Son doesn't want a brother or sister

Claire - posted on 09/13/2010

Dear Gabriela

I'm sorry to hear you had problems getting through on my email.

Bullying must always be taken seriously no matter how old the child is as you are absolutley right it will impact his self esteem especially if it isn't stopped.

Teaching your son to be assertive verbally as you have been doing is empowering him to stand up for himself without using aggression. He also needs to move away from the bully and tell a teacher immediately every time it happens. In addition, you need to set up a meeting at the school with the teacher, principal, school psychologist and find out what their bullying policy is and to devise a plan to stop the bullying at school which shouldt involve the other parents as well as a daily report back from the teacher as to how your son's day went. Be persistent and complain everyday until the bullying stops. Alternatively, look at alternative schools. Your son should not be subjected to one more day of bullying and the adults around him need to stop it.

I would also ask the teacher to help your son being the new child to integrate and make friends with the other children by setting up a buddy system where some of the children look after him during school time. He may be feeling anxious about his new school and the other children can sense this.

Let me know how your meeting goes and remember bullying is never acceptable.

Best wishes
Claire

Gabriela - posted on 09/12/2010

Couldn´t send you my question to your e-mail address. So I´ll just ask you right here: My son started a new school this year and even though he´s really quiet and peaceful (that´s what his teacher tells me) a few of his classmates are constantly picking on him, they either bother him and do mean things to him (like putting a banana peal in his lunch box after eating the banana) or actually hit him and punch him. He hasn´t defend himself. He tells the teacher whenever anything happens (but not always). So I told him to stood up for himself (but the first time he did that, it backfired on him and the girl -YES, the first one to bully him was a girl- used a painting brush to poke him in the face. Thank God she didn´t get him in the eye, but came very close. Since then, she hits him once or twice each month. And now some boys do the same thing. They punch him (specially one kid, who´s also called him "sissy") and when he come´s home, he takes it out on both, his father and me. I told him to yell a big "DON´T BOTHER ME!" to the bullies and he finally did. He didn´t like the idea of punching the bullies back and I don´t either. But I REALLY want this to stop. I´m worried about what all the bullying is doing to his self steem. And also that he may get fed up one day and cause some serious damagge. Thank you for your patience.

Gabriela - posted on 09/12/2010

Thank you Claire! Not the case here, since my 4 yo son has three "make believe brothers and a little sister" (wich, he says are made of styroform or something like that). I did found some great advice about feeding and an univolved dad. May I ask you about how to deal with classmates that have made him their favorite punching bag?- I´ll post the question there.