Racial Bullying

[maximillian]

my son is one of only a handful of black/afro caribbean children at his school. he spent last year being cornered so that children could touch his hair, they would make smart comments about "is his dad a bouncer (no he's an architect!)", does he wear hoodies when he leaves school (sometimes you just need to keep your ears warm!), does he always listen to rap music (yes but he also listens to the music of Fame and sings italian opera!)etc. he would ask them repeatedly not to make these stereotypical assumptions, he would ask them not to insist on playing with his hair and telling him that his hair looked like sheep wool. the problem was that it happened every day and it began to wear him down. some of it you could put down to teenage curiousity and silliness but it began to border on malicious. my DH and i talked with him about it as we realised that it was really getting him down. i began to question whether we had made the right choice of school - should we have taken the "easy option" of sending him to a more culturally and ethnically diverse school, had we made a terrible mistake and would he lose his cultural identity by going to a school that had only five black kids? our first reaction was anger and my husband wanted to go "kick ass" at school. my second reaction was..let's play the rules.
i went onto the school website and looked up their grievance and bullying policies. i told my DH that we were going to follow the school rules to the letter and not just rush into anything.
we made an appointment with his form teacher (with his permission as we realised we had to tread carefully so as not to make the situation worse) and had a long chat with her. at first she was surprised and thought it was just a little high jinks, i pointed out that this was bordering on bullying as it was persistent/repeated and that he was unhappy. a lightbulb then went off i think - she then became angry and quite protective of our boy. to her credit she was extremely grateful that we had come to her first. she said she would be informing the head of year and that between us we would work with jordan and the year 10 kids to sort this out.
my son isn't overly confident socially but is extremely bright. the one thing my DH and i decided to help him with was this. one book i found really helped was 7 effective habits of teenagers. it really opened his eyes and has given him such a boost. we have learned that whilst any form of bullying is unacceptable we can help our children take control of situations.
sorry if this seems a bit garbled but just wanted to get it out there....there is hope

[Italiangreyhound]

Really sorry to hear that your poor lad has had to go through this but well done to both of you for being able to tackle this and well done to him for coping with it. I think bullying is a really nasty thing and I hope schools are learning how to deal with it and most of all how to stop it happening in future.

[giveitago]

Hope things are getting better.

And your approach looks like it can get results - so glad the teacher understood that constant faux curiousity and jibes contstitute bulling.

Your ds sounds very self possessed to tackle them and in a diplomatic way. He did all he could - now you've done all you can and lets hope his experience at school improves.
Your ds is lucky to have you.

Oooh - my ds isn't at primary yet but I keep reading these threads and they are making me worried.

[Chellesgirl]

maxi that is definately true about how we can teach our children to take control of the situation...I love eleanor roosevelt's quote 'no one can make you feel inferior without your consent'. I love it...we have to teach our children to be strong and stand up to the bullies, to accept that some people just dont 'understand' which is why they bully in the first place.

It would be really nice if your ds school could celebrate 'black history month'. It is not just for people of african decent to celebrate, but for every race and culture to join in the celebration.

It seems like your doing a fab job with your ds's situation...just keep persevering at it...keep telling him hes only got the next yr and a half and then he can move on. What is important is that he stays focused for his GCSE's...I remember when I was younger I let bullying kinda ruin my self esteem, started hanging out with the wrong people and it didnt help my concentration. Good luck.

[maximillian]

thank you all for your comments, got a bit of a lump in my throat now!
things are definitely moving up for him. he decided he wanted to start braiding his hair as he was trying to grow it. my immediate gut instinct was "don't give them any more ammunition", but i thought why the heck shouldn't he. anyway my friend cornrowed his hair for him and he loves it, his friends think he looks cool.he's re reading 7 effective steps again as confidence reinforcement too. good lad.
on a funny note, my daughter is a primary school teacher but very protective of her brother. she was all set to do the protective "mum" bit and go and beat some children up ;)

[Chellesgirl]

Glad to hear things are going ok. Ah theres nothing wrong with him having corn rows...may get some more looks from the girls then be the envy of all the lads! At least now they wont fiddle with his hair so much!
lol @ ur daughter - she should set the primary school kids on them in a game of dodge ball.

[giveitago]

Good on him for sticking to his wish to have the braids. That tells me he knows it's not him, it's them!

Onwards and upwards for your little boy.

[Dominique07]

Ooh poor him. Unfortunately he is 'educating' them all. At least you can be sure, although it is bullying behaviour, it maybe motivated by pure curiousity.
They will be aware though, that their behaviour is alienating for him.
Does he have friends there who he spends time with outside of school?
My DS is mixed race and although I'd love to move out of the city and into the countryside or a smaller town, DP is very concerned that we ensure he attends the "easy option" you mentioned, of sending him to a more culturally and ethnically diverse school.

[shallishanti]

it doesn't matter what sort of school it is, they have to have a race equality policy (that's the law) and behaviour such as OP describes is clearly racist. Please don't feel your dcs have to put up with it, or that it's just a variety of bullying. I'm not trying to minimise the serious of bullying- schools also have to have an anti bullying policy- but there will be someone in the local authority whose job is to help schools deal with racist incidents. OP's son's class teacher sounds like she got the point in the end, but not all schools do- and you shouldn't have to choose a school because of it's ethnic profile.

[iskra]

OP, how is it going for your son?