MN - I came in here just to check on your DS. Hope things continue to improve. Poor love.
Thanks Lenny x Massive progress today but unfortunately it took another incident to bring things to a head. Again the girls were teasing him and took his hat again, this time putting it in the toilet Fortunately DSs teacher was on yard duty and DS ran to her and told her and she was able to get him to identify the culprits who were then spoken too. They admitted that they'd done it today and previous days and are now in serious trouble (as they should be). Their parents have been called to the school and as the Principal works off a Zero Tolerance for Bullying their behaviour will be addressed. The girls are in year 3, so 8-9 yo? and were in the Junior Primary Yard, where they are not supposed to be as Yr 3-7 have their own part of the school. Apparently they have had no incidents of this behaviour before. I'm relieved that they've been caught, I hope it puts a stop to these almost daily incidents. DS was very upset when it all happened today, but tonight was happy and carefree so hopefully it leaves no ill effects. We have our Parent/Teacher Interview tomorrow after school so will get a more thorough briefing then. I'm so pleased with DSs teacher, she's done all we could have asked of her and has protected DS as much as possible along the way. The school principal offered DS a new hat seeing as his was in the toilet, (luckily it didn't actually go in the toilet water) however he wont give it up (eeewwww, its been through the wash tonight), I think the teacher plans to convince him to swap tomorrow. Getting his hat back was important to him though so I kinda understand why he's reluctant to give it up. Emotionally Drained but massively relieved here!

Lenny - we ended up moving our weekly swimming lessons to Sunday as after school was just a waste of time early in the term when DS was adjusting to school. After school he was just too tired to put the effort in. I hope to move it back to a weekday arvo at some point to reclaim the weekend morning

OP - I also agree, bossy is a whole different thing than meanness. One of DSs little girl friends (almost 5) is incredibly bossy, but super kind

Janie - Happy Birthday to your darling DD, hope she has had a super wonderful birthday xxxx