he has been verbally and physically harassed at school for months, originating out of gym class.
Ideally, he would have shared this with you at the time of the first incident. Please impress upon your child that timing can be crucial to resolving these types of situations. In real-time, one would begin to document facts (Who, what, where, when, why, how) at home. My thoughts now would be to work with your son to try to construct a timeline, at home, documenting what occurred, and the context.
Once you have all the facts as he is able to relate them, you can evaluate whether this is something to bring forward to the school... or, as is sometimes the case, whether the negative feelings may be out of proportion to what actually occurred.
There is an amount of humor, sarcasm, joking equally at everyone's expense, which is part of bonding over human fallibility... this is different than targeted belittlement of one person with intent to exclude or ostracize... however some individuals may become easily overwhelmed by banter and not see it as an overall pattern which invites them to reciprocate with their own humorous observations; they may feel attacked and rejected rather than feeling noticed, included, and accepted despite their foibles. It appears that individuals with perfectionism and lack of resilience may be especially prone to misinterpretation, what is sometimes referred to as being thin-skinned.
