Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy 5yo being mocked: how to deal with it?

Every morning I take DS5 to school on the (ordinary) bus. There's only one choice of bus. There's a group of boys from the local high school who take the same bus for part of the way. I'd say they're 11 or 12. They've started mocking DS. It started one day when he was doing sums on the bus and talking about them - of course, he was doing sums with fractions and negative numbers, and I now remember having overheard one of this group having failed to do a simple multiplication (6 x 7 or thereabouts) the other day, so I suppose that was a red flag :-( They starting talking among themselves in an obviously to-be-overheard way: "Gifted chiiiiild. Stephen Hawking before his terrible accident" [I wanted to say "He didn't have an accident! He has motor neurone disease!" but said nothing.] I hoped it was a one-off, and took a mental note to try to make sure DS wasn't talking about maths when they were around, but today he was just talking ("why can grass survive snow? Is it because it has horizontal stalks?") and they were repeating his phrases ("horizooontal staaaalks"). It doesn't help that DS has an English accent and we're in Scotland.

From long experience in my own childhood :-( I suspect that there's nothing to be done about this - e.g., that saying anything to them or to their school, or sitting away from our usual place on the bus, would only make matters worse - but I'd welcome advice on what to say to DS. He doesn't fully grok what's going on, but he does notice. I told him (after they'd got off) that they were just being silly and trying to annoy us, and that I thought we should ignore them; and after the first time it happened, when he was doing sums, I told him that I thought they thought he was unusually young to be doing that kind of sum. I don't think he got why that would make them tease us, at all, though; if you were in this situation, would you try to explain, e.g. help him understand why he in particular is a good target? I think I'm inclined not to; it's not as though he ever has to encounter this group without me, since they're at a different school. I have no reason to think anything similar is happening at his own school. But I do feel rather fatalistic about it, as though it was only a matter of time before something like this happened and as though it's bound to happen lots more. I'd like to be wrong :-(

Anyone tackled this kind of situation? What did you do/say?

I really feel for you - it can be very tough when other children start being nasty. From my experience of UK children I would agree not to approach the children or the school and to try to ignore them (much easier said than done!).

Can you explain to your DS that it is unusual that he can do what he does and that it can make older children feel jealous and insecure and that it is best to take no notice of them.

I'm afraid I can't be much help as I haven't encountered a situation like this, maybe someone else here has some experience..

XX

I have no idea. My son only gets teased on the school bus, while I'm not around. ;-(

I stopped by a neighbor's house once to buy fresh eggs. When my son saw the 'little girl' come to deliver the eggs, he recognised her as a bus tormentor, and hid so she wouldn't see him. He was 10. I didn't realize that he could fit himself 'where the feet go' anymore. I had just switched his school so he wasn't currently riding that bus, and was so glad. The sick feeling was that it was so unexpected! I had no idea it was 'that' bad.

I guess I would read up on 'bullying' and see if it's worth trying anything. Part of me wonders if you could do the 'bring them cookies' and 'I'm looking to hire a strong 12 yeear old for some odd jobs around the house' routine. It works in the movies, but I can't vouch for real life.

Have you seen the movie 'Vitus?' If nothing else, you could rent it and have a good cry.

((hugs))
Grinity

That is awful!

I tend to avoid conflict but as you have to to ride that bus i would suggest 2 things:
If they say something i would turn round and just stare at one or more of them - obviously only if you feel safe to do so.

Or talk to the bus driver about this 'abuse'. But as you said it could make things worse.

i think your explaination was good. I would refain from why he seems a good target incase of your DS starting to not be himself. 5 is way to young to have to deal with this and IMO the less he knows the better

The rudeness of some kids is unbelievable!! I would be mortified if one of those 11 year olds was mine!

Tiz writes:
I could try, but he's not advanced in social understanding and I don't think he groks "jealous" or "insecure". (I remember a reading book he brought home from school a month or two back which had jealousy as a theme and him completely failing to understand the characters' motivations, actually.) I'm reluctant to get into a long-winded explanation of feelings he won't recognise. I suppose I'll have to play it by ear.

Thanks for the sympathy, it helps!

That may be us next year, though I'll hope not...
That's awful.

I'll have a browse around, but no way am I employing these kids! You're right that bullying is the right keyword, though I hadn't looked at it that way.

I haven't, no. Will maybe add it to my list...

Thank you for the hugs, I knew I'd find people here who'd sympathise.

Talking to the bus-driver is definitely out - he's not going to interfere for anything much short of broken bones! (This is a city bus, not a school bus - the driver is in no sense responsible for the kids.)

Stare at them? Maybe. It's hard to gauge; when I was the child, I know from bitter experience that any kind of communication, including eye contact, makes this kind of thing worse - they're trying to get a rise out of you. If it's the child's mother? Not sure. Depends, but I fear they'd think it was funny.

See, I'm so torn. I guess it's back to the old follow-his-lead. I do, at least, want to make sure he can talk about it with me if he wants to.

I expect their mothers would, too. There's something about the pack behaviour of boys this age: I doubt if any one of them singly would have dreamt of being so rude, but once there's a group of them... Well, DS will be that age one day. I hope he'll know better, but we'll see.

I can't believe they acted like that with you sitting there! I'm a bossy former teacher, so I'd probably give them a good tongue-lashing and a lesson about manners. But that isn't necessarily the right thing to do here. Just something I couldn't help doing...I detest bullying and I can't let it go by without comment.

I did read somewhere that some huge percentage of bullying (85% sticks in my head, but I could be way off there.) stops if someone--anyone--says something about it. For that reason, I'm not sure that ignoring it is a good idea. Maybe a quiet "That's not very nice" would help? So much depends upon your personality though...

Mostly I'm just sorry you and your son are going through this.

Oh ColinsMum - i'm so sorry this is happening to your DS. Is there ever a time when there's just one of the kids alone? I would think that if you could somehow feel out which of these kids you could get to who could influence the others, there might be some hope. Perhaps slipping a letter to one of them unseen by the others saying how you know they are just teasing, but that your son is just 5 and doesn't understand it's in fun (even if it's not), and he gets quite upset or some such. Otherwise i guess i'd try to sit in the front of the bus and ignore them. I wish there were an easy answer. Sending hugs.

Your son is not socially aware, but he can pick friends. Is there a large boy or girl whom he can befriend who also rides that bus? Or is there a kid who is very good at sports or is known to be feisty?

I don't know how involved you would want to get, but another suggestion is to go to the school they attend, sounds like you know what school it is, talk to the prinipal about how shameful his/her students are acting to a 5 year old. (Is that what their teaching them there?) And that you want him/her to talk to their parents ect... shouldn't be hard to find out who they are if they take the bus often. I know that's a very bold move (that's what the mother bear in me would do)

Good luck, more hugs for you

So sorry to hear about his CollinsMum! My son went through a period of bullying last year, and everyone here was so very helpful with suggestions on how to deal with it. We all feel for you, and most of us have been in the same position.

My son was older at the time (seven), but I found a great book called, Bullies are a Pain in the Brain. I found it on the Hoagies web site for gifted kids. We found the book in the library, so it was a cheap resource. Here is a link:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/bullies.htm

Five might be too young for this strategy, but we eventually explained it in terms of a remote control. The bullies were trying to push his buttons to get him to react. In our case, the bullies were taunting DS in order to get him to overreact to their threats. They could then go and tell on him. We tried to show DS that the bullies only had power over him when he reacted to them. If he shrugged it off and said "whatever", then the bullying stopped.

But there are many shades of bullying and each one is designed to inflict its own type of pain. The bullies who go after a shy kid who won't stand up for himself are very different than the ones that try to go after kids like mine who always stand up and refuse to back down. I would say that bullies will continue as long as:
1) They derive some pleasure in it. It usually stops if they don't get a response from the child.
2) If they are not in danger of getting into trouble from it. This means that they usually pick on kids who are by themselves. Kriston is right in that it just takes one other child to stand up for a target before they back down. However if you stand up for your child and they find him alone in the future, they will look for a payback.

I guess that I would hope that this type of behavior would get old fast and they would discover some other form of juvenile delinquency soon. One can only hope that the next video game, movie, or a can of spray paint would provide more entertainment than teasing a 5 year old. I will mention that there is a period that boys seem to go through (grades 5- 7? maybe longer?) were boys think that teasing other boys is as natural as breathing. My DS8 has come in contact with it quite a bit in the Jr. High class that he is taking. As long as DS teases the other boys back gently and in good fun, then it seems to be a natural part of this age. DS's 7th grade teacher says that he gives the teasing back as good as the other boys give it, and that made him accepted as one of the boys. These boys on your bus just seem to relish giving it out to a defenseless 5 year old. To me, that says that they are insecure in their own grade level and need to beef up their self image by picking on someone who won't give it back to them.

I don't know if this rambling has been helpful at all. I wish you luck. I'm probably showing my age here, but did anyone see the old, old, movie by Steve Martin called Roxanne from 1987? There is a great scene in the movie where Steve Martin is being picked on for his unusually large nose. He ends up shaming the bullies by being far more clever in creating derogatory comments about his own nose. I have always loved that scene. (the rest of the movie... not so much!)

Thanks. I'm pretty assertive (also professionally so ;-) but in a situation where I can't actually do anything except talk, I don't think I believe that saying something helps; certainly didn't help me when I was the one being bullied. And I'm afraid of making matters worse, by giving them the fun of showing that they can ignore me with impunity :-(

No, it's a gang of them who get on and off together. I was half hoping there was a magic solution I wasn't thinking of, but I don't think so. Ah well. Thanks ;-)

No, he's the only one at his school who is on the bus at the relevant point. (Private school, practically everyone else is dropped off by car! That's probably another point, he's clever, he has the wrong accent and he goes to the posh school, poor kid! Still, at least he has his mum with him, so he isn't going to get physically bullied!)

Thanks :-) I don't think I'd want the school to contact the parents individually - and frankly, I doubt if they would for what will be seen as mild teasing - but I did wonder about writing to ask if they could do something general in assembly or "personal and social development" as they call it here, about bullying including mockery. I think I'll reserve that as a possible escalation, if ignoring them doesn't work quickly.

Thank you for all your comments, and for this especially - I have ordered it! The remote control picture sounds like a useful one. A friend elsewhere reminded me that a while ago I talked to DS about the fact that people tend to be irrationally afraid of people they perceive as not like them, and sometimes they do unpleasant things (teasing in this case, in other cases murder) as a reaction to being afraid. DS might not understand why, but he's previously met the idea that that's something people do, so that may also be something to remind him of.

I'm sorry you and your DS had to go through this (or worse) too: here's hoping he's seen the last of it.

Well, play it out if you said something. What would happen? Do you fear that it will escalate to physical violence? Or are you just afraid that they won't care that you said something to them?

If the latter, I don't see how that's any worse than not saying something in the first place. I mean, aren't you teaching your son now that people can walk all over you and you won't respond? How is that worse than teaching him that you'll try to defend yourself (and him!) but will fail? Is not even trying better than failing?

I'm not convinced...

Different strokes for different folks, of course. But following your logic as you have presented it here, I'm not sure that saying and doing nothing is working for you.

No, I'm afraid that they *will* care, in that they'll be pleased that what they're trying to do - upset us both - has succeeded. I think that as a result they'd do it more and for longer.

That was my experience when I or anyone else tried to stand up for me, and I'm afraid that both here and on another forum where I asked for advice, everyone who's ever had this happen to them has said Ignore. Various people have said "say something" on principle, but nobody (yet!) has said "it happened to me, or to my child, and someone said something and it stopped".

Well, when I was a child, I regularly stood up for people being bullied, and the bullying stopped. Now, I was a child at the time, and of course you aren't. That certainly changes the dynamic. But in response to your question, yes, I can say for sure that "This happened, I said something, and it stopped." *Many* times!

By the time I was 7 or 8, I'd say, pretty much everyone in the school knew that I would put a stop to any bullying that I saw, and I didn't care what the bullies thought of me or said about me. I was never in a fight of any sort either. People just stopped because I told them that what they were doing was mean and I wouldn't allow it to continue. I used the threat of telling the teacher, but I very rarely had to actually do it.

Was I the most popular kid on the playground? Not with bullies. But since I wasn't too keen on them either, that was okay by me. Before very long, I had a substantial circle of friends who stood by me when bullying happened because they knew I was there for them, too. It's easy to bully one person alone, but when people refuse to be bullied and stick together, it becomes much harder to bully them.

However, since you are an adult, I'm not sure any of this is relevant to the specific case at hand.

Instead I think you are in a position of authority, which makes everything different. I wouldn't approach it as defending your child. I'd approach it as teaching the kids a lesson in manners that they sorely need, regardless of whose child they're talking about. I definitely wouldn't get upset. I'd just very calmly tell them that they need a lesson in manners and that their parents must be very disappointed in their behavior. I wouldn't be angry; I'd be sternly parental or teacherly!

But again, that's my personality. Heck, if I were on that bus and saw those boys being mean to *your* child, I'd speak up and tell them to cut it out. I'm not sure I'd be able to help myself, frankly!

I realize that's not going to work for everyone...

In the usual way of "post your problem to the internet and it will go away", those boys were on the bus again today but took no notice of us. Long may that continue! Thanks to everyone for your input.

I find that there is a particular 'look' worth learning how to make, as if something small and squirmy just crawled out of your neighbor's sandwich. I'm thinking head cocked, eyes squinty, mouth disgusted. Instead of saying 'something' - perhaps a well placed 'look' might do the trick.

Wow! Glad to hear it! Awesome!

Go Kriston! Yippee!
Just hearing that you were standing up where you were comforts me in retrospect.
Smiles,
Grinity

Yes! This is just the sort of thing! Good one, Grinity!

You remind me that I do usually give "the look" first, and I only resort to saying something if it doesn't work. But usually the look is all it takes.

I get boys in here all the time that think they're tough and delight in making the other kids uncomfortable. Problem is, it doesn't work here. My kids are all immune. They have their own stories and could care less.

With most boys this age, I've found that if they can't intimidate you, they give up. If it was me I'd comment on their lack of manners and how big they must feel picking on a little kid. Make them feel like idiots. But like Kriston, i'm not known for keeping my mouth shut!