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Bullying - Story 1 |
| My son was 13 when I finally withdrew him from school. He had been
bullied at primary school ever since he started, but the staff there
were a little better in that they disciplined the offenders, but no
better at changing attitudes. My son was born in August and I thought
that it was because he was the youngest that the others felt they
could pick on him. I was assured that 'in a few years' the age differences
would not be so noticeable and he would be fine. We moved house but
didn't change his primary school because he was going to secondary
school a year later, and the primary school he was in was not a feeder
for that secondary school, so he would have a new start then. To begin
with, he was fine at secondary school; he made new friends quickly,
many of whom lived in the same village and he and the boy next door
were close and always together in one or the other house, and I thought
everything was going to be OK. I'm not sure exactly when things started
to go wrong, or what happened, but while still in Year 7, he started
to revert to withdrawing to his room when he came home. He would sometimes
complain about incidents at school, nothing violent, but name-calling,
hiding his stuff, that sort of thing. He had also started to become
aware of political issues and expressed his views in class discussions.
Unfortunately, animal and human rights do not go down well with the
majority in this area, and he was often a lone voice... something
that made him stand out, and a target for the mindless. For example,
when the science teacher ridiculed him in front of everyone for not
wanting to cut up a pig's heart, he responded by getting on the internet
and taking in a large dossier on how she was violating his human rights,
and how it was government policy that he shouldn't have to take part
in such lessons if he chose not to etc.. I thought he should be praised
for his research abilities, but the school just made him sit in the
office during science. Whenever we approached the school about specific incidents, or the level of incidents in general, we were always met with platitudes, or downright disbelief (xxx wouldn't do that, he's such a nice boy!... that kind of thing). I always felt that the teachers were as mindless as the kids... conform, don't rock the boat, don't be different... etc.. For example, my son (and everyone else) was forced to play rugby, whether they were the build for it or not, and whether they wanted to or not. My son plays hockey for a local club, but at school it is 'a girls' game' and he wasn't allowed to. He had his collar-bone broken on the pitch by a huge boy landing on him (it could have been his neck!). The doctors told him not to do sport for the rest of the term, but the teachers obviously thought he was just skiving and made him get changed and stand on the side of the pitch, whatever the weather. After my husband went to see the sports teacher, my son was given the job of line judge and subjected to undisguised patronising comments, 'are you warm enough?', 'are you involved enough?' etc.. The school also said that it was R's own fault for not being able to 'stand up' to the bullies. We've taught him since he was little that hitting is always wrong, and that if you retaliate you're as bad as the other person etc.. However, I was still in some sort of stupor where I thought I had to try to go along with what the school said, with them being 'the experts', so I bought books on how to deal with bullies (the Kidscape one is excellent), but I still felt that he wasn't buying in to any of it. He was getting increasingly stressed and would come home from school, storm to his room, put the music on at full volume and play a computer game. He once told me it was so he could block out the real world and get into a better one. I took him to the doctor because he and I were both worried about his mental state and stress levels. He would scare himself sometimes with rage, that all this was happening and he was trapped in it. By this time he had fallen out with the boy next door (I still don't know what happened), and if he goes to the village park, he's ganged up on... so he can't go out to play at home. He has other friends but they live some distance away and he has to rely on lifts. The doctor listened and referred him to a counsellor at Child and Family Services. We waited ages for an appointment, and I think he had built up his hopes that someone was going to help him. When we finally saw them, they just said he was perfectly normal and didn't need any further treatment. He was devastated by this (which is ironic!) and it set him back. The final straw was a saga. It was a new school year and I had bought him new shoes. Having huge feet they were man's shoes and had cost a lot of money. I told him not to play football in them, so one lunchtime in the first week of term, he had changed into his trainers and left his shoes on the side of were they were playing. During the game a lens fell out of his glasses and he went into the school to get them fixed. When he returned the shoes were gone. He and his friends searched high and low to no avail. He told the school office and his form tutor; the shoes were named and were an unusual make for a school because they were mens'. They were never found. The ONLY concern the school had was that he was out of uniform. Every day they made him go to the head teacher to get a slip to carry around to show other teachers when they challenged him. I couldn't believe that they were doing nothing to find out who had taken them. His form tutor phoned me to say it was about time I had bought him some more and seemed unconcerned, either at the cost, or that the same thing was likely to happen again, given that they had done nothing the first time. She insisted it was a 'prank'. I'm afraid I refused to buy any more. I gave my son a laminated letter from me explaining why he was out of uniform, and that if anyone had a problem with it they should contact me. They just continued to make him go to the head every day, and berate him for being out of uniform. He was starting to refuse to get up in the morning, and I was torn because I didn't know what to do to help him. There was no other secondary school for over 10 miles. Thankfully, it was coming up to Christmas and I was browsing Amazon for presents. Somehow, I came across a book called 'The Teenage Liberation Handbook. How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education' by Grace Llewellyn. I bought it, read the first chapter, gave it to my son, who read it and said that's what he wanted to do. It's an American book, so I looked into quitting school here, and found it was perfectly possible. I am ashamed to say I didn't know that before. He never went back to school after that. He's now 14 and happy. For about the first six months, I let him please himself what he did and he needed that time to recover. He's developed an interest in history that he never had before and is now planning to go to Sixth Form College and University when the time comes. Looking back, I can't forgive myself for letting him be miserable for so long. I just never knew there was an alternative and I should have done. If I'd known when he was 5 what I know now, I would have educated him at home from Day 1. Anyway, hope the story helps someone else. |
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