Lets talk bullying

I was just replying to my other thread about dd and getting her changed out of her class thanks to bullying. This is what I was writing:

"When it came to bullying with dd, she doesnt talk about it. Instead what happens is she gets physically ill (in every way possible), talks negatively about herself and us (her family), she uses words that are never used at home, and she lashes out physically then cries. Last year when this started we didn't understand what was happening to her. It took months to work out what was going on. We had her at the drs, making her have blood tests, allergy tests, we even talked about behavioural issues. In the end, dd mentioned something very small, but it made everything make sense. She didn't see what the kids were doing as wrong, she didn't get that it was not the right behaviour. We went to the teacher and had a meeting and made an action plan. As soon as it was implemented the symptoms that I just mentioned slowly stopped. This year, this started on the first day back at school, we gave it a couple of days before we realised that it wasn't coincidence."

I remember being bullied at school. I never ever talked about it, yet I would have shown almost identical signs that my dd is showing.
Also my dd doesn't understand at 6yrs what bullying is, how it happens, how it makes you feel. I know they have programs and special days (they just had the wallabies there talking about bullying, but absolutely none of that sank in with her), but at 6yrs I don't think she (and many other kids her age) understand the fuss, or the danger about being a bully or being bullied.

Also I think that the term bully has such a wide definition that for the younger ones it is hard to define it, understand it, and to be honest it sounds mean to call someone a bully (almost like an overreaction I suppose) at times.

But mainly I wanted to start this, to say that watch your kids, being bullied, picked on can show itself in so many ways, and a lot of the time kids, especially the young ones have trouble describing what is happening, or how they are feeling.

I can so relate this. My ds is 4 and was lashing out both physically and verbally a lot towards the end if last year.

I finally got it out if him that a daycare child was hurting him, but as no-one ever saw it, nothing was done. My dh worked out who the child was afternoon when ds said goodbye and gave a hug to everyone else, and shunned this child (while I don't condone exclusion on an ongoing basis, it was obvious this child had done something this day, as ds normally does say goodbye and talk about this child)..

We changed daycare centres earlier this year, and he is a different child even after a few weeks. He asks to go, doesn't cry at drop off, etc.

My DD experienced bullying of a different kind - systematic social ostracisation. For whatever reason, the other kids in her class decided she was the soft target. After I realised what was going on, it became apparent it had been happening for a long period of time, but not only that, the teacher was 100% oblivious. That period of time (grade 3/4) damaged my DD's social confidence enormously. Even after the school intervened, it was clear that some of those children were just out and out nasty and manipulative (and had no sense of social conscience or responsibility) and so the dynamic in that grade/school was never going to be healthy. I am loathe to say it, but after we moved schools, DD still had the occasional spat/fallout with friends, but the difference in the new school was that the kids here were taught to affirm the positives in each other, to mediate their disagreements, and to fundamentally respect and look out for each other. I'm the first to admit that DD1 is still clumsy socially, but I also know that she has peers that respect and admire her, and more importantly she knows that too.

Bulling is such a hard traumatic thing for a child or even an adult to go through. Its amazing how well a child can hide whats going on. I remember being bullied at school, I never spoke of it and I hide it so darn well Im pretty sure my mum still doesn't know I was bullied.

DS14 went through this last year.He tried to hide it but I could pick up on it as he would be....quieter than normal. I had to ask a few times before he would tell me and I had to make sure he knew he was safe to tell me. I often wonder what it is that makes some children bully others. We had one child at child who was bullied quite badly by the 'popular' group that they would then go and bully other kids that were an easy target to them. And I always wondered why they did that as they knew how it felt as they were being bullied too :S