Bullying at school

[Maggiemay]

My daughter who is in year 10 at an independent school has been bullied. The bullying is writing on the back of the toilet door calling her a hoe and suggesting she is involved in sexual acts with another student. This I know is not true. Anyway it took the school some weeks before they removed the graffiti and to deal with the situation.
My daughter does not feel safe at the school and it is a battle to get her to attend.
She has a learning disability which prevents us from just changing schools as our in area school is not an option.
Both her father and I have been to the school and we will keep fighting for her, however, we don't seem to be getting any real support.
Any ideas????

[Maggiemay · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your responses. Each response has given us something else to think about. As a family we will keep supporting and advocating for her rights to be safe as school.
Tonight after a long conversation she has agreed to deactivate her Facebook account and limit her access to other social media eg. Messenger etc.
HalleysComet I will show her the video you supplied.
Thanks again and I will let you know how we go.

[Jacew]

Hi Maggiemay

i went a similar but different situation where my daughter was being physically bullied. It is such a hard thing to live with because all we want for our children is to have a safe and happy life.

Either way the for us the outcome has been the same having kids that have trouble a school. Keep on the talking to the school, may feel that it is failing on deaf ears and at times it will. PERSISTENCE is the key, check out data on the home page it might help you and your daughter.

Jace

[Sophie-RO]

Hi @Maggiemay - bullying is far too common, and as a community we are all responsible for addressing bullying, but the school especially so!

It must be so tough to see your daughter going through this, what you've described is really unnacceptable! Your daughter has the right to a safe and supportive learning environment. From what you've said it sounds like the school is not fulfilling its duty of care to your daughter, or upholding the anti-bullying policies that all schools have these days.

It sounds like you are doing the right thing by visiting the school consistently. Get the school's anti-bullying policy - if you haven't done this yet already - by going to the school's website and checking out the policy section. (for example, http://www.penshurstg-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/our-school/rules-policies/school-policies)

Get familiar with the anti-bullying policy and use that in your conversation - hold them accountable to their own policies!

By publicly and privately showing your support for your daughter, you are helping counteract the negative impacts of the bullying. Every time you (or your partner) go to the school to advocate on her behalf you are role modelling that this bullying behaviour is unnacceptable, and I'm sure she feels very supported and loved. Does she have friends at school that can be a support network for her aswell? There's info on our site for young people about being a supportive bystander that might help the.

If you don't get anywhere, the next steps you might consider are to get some one-on-one support from anti-bulling organisation, No 2 Bullying and/or reporting it to the Dept of Educatoin or the police (discriminaiton, abuse and/violece is against the law, after all!).

Let us know how you get on!

[HalleysComet]

Something to show your daughter so she doesn't feel like she's the only one?

[Maggiemay · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your responses. Each response has given us something else to think about. As a family we will keep supporting and advocating for her rights to be safe as school.
Tonight after a long conversation she has agreed to deactivate her Facebook account and limit her access to other social media eg. Messenger etc.
HalleysComet I will show her the video you supplied.
Thanks again and I will let you know how we go.

[Sophie-RO]

Hey @Maggiemay - tough conversation! You obviously care about her so much!

One thing I think we all don't realise as non-digital natives is how much of their social lives are dependent on social media. So as it's limited right now, it could be a good idea to be a bit proactive to ensure she's still connected to her friends (the non-bullies) and still has opportunities to interact and socialise with them.

[Maggiemay]

she still has access to messenger and is involved in team sports where she gets the interaction with her peers.  The school has now set up a buddy system for her which includes her friends and older students who have done the peer support program. Through her netball she has alot of support from her fellow players and also from the coaches that she is assisting with as well as her previous coach that is a very good influence in her life.  I understand that social media plays a big part in our kids social lives but we also need to remember that the face to face contact we have as humans is on a differenent level.  

We still need that physical contact.  It is one thing that is innate in all of us.  I understand that social media plays a role to bridge the gap from the distance when we are not together (ie we are not in close proximity) but it cannot and probably will not replace the social interactions we have when we are with each other.  

In my opinion the interactions on social media has taken us to a place that is actually detramental to our way of being able to interact in a way that is empathic and social.  

[Sophie-RO]

So great to see how holistic your support is and good to see the school has finally come to the party with the buddy system. I'm sure there are parents out there getting a lot from reading this. thanks so much for sharing your experience - keep us updated!

[Ngaio-RO]

Hi @Maggiemay

How are things with your daughter? It's been a while since you posted this, we'd love to know if you managed to get some better outcomes at your daughter's school.

[Rubinator]

Hi @Maggiemay

Thanks for posting your story. I'm wondering how you went with the social media restriction with your daughter. We had some issues in our house with my 13 year old feeling victimised by who she calls 'randoms'on Facebook so we deleted her account. But then she felt so disconnected from her group, as in they woulod arrange meetups via their Facebook accounts and forget to include her. She almost started to feel worse.

I foubd the Federal Police Cyber Bullying site and read about what we could do. We found using the blocking option and the pricvacy controls made a huge difference. We also made her committ to not adding anyone she didn't know. The criteria we gave her was "would you say hello to them on the street?" We told her if she didn't know them well enough to at least say Hi to in real life, she didn't know them well enough to share her life with. It's worked really well.

How's your daughter going @Maggiemay?