Is it bullying? And when/how much to intervene?

amother

↑ Milk

Sun, May 26 2024, 9:06 pm

amother Petunia wrote:

I disagree
Try to talk to the kids directly and at this age you can bribe them to be nice
Also please empower your child!
This is a skill he needs to learn that will serve him well for life’.
You calling the parents will just cause then to bully him more and parents telling their kids not to play with your son anymore and that’s the end of your friendships!

It will not help OP's son to be seen as such a wuss that his mommy had to speak to the boys. I don't think that's the right way to go about this. I would imagine the bullying would only get worse...

WhatFor ↓

Sun, May 26 2024, 9:07 pm

Op, send your son to martial arts. It's not going to teach him how to magically take on a group of kids but should help with his confidence and perception of self.

You also keep saying your son is not the type to be bullied. Please lose this notion that bullied kids are inherently more nebachdik or meek. A group of boys can gang up on any individual boy. Would you go to work somewhere where people were tripping you, grabbing your hair, tearing off your accessories, pushing you on the floor, kicking you? And I promise, as terrible as that would be, adults would not even have the extent of damage from that that a child gets in their psyche and developing brain. You need to protect your son from the fear of this. This isn't normal.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, May 26 2024, 9:09 pm

WhatFor wrote:

You’re 100% right.
I am looking into the martial arts avenue…
I wish I can empower him in the meantime somehow.

amother

Dahlia

Sun, May 26 2024, 9:11 pm

amother OP wrote:

We live in a small close knit neighborhood outside of Lakewood. There are about 30-40 frum families here and we all know each other. My sons (7,5) go on the neighborhood van to their respective schools in Lakewood every day and come home almost every day crying - or try to find excuses to not go on the van.
My kids are not pushovers/weak kids. I’d be less surprised if they were the bully.
Growing up, my mom never intervened for us for anything- it was too uncomfortable for her. I see how I’m doing the opposite but I wonder if I’m doing too much.
It’s uncomfortable- sure. The moms I have to call are all my neighbors. And I call so often. I beg them to tell me if my kids are doing anything to cause this bullying- and they don’t say anything. I wonder if it’s bc they’ve taught their kids how to handle it (how do you do that?) or if there is none. Either way, I feel really stupid being this tattle-telling mom who is so “overprotective “.
But these kids ambushed my son while riding his bike with another neighbor, knocked him down and started chasing him.
They pour water on him, stick out their leg to trip him, pull his hair, rip his projects, tell them their mom (me) is so fat, call him names, etc etc.
but then sometimes they play nicely (with some of the kids.)
Is it bullying? Is my “meddling” causing them to do it more?
My kids do great in school socially and do great individually with most of these boys.
So: when do I intervene?
How do I teach them to stand up to these boys?

I have to say that I am stunned -- STUNNED -- that this level of bullying is going on among such young boys. That's crazy. Never heard of such stories. This is awful. Get your boys in karate classes.

↑ WhatFor ↓

Sun, May 26 2024, 9:33 pm

amother OP wrote:

You’re 100% right.
I am looking into the martial arts avenue…
I wish I can empower him in the meantime somehow.

This may not be a popular opinion here, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to be empowered to fight off a group of boys any more than you'd try to empower an adult to fight off a gang of kids who are running around terrorizing people unfettered. Going back to my employment example, imagine if you told your boss, and your boss's response to you being physically assaulted was "I'd like to empower you to defend yourself." Also imagine if the police responded like that.

Of course these bullies don't have guns, but from a child's perspective, they're physically endangering him and his body may eventually develop anxieties and cptsd, initially as a coping response but it could damage him long term.

So here's my potentially unpopular opinion: similar to how we deal with adults who behave antisocially and bully other adults, you need to employ the kiddie version for these kids (I'm assuming they're around your son's age).

The first step is your DH speaking to each of their fathers to talk to them. Hopefully these fathers actually want to be mechanech their sons, and that will be that. If that's not working, talk to the school and insist that these kids get actual repercussions (like being docked a privilege). If the school doesn't care or that's not working, then DH should have no qualms about talking to each of these kids himself. Potentially with other men. Hopefully that'll do it.

I'm not knocking these kids, but sometimes boys in groups can be spurred by their testosterone to act a "pack". When they're operating from that primitive angle, they sometimes need to a more primitive response - stronger males, higher in the pack, to put them in their place. Of course we want to be mechanech them with love and intellect, but you don't have that power here.

Of course, you can also try inviting all these boys to your house to play with your DS, and give them all the best toys and nosh so that they hope to get invited back. But I don't know if that's going to work as quickly or as effectively.

amother

↑ OP

Sun, May 26 2024, 9:41 pm

WhatFor wrote:

My husband did speak to the respective dads who promised to speak to their sons and asked we tell them whenever their sons bother my kids.
We do that dutifully.
They attend different school. Should I call schools that my son is not a part of to take action on their students? (I have no qualms, but I want to know if it’s a done thing).
My husband is in kollel with all these guys… he’s even more scared to speak to the neighbors than me. (But I’m open minded to that option if need be).
We did try to invite them over. But they were agenda driven. They took the nosh, used my son’s motor bike, and left.
I even sent treats on the van for Rosh Chodesh etc for a while to get him on their good side but once I heard that one of the kids was taking all the treats for himself, I stopped.

amother

↑ Tangerine

Sun, May 26 2024, 10:09 pm

amother OP wrote:

Yes I’d call their principals

↑ WhatFor

Mon, May 27 2024, 10:40 am

amother OP wrote:

I don't know if it's a "done thing" where you are to talk to their principles, but it wouldn't stop me from trying. Who cares if it's done if it might help your son? I know that generally plenty of principles would act if they learned that a group of kids from their school was bullying another boy.

As far as your DH and the neighbors, do you mean the kids' dads? What's DH afraid of? If they're typical learning men, they probably don't want their sons bullying other kids either. He needs to be more assertive with them about their kids, and it's probably helpful to state specific incidents that happened. If he doesn't want to talk to them, march right over to each kid's house and speak to the fathers yourself (yes, even if it's not done for you to talk to the fathers. They don't want you coming back to talk to them again, they'll tell their sons to stop.)

Also if you/DH are talking to the principal and/or fathers, it's okay to be polite but please do not be apologetic or downplay what's happening. No "I'm so sorry to bother you" or "it's probably nothing but".... The tone needs to be more along "We need to address this situation, it's serious and we cannot allow this to continue." If you're downplaying it, they might not get what's really happening.