Yael I would go to the dep of ed, in SA (not sure about anywhere else) they can get involved, mediate between the school & parents, enforce actions the school has to take etc and if needed, get your child moved to a school where he can feel safe.
I agree with Nickle, our school discourages parents approaching each other. Another thing our school does is the children receive an agreement which needs to be signed by their parents, that way the parents know what is going on with their child at school.
Thank you so much for all of your replies - you have definitely given me a lot to think about in regards to how to approach this!
I have spoken to our Rabbi, and for the moment the way we are going to proceed is for me to call our psychologist and have her report it to the school. She also has mandatory reporting, so she can use this power to the school about if they are not going to do anything about it she will have to take it further. We all feel she can ask questions about how they dealt with it when the last report was made, why didn't they deal with it better on Friday, and what their plans are for the future. We all feel it could backfire on me if I make a lot of fuss (I don't think it will, but I don't want to be fobbed off, and then have to take it to the dept of ed, and then for it to backfire), and also if it comes from the psychologist I think they will take it a lot more seriously.
I will wait to see how that goes tomorrow and then decide how to proceed. The fact I'm going in for an operation on Wed and will be out of action for at least 2 weeks is not helping my stress levels. I scheduled it a week after school started so I could make sure he settled in OK, and didn't expect this to happen straight away.
In regard to the parents raising a boy who bullies, I am acquaintances of these parents (not good friends, but in our small community we all know each other), and one of my close friends is best friends with the mother. The parents are fine, upstanding people, and although I have never seen their parenting in action, I hope they wouldn't stand for this kind of thing. I don't know if they even know about it TBH. There are dropkick parents who teach their children (though personal example or directly egging them on), to be bullies, but I don't think these are those type of parents. I don't know if the boy has his own problems (not that I'm excusing his behaviour), I'm just saying I'm not 100% certain I could ever guarantee one of my children would never bully somebody. I hope to G-D the wouldn't, but we are all individuals with free choice. As a parent my biggest responsibility would be educating my child and dealing with it if they did.
In regard to egging kids on, the amount of people who encouraged me to tell DS to fight back is surprising. I refuse to do it because,
1) what value am I imparting to my child
2) the chances of him bullying a total different child I would say would be higher and
3) we cause enough problems at the school with DS special needs (I am realistic about it, it costs more for the school and causes more work for teachers, not that I feel bad but its the truth), and if DS started being physical it would be another strike against him.
2012 BellyBelly RAK Recipient.
Re: taking bullying further
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