If you came to this page looking for someone to agree with you that the school is doing nothing, then you've come to the wrong place. Schools don't want to see kids get hurt and bullying hurts kids--both the victim and the bully. The problem is that schools often feel as helpless as parents. Kids have rights too and in a social context involving hundreds to thousands of individual children, school officials often have trouble sorting out reality from perceived reality from fiction. And they are dealing with several cases at a time--not just yours. This may not be important to you, but each parent's concern is equally important to the school.
This doesn't mean the school doesn't care about your child. But they can use your help to find out what is truly happening so they can clamp down on the situation and put a stop to the bullying, getting the other child the counseling they need, and keeping your child safe from retaliation as quickly as possible.
Here are some things you and your child need to sit down and do to help give appropriate information to the principal of the school:
1. Keep a log of when the bullying occurs--day, time, class period.
2. Write down exactly what occurred during each incident of bullying.
3. Document exactly where the bullying happens.
4. Take note of who else saw the bullying incident happen.
5. Take particular note of which faculty were around when the bullying happened because they often mispercieve what was happening at the time since kids do weird and crazy things for fun.
6. Have your child brainstorm what was going on that might have instigated the bullying (which may be nothing, but small details are often big push-buttons for the bully).
Your child will have to turn all of this documentation over to school officials, but the more detailed and verifiable the information is, the quicker the school can react and will believe your child is remembering things the way they really happened. The school cannot promise your child they will not reveal who they are. Specific accusations will give away who your child is to the bully since they often have favorite targets and plan specific ways to torment each victim.
There are things you can do to help your child minimize or prevent being in a situation where they can be bullied:
1. Make a list of places where bullying is worst. Better yet, draw a map of the school and mark where bullying happens. The principal will appreciate knowing the places that need monitored more closely by staff. Your child can learn to avoid these places during certain times or by taking a different route through the school with more people around.
2. Have your child identify places they can quickly get to from high bullying areas they can't avoid. If bullying occurs in the stairwell, but your child knows a teacher at the top and bottom of the steps, they can quickly step into that room where the bully can't pick on them without being discovered.
3. Have your child notify their teachers that they are having trouble with a specific bully and they would appreciate the teacher keeping an extra eye on them. This works since teachers care about kids' safety and a specific request sticks in their busy minds as they go about their day. The more specific your child can be, the better. "Mrs. Smith, Bobby the Bully picks on me between 2nd and 3rd hour just outside your door. He pushes me into the corner and stomps on my toes. Could you keep an eye out for him and make sure he leaves me alone?"
4. Have your child ask their friends specifically to stay close and loudly tell the bully to leave your child alone. Bullies often leave a group alone since they prey on victims they percieve to be weak or lonely. Plus, the noise may get an adult's attention. A bully's biggest weapon is denial and an adult witness destroys the bully's ability to use denial.
5. Your child needs to be ready to pay it forward and stand up for other victims of bullies. If your child wouldn't be ready to help someone else, why should anyone help them?
One final note. This is hard for parents to understand, but it is the law: if the principal knows where and when an incident occured and they use a security camera to view the incident, the principal CANNOT show you the video if anyone but your child is in it. Privacy laws protect the other students in the video or picture stills and the principal cannot show that evidence to anyone but other school officials or law enforcement.
As you work with school officials, do your best to stay calm, collected, and polite. Running a school is one of the toughest jobs there is and you will get much further being polite, firm, and persistent than running into the school screaming, demanding, and acting beligerent. Bullies have always existed and new ones will always be born, but we can get better and better at dealing with them if we work together.
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