Helping Children Manage Teasing/bullying

[PrincessFiona]

As a mom, I admit that my first instinct is to want to pull my son out of school now that I have heard about this happening. He loves his teacher though, loves riding the bus, and loves school in general...he just is unhappy because he is being teased.

What tools can I give him to help him handle this?

kris

Hi Kris,
Sorry to hear about the bullying. I don't have any personal advice to give since I'm not a parent. But the first thing that came to my mind when I read your post was a guy named Dr. Sheras. This guy was getting all sorts of national acclaim when I was in grad school at Virginia; he taught in a different program than mine but I remember seeing him. Anyway, I think he's the acknowledged expert on school bullying and I've provided a link to a review of one of his books. Perhaps the book can be of some help to you. Kevin

http://www.bookfinder.us/review4/0743229231.html

[PrincessFiona]

I just checked out the review of this book..It looks like required reading. Thank you so much!

Kris

[Sheherezade]

Does the school have a guidance counselor you can go to with this? Would the administration be a possibility? At our new school in Ohio and our old school in Boston the teasing/bullying thing is taken very seriously. I think this attitude started post-Columbine. If you could talk to someone like a guidance counselor on the phone for advice and swear them to secrecy it doesn't have to be part of his classroom experience. At our school the guidance counselor did a training session on handling bullying/teasing for school volunteers. It was clearly part of his job and he had tremendous insight.

On a mom note--this just sucks. That happened with my 8 year old on the first few days on the bus ride home. I am sorry to say I did take him off the bus and opted to pick him up every day instead. I couldn't stand the idea of him sitting for 40 minutes on a bus ride with essentially unsupervised kids calling him a freak and a weirdo because he wears glasses. I'm sure he would have figured it out--still it seemed like unnecessary pain when he is alreay adjusting to a new place. My alternate plan was to meet the parents of the kids who were teasing him by changing our bus stop to theirs--I think kids are less likely to tease if the parents know each other. There is too much opportunity to get in trouble. From my own personal experience as a wierdo science geek, I have always found that a sense of humor can get you through. A well timed joke by your son might just help him out. I don't know if he's up to that, but humor does work against bullies. Let me know as this develops Kris. It causes ME anxiety and I'm not even in your family.

Angie.