Just because that mom works at the school does not mean you need to fear her. Set the example to your daughter by confronting and handling her and demanding she handles her daughter. Keep a calm, friendly tone of voice and don't back down if she tries to brush you off. Follow through if this bully does not receive any consequences. The school is obliged to enforce their no tolerance policy on bullies.

Also, they need to be teaching other kids to recognize bully behavior and to take the side of the victim not the bully. Recommend to the principal and your daughter's teacher to give a little class on how to befriend anyone who is being bullied. Kids don't know better than to side with the stronger child. They need to be taught.

Keep reminding your daughter that the bully's behavior is wrong not your daughter's shoes, shirts etc. Remind her the world is full of those bullies hassling other kids and they are the wrong ones, not nice kids like her. She may not react as if it matters, but she needs to hear it repeatedly as she grows. Do this and BE STRONG. 2nd grade is way too young to let this girl start getting away with this.