My son is being bullied - should I talk to bullies mother?

amother

Tue, Sep 23 2014, 8:06 pm

My 9 year old son is being tormented physically & verbally by a classmate-in & out of school. I have approached the teachers, principals and coaches. I know they have spoken to the child and his mother. Yet he continues to tell other kids not to be friends with my son. He calls him names & humiliates him wherever and whenever possible. He has hit him with his hands, feet and any object he might find. My son comes home from school in tears many days. The bully is a sly child who is good at staying "off the radar" so he is not often caught in the act. My son is miserable & doesn't want to go to school, shul or the park if this child might be there.
His mother is an aquaintance. Is it ok to approach her now and ask her to please talk to her son about having better middos?

amother

Tue, Sep 23 2014, 8:25 pm

Dr. Koslowitz in Lakewood Targeted Parenting Institute has a class called "KidPreserver" It's a class for moms of boys who have been bullied. It's ten sessions. She teaches you EXACTLY what to do. It's on Skype. Also she does social skills clubs (in Lakewood) for exactly these boys - the ones who need to handle this kind of bully on their own.
My DS is a different child.
She did say to talk to the parents, and the administration, and she had very clear guidelines on what to say (like she divides parents of bullies into "deniers" "blamers" "responsibility takers" and "passive" and she tells you what to say to each type of mother.
(My son's bully's mother was a "blamer" it was all my son's fault for being annoying......so she gave literally a script for what to say)

HUG, OP. It's awful. It's really true that we're only as happy as our saddest kid.

debsey

Tue, Sep 23 2014, 9:53 pm

amother wrote:

Can you post a link or contact info for "Dr. Koslowitz in Lakewood Targeted Parenting Institute has a class called "KidPreserver"?
Thanks

I'm not the person who responded, but I see her ad right here. Her office # is 732-364-3111. She writes in Binah a lot. I think there might be an email address there.

singleagain

Wed, Sep 24 2014, 4:02 am

debsey wrote:

I'm not the person who responded, but I see her ad right here. Her office # is 732-364-3111. She writes in Binah a lot. I think there might be an email address there.

I just did a google search and found a google plus page the contact number is different, I don't know if one of the numbers is an old number, or if she has more than one line, or if there are two ppl out there with the same name/profession/location...

amother

Wed, Sep 24 2014, 9:36 am

In my experience, unless you have hard evidence, it is not worth speaking to the parents (like notes the bully has written, pictures of marks on your son, etc.).

Sadly, schools are not really prepared to deal with bullying in many cases. My oldest daughter was bullied, and as you say, bullies know when and how to act okay and when to pull their schtick so they won't get caught. We had numerous meetings with teachers, school guidance counselor, school administrators. In one case where we had hard proof, we spoke to the parent, who denied her child did it until I emailed her a scan of the note her child had written to mine. We did the whole "bully proofing" and role modeling and telling our child to just ignore it or walk away (all the advice you get because it's easier to blame the kid getting hurt than to actually get serious and stop the bullying).

In the end, we changed our child's school. And miraculously, the child who we were told over and over was "attracting" the bullies by her own behavior and has not been bullied ever again. And it's been two years.

amother

Wed, Sep 24 2014, 3:43 pm

Hi , I'm going through this issue as well. I spoke to his teacher, who says she knows the bullies family,and she knows the bully and says he is a wonderful kid and he doesn't do it on purpose. I'm documenting everything, I send my letters dated and typed, and I think I will approach the parents. Sometimes parents of bullies are not even aware of the situation and would be very embarrassed if they knew, so this is my hope.

The important thing is to be there for your child, make sure you know what's going on. Also, what's up with this culture of putting the blame on the victim? What does it mean that someone attracts bullies?! L It's just revolting, for now I'm negotiating, but when ds is older I'm thinking about homeschooling and avoiding all these issues.

amother

Wed, Sep 24 2014, 4:52 pm

singleagain wrote:

I go to her class too! That # is a million years old from when she worked at CHEMED. Now she's only teaching parenting classes. No, the office # is what debsey said.

amother

Tue, Sep 30 2014, 1:53 pm

OP here
I have tried all of the above mentioned and do offer my son a lot of love and support - and am now looking into another school...but my heart breaks for my ds who is so sweet and polite and loving!
I guess the bully doesn't like nice kids Sad

Thanks for all your ideas & suggestions!
Good luck to whomever else is having this problem It is very painful!

amother

Tue, Sep 30 2014, 3:26 pm

This is a topic that tears my heart in half.

I have a son that was bullied in school a few years ago. The school was not prepared to deal with such a situation. The principal was new and is a 'my way or the highway' type of person. The in-school social worker made us pay for a session in order to reinstate him back into the school when he was sent home ... which was their only course of action. So it cost us $$.

Every day they claimed that they went up and spoke to the class and honestly it made it so much worse, since they really had no idea how to handle this situation. The principal claims that he spoke to the other parents as well. To this day, I don't think that's true. I have bumped into the mothers and I know that they a have no idea what happened in school. They are genuinely nice people and they showed no signs of knowing at all. I regret to this day that I didn't call 2 of the mothers specifically.

My advice is there is no better advocate than you for child ... from experience I would call the parents directly.

Funny enough, I was at a simcha a few weeks ago sitting between two women. They were discussing the bullying issues at this same school that they are having with their children...so obviously they still don't have a grip on the situation.