Is it really part of life....

[emy72]

...to be pushed, hit, bitten and generally physically and verbally abused? As from my previous post re: my 3 year old going through this at the moment, I have heard a few people in rl say that. Well I beg to differ! When as an adult do you get beaten up? and if so, should you really learn to deal with it, shouldn't you go to the police? I really think people kid themselves if they say that's part of life and children should just learn to cope. I was NEVER bullied physically or mentally at school and went to quite a few schools (all state!) and I don't think that's made me unable to deal with people in real life as an adult. I don't see why my children should get used to being physically and verbally assaulted/abused at school and think that's a normal part of life!
gets off soap box

[moosemama]

Not seen your previous post, but wanted to say no, bullying is absolutely never ever acceptable, under any circumstances.

Children do not 'need' to learn how to handle it and adults 'do' need to do everything within their power to protect them from it. I was bullied at infant school and still remember it to this day. It didnt make me stronger and more able to deal with other bullies, it made me more scared and vulnerable and therefore more likely to be identified as a victim (although to be fair there was no-one I trusted enough to tell them it was happening at the time).

I speak as someone who has just, after 3 years, managed to finally sort out the bullies that have consistently picked on my ds1 since Reception year. I only wish I'd been more forceful and more of a nuisance to the school sooner, instead of allowing them to fob me off and deal with things on an incident by incident basis rather than seeing the big picture and pattern of bullying behaviour.

Its not the victims of bullying that have to learn, its the bullies.

[Kathyjelly]

No definitely not. I'm with you. I was never bullied at school and I never saw anyone else on the receiving end either. The teachers would have come down on it like a ton of bricks

If your kids are being bullied there are lots of ways you can help. Talk to them first and ask them what they want you to do? They may not want you to storm the staff room demanding action. Find out exactly what is happening.

Ask the head teacher or nursery leader what the policy is on combatting bullying. Then take it from there. The more details you have the better, but see what they propose doing about it first.

I can't imagine my child having the courage to tell me something is wrong and me telling them they have to deal with it themselves. What would that feel like?