School Bullying

Knowing we have both men and women here, I was curious to get a little feedback about an issue my kids have been facing recently. My wife and I have two daughters, one 8, and one 11. The oldest had a serious illness when she was in first grade causeing most of her hair to fall out. When she started back to school she was given special attention, mainly in the fact that she was allowed to wear a hat when others were not. That’s when most of the trouble started, she was picked on by some of the other kids through the rest of elementary school.

Now she’s in Middle School, and has endured a kid threatening to kill her, and a couple other boys chasing her yelling sexually explicit stuff at her. Well, I’m seriously pissed by this point, and if she were a boy, I would teach her to take these kids down. But, instead we’ve gone to the principal, and the school board. They act sympathetic, but have done nothing. She’s really bright, and I’m not saying that because she’s mine. She’s scored in the 98th percentile in a recent national test, and received a presidential award for academic excellence.

So, we’ve decided to pull her out of school, and home school her. I have concerns that she’ll be missing out on certain social activities, and whether or not we can keep her stimulated intellectually. We’ve found home schooling programs, and she’s actually been studying from some of my old college science text books, and doing quit well. I’d like to hear some of your thoughts and feedback on this issue

The safety of your children is paramount. I have always maintained that if my partner and I ever have children they will never step foot in a public school.

I don’t know about MI, but I am sure that there are home school groups that have regular meet-ups where they go on field trips together so the kids gets to meet and hang out and the parents get to discuss issues/concerns as well.
Always do what’s in the best interest of your children. It seems to me you’re doing just that.

Here in our state there is a high school boy who breaks all sorts of records in sports - he is homeschooled, but still competes on a public high school sports team.

Homeschooled kids can still take advantage of many public school extracurricular activities, plus there are many social groups as mentioned for people who homeschool - its a popular way of learning here. The point is to belong to some groups : brownies, girl scouts, book or science clubs, athletic teams (soccer, basketball, dance etc), choirs. There are several theatre groups here that youth can join. That is often very fun.

When my little brother was very young and in primary school he use to get bullied and after initially teaching him how to fight so he could protect himself I started teaching him how to deal with others so he wouldn’t get bullied. He’d come home and tell me what happened and I’d explain to him how he could have defused the situation so he wouldn’t be the kind of kid to get bullied in the first place, and what to do now to fix it.

Knowing him now he doesn’t at all seem like one of those kids who use to get bullied. Other people I’ve known they carry that same attitude that you know people would have been cruel to them in school because they don’t do well socially. I don’t really know what my point is here, I’ve never had kids, I guess I’m just trying to say that you could also try and teach her to better deal with these situations.

(disclaimer: not saying it’s her fault or that all these sort of things can be solved with just words, also I’m not a girl so things are different there. Just trying to be helpful)

[quote]daddyzombie wrote:

So, we’ve decided to pull her out of school, and home school her. I have concerns that she’ll be missing out on certain social activities, and whether or not we can keep her stimulated intellectually. We’ve found home schooling programs, and she’s actually been studying from some of my old college science text books, and doing quit well. I’d like to hear some of your thoughts and feedback on this issue[/quote]

I’m obviously not in your shoes and can only imagine the anger you have, but…

I think it would probably be better to keep from home-schooling her. It may not affect her if only done for a year or two, but in a lot (not saying all) of home-schooled people I’ve met, they seem to be a little underdeveloped socially.

Is private school not an option for your family?

IF you chose to homeschool her, be sure that she still takes part in as many social activities outside of her home as possible.

Learning how to deal with other people is the most important aspect of the whole system until maybe highschool.

If she is really bright, she won’t really miss out on anything that she can’t catch up to later in a short time, but there is no real substitute for interacting with many different people of her age.

believe it or not i find come around 11th grade most high school students finally start to realize time to grow up but u wont get that from middle school students i left high school two years ago and u can tell the difference prolly best to let your child choose

Thanks so much for all of your replies. I would like her to get back into school for the social aspects mostly. I’ve tried to tell her that those who are picking on her are most likely jealous of her for what ever reasons. She used to get extra attention because of her illness. She’s built like me at that age, skinny, and gets teased by girls who are more developed. I tell her those girls are the ones who will be fat and pregnant at 19 working at the local fast food establishment. No offense intended towards anyone with that, it’s just the kind of town we live in. She doesn’t want to go back, but I’ve convinced her to speak to one of the counselors she trusted from grade school.

Martial Arts, I started my daughter when she was eight. I noticed right away that all the kids there held themselves in a very positive way. Unfortunately bullies look for the timid and frail and zoom right in. I also taught my daughter to defend those who can’t, and she doesn’t hesitate to step in. I also train her at the gym now that she old enough, she’s stronger than most boys her age. Here in Victoria most schools have zero bulling tolerance, with student bully patrols, suspensions at the drop of a dime. Maybe you could get together with some other parent and get the school to start one, that if it doesn’t break your, what is it, the first amendment. Good luck DZ.

A friend of mine has a young son who is bullied at school. I offered to teach him some rudimentary self defense, mainly some ways to make people let go if they grab him. The problem is, he seems to have no aggressive tendencies. He’s a really sweet natured kid, so teaching him something like that wouldn’t do him any good as he wouldn’t use it.

What I’m saying is that you could teach her to look after herself if you wanted (gender shouldn’t make a bit of difference), but if they don’t have the temperament for it, it won’t do any good.

That’s looking purely at the physical side. On the psychological side, it can improve confidence, but again, if the child isn’t comfortable with it, chances are it won’t help.

Like bushidobadboy, I was bullied a bit at school, and in turn turned into a bully. Unfortunately I managed to fall in with the wrong crowd (all of who now have kids or convictions or both).

For me (and the group I hung around with), we actually picked more on the kids who had someone intervene (e.g. teachers), but those that ignored us we tended to lose interest in. Something I’ve never figured out is why teachers believe that telling them about bullying will make things better, in my experience, it only made it worse.

My heart goes out to you. I was horribly bullied back in the day. I was tall, skinny and had a bad skin condition. I know what shes going thru and its terrible. It seems you’ve exhausted your options and the school board rarely makes these situations a priority(here in Fl. it seemed that way). From what you have stated these are serious harrasment issues. I bet if you had an attorney present the next time you met with the school board they’d sing a different tune.

Like it was said before homeschool isn’t such a bad thing. Here in Fl. a homeschool student may participate in all high school activities if they choose to. This includes sports, counseling and i believe dances as well. If not the social dances then I know that the local home school district has these to offer.

I wish the best to you and your family. I wouldn’t know how to control myself if I found out that 2 boys had chased my daughter screaming sexual explicits.

Colleges and universities are opening up more to the homeschooled applicants. If you are serious about that route, and your kids seems college bound, it might be worth your while to contact some universities about what they look for and expect out of homeschooled kids.

U 0f M has some ‘small school’ programs that would help students who come from homeschooled or small school environments adjust to a large university setting.

Another option would be consider letting your kid take community college courses early, say at 15 or 16. She would get to socialize with a more diverse crowd than in high school.

It sounds like the local school is unable or unwilling to deal with the problem. That being the case you can either force them to (lawsuit) or deal with the matter yourself (homeschooling).

[quote]kelleyb wrote:
The safety of your children is paramount. I have always maintained that if my partner and I ever have children they will never step foot in a public school.

[/quote]

Fuck man, you can’t protect your kids from everything. You sound like a kook.

Again, thank you for all of the responses, they’re all great. The more we look into it, the more we realize there are lots of home school kids around here. We never realized there were so many. As I said, she’s a straight A student, and the cirriculum offered by the local schools don’t really challenge here enough in our opinion.

There is a local homeschooling group we haven’t been able to connect with yet. When the librarian saw us checking out a bunch of books relating to home schooling, she had all sorts of info for us. Since we’ve been keeping her home, she’s a different kid now. She was strongly resisting school, and was in a bad mood all the time. Now she’s cheerful again. Willingly gets up in the morning, has breakfast, and begins her studying.

I’ll be honest, it’s sometimes scary how smart today’s kids are. She reads as fast as my wife how took speed reading. She read the last Harry Potter book in less than a day, and has been studying plant biology from one of my old college text books. She’s 11, and I have no doubt she will have no trouble getting into the university of her choice.

[quote]daddyzombie wrote:
Again, thank you for all of the responses, they’re all great. The more we look into it, the more we realize there are lots of home school kids around here. We never realized there were so many. As I said, she’s a straight A student, and the cirriculum offered by the local schools don’t really challenge here enough in our opinion.

There is a local homeschooling group we haven’t been able to connect with yet. When the librarian saw us checking out a bunch of books relating to home schooling, she had all sorts of info for us. Since we’ve been keeping her home, she’s a different kid now. She was strongly resisting school, and was in a bad mood all the time. Now she’s cheerful again. Willingly gets up in the morning, has breakfast, and begins her studying.

I’ll be honest, it’s sometimes scary how smart today’s kids are. She reads as fast as my wife how took speed reading. She read the last Harry Potter book in less than a day, and has been studying plant biology from one of my old college text books. She’s 11, and I have no doubt she will have no trouble getting into the university of her choice.[/quote]

Glad to hear it.

The situation you described reminds me of a girl in our old neighborhood who had systic fibrosis.

She was very frail. A kid at our bus stop was making fun of her one morning. Called her a beanpole, etc.

That afternoon a friend of mine and I got off the bus first, waited for him and kicked his stupid ass in front of everybody at the stop and made it clear why we were doing it.

Back then you could get away with that shit. Now we would be in much more trouble than him.

Honestly, if I found out one of my kids was picking on someone like that I would make their life so miserable they would never do it again.

It astounds me that kids are out there behaving like that and peers, let alone parents, aren’t wringing their little necks.

We are raising far too many weak willed kids because we don’t hold them accountable and we want everybody to be a winner so nobody gets their feelings hurt. We are teaching our kids to be followers.

Personally I would recommend homeschooling your daughter for many reasons. First off, I’ve noticed a lot of people crapping their pants all worried that homeschooled kids don’t get “social skills.” This is an easily avoided situation; like some have said, just keep her active in the community, and you’ll have no problems there. I guarantee that she’ll end up smarter and much more mature if you take her out of public school unless you totally screw things up somehow.

Honestly, look at public schools these days. Look at the bullying, the short tempers, lack of respect for others, intelligence, maturity or motivation; do you really want your straight A daughter being negatively influenced by all that? It sounds like she’s brilliant, and way above the level of classes taught in public school. I strongly advocate you continuing to homeschool her, it’s in her best interest.

-hungry

fucking go up to the school and poke those little bastards in the eyes. I’m only 19 and don’t have children, but i have little sisters only slightly older and i myself did just recently go through the public school fire.

my younger sisters began attending a prestigious private christian academy in Dallas and I have really noticed a difference in the character of their friends and them too.

if private school is not an option (realistically 10k a semester is just too fucking much) then perhaps maybe go with the home school idea for a couple years and really focus on building her self esteem. Then reinstate her like 9th or 10th grade when pretty much all teasing ceases except for in extreme cases, like the kid who dresses up as Link from Zelda complete with wooden spray-painted sword every friday.

i feel for you daughter, i’ve seen how hurt the kids who get picked on can be, i actually used to get made fun of in elementary school for my “wannabe hero style” b/c i often stood of for the little guys (i was “well” fed). it just never got to me like it did the others.

If you’ve talked to the school and they’ve done nothing, it’s time to start taking action if you want her to go back.

There’s actually a great article in (gasp!) Men’s Health january issue about bullying. Granted its geared more towards little kids being bullied.

Essentially it can be summarized:
-start leaving a paper trail, ie: send letters to the school principal school board, and force them to take action
-Talk to specific parents of the kids who’re doing the bullying, and send them letters/emails about it too.
-It’s basically a steer clear order is what you’d be asking for, the two kids avoid each other.
-The bonus to leaving a paper trail is there’s now evidence with which you can build a reasonable case to take legal action if necessary. Schools will probably start listening REAL close if threatened w/ legal action.
Just someone else opinion on it, take it or leave it–granted it was in men’s health, so take it with a big grain of salt. I think taking super extreme action can backfire in the sense that your daughter and your family could have some sort of stigma attached as the people who forced change/ruffled feathers. That said, sometimes that action can be extremely effective.

I was bullied a lot in elementary and middle school. One kid just ragged on me all the time. Eventually it culminated. One day on the bus he was sitting behind me giving me shit. I backhanded him, right in the nose. The next day I filed harassment charges on him with the school. We met w/ the principal, and parents got involved. That kid did not fuck with me again.

Along the same lines:
My little brother is developmentally handicapped: prader-willi syndrom ( http://www.pwsausa.org/ ). As a result my mom has been a total bitch to the school system to accommodate specific requirements to make his learning experience effective. BUT she forced them to make accommodations because of my bro’s handicap. In your case, the school SHOULD take action to stop discrimination and bullying because of the way someone looks–especially in a case like your daughters. But you have to let the school know you mean business.

Your daughter has civil rights, and schools will begin to listen very closely if you begin talking about those rights being violated (which bullying essentially does). Don’t take any shit from them, and even if she does not go back to school, you should still take action with the school. Look at it this way: you are the school professionals patron via taxes and fees. They work for you.

Some thoughts. Hope it works out for you, daddyzombie. good luck!

Dz, that is a terrible situation you are in. I really hope it works out for you. There’s been some good advice here, so I’ll just add a bit of personal anecdotal evidence: many of my cousins were home-schooled, and they turned out just fine socially.

The important thing was, they were all required to either play sports, or be active in clubs, or both, outside of home schooling. Social adataion happens in social settings; it doesn’t necessarily have to be a school. Just make sure your daughter gets involved in a variety of things and she’ll be fine.

By the way, Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow was home schooled, and he seemed to handle the media attention just fine for a kid still not 21 years old.