At my wit’s end-bullying

[Anonymous]

I’m glad you remembered your old friends and I’m so sorry you were down all day. One of my favorite sayings is, “A mother is only as happy as her saddest child.” When something hurtful happens to my children I wish it had happened to me. You sound like that kind of mom too and I applaud you for being such a loving, caring, and supportive mother to your daughter. She is very lucky to have you! I will be praying for you and your family, for God’s direction in this situation and for peace. Hugs!

[Anonymous]

Call the Board of Education member over your school. Safety is an issue here. I hate reading your post, Mom. We are a very white family at my house but we would never ever say anything other than kind and welcoming things to your family and sweet girl. How stupid of those others! Mixed children are always so beautiful! Hug her from me and do push at the Board level.

[Anonymous]

^^^^

You are very insightful ... I agree with you completely that this child is hypersensitive and her mother is overreacting.

Look ... let's get together at a park tomorrow afternoon for a couple. hours. Bring your daughter and a video camera. This is what we'll do. While you're filming, I'll knock your daughter around for a bit and pull her hair just for laughs. After about two hours of this I'll start attacking her ethnicity just to prove her resiliency.

If her feelings are hurt or who knows if she cries I know where we can take her to see a great psychiatrist who will straighten her out and toughen her up bit.

Then we will post it as a YouTube video for all of your daughters classmates to see and learn from as a public service massage..

Let's try to work together to find a suitable title for our documentary.. How do you like:

"They Aren't Bullying You ... They are Helping you Build Character" or maybe "Using the Power of Positive Thinking to Defend Yourself When 10 Other Kids are Beating the Crap Out of You and Your Teacher Doesn't Seem to Notice or Care"

Okay - great. See you at the park at about 2 PM tomorrow afternoon. I will slap your daughter around for a while and then top it off with an hour of deep hurtful verbal humiliation. We are going to make the best documentary. We may even win an Oscar.

You are the best mom ever!

[Anonymous]

The above post was addressed to 00:30, not to 01:00 or 01:37

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apologies in advance for long post.
I am not prone to histrionics. When one of my children complains of an incident in school where he/she felt unfairly treated by either another student or a teacher, I have always asked in -depth questions on the facts and, once I am satisfied that it is not a really serious issue, which it usually is not, I help my child to see things in perspective, arm them for any future similar situations in cases where I believe they might be being over sensitive or simply teach them how to stand up for themselves to say something along the lines of-“that’s not very kind. Please don’t do that” in a firm voice. There has never, until now, been a strong enough reason for me to escalate anything to the teacher or higher. I have two other children -14 and 10 and my youngest is 8. She (youngest) has had the most awful time since she started at her school which is different from her siblings because we moved.
It is a predominantly white school (well known for good academics) and my daughter is mixed -white/Black. I must stress that I do not think the school is racist per se but because there are so few children of other races -5 families in total I was told last year by the social worker though it looks like there are a couple more this year- many of the children are curious about differences and have asked my daughter many awkward questions and postulated various reasons why they believe she looks different-none of them nice-think covered in mud, being likened to various animals etc. I can see why this is happening. Faced with being on close proximity , even friends with someone who is different from them, they want their curiosities assuaged and my daughter has borne the brunt of these questions as the only child of color in her class until this year when a South Asian girl was added. Don’t even start me off on Black History Month and lessons on Slavery-ugh! This year the curiosity has ratcheted up to unkindness and there have been 2 children in particular who insist on teasing her about some aspect of her looks -usually related to her race -who ask her almost daily whether her bottom is so large because she is black. My daughter is very slim but when she walks she juts her bottom out. It looks very cute to me but clearly these 2 girls think otherwise.
She has been bullied on the bus, had her hair pulled, been shoved, and the questions have taken on a meanness which did not exist before.
Her reaction has gone from despair and hating herself for being brown, wanting to die, not knowing how to be happy being brown, believing brown is ugly and her beautiful golden brown curls are nasty, being angry with her black parent for not having white hair and white skin like other parents and for making her brown, to this year, just trying her best to disassociate herself from her blackness by insisting that only her white parent attend school functions and, to be honest, she seems happier. She has gone from oscillating between extreme anger and hysterical tears upon arriving home from school to being just anxious that her friends will see her non white parent and she’s obsessed with comparing her complexion with her brother and sister (who could not care less) and deciding that she has the lightest skin and lightest eyes.
I am hearbtoken for her. Of course we both go to school events where all parents are invited but she has pleaded with black parent not to volunteer in the classroom so only the white parent does. However, more than once I have heard children ask her where her other parent is when we are both there-gives black parent a wide berth. One child, upon hearing her sister (who has zero issues with her color) refer to that parent as mom/dad, asked my daughter who the person was and her sister piped up again that “he/she is my dad/mom”. My daughter looked mortified and the little girl who had asked looked utterly confused and looked to her parents, to whom we had just introduced ourselves, for confirmation. We laughed it off but I felt so sad for my daughter that she has had to create this fallacy in order to fit in. An 8 year old should not have to deal with these things. She should be in a safe environment as she develops a love of learning.
I have requested a transfer for two years in a row now, to a more diverse environment where there are a smattering of children of various races/complexions so that she does not have to endure this any longer. I despair over how this will all translate in the pre teen and teen years-I fear it will not be good. I also do not want to compromise on academic rigor.
The first year I was told verbally that there was room for her at another very good school both wrt to academics and diversity because a student had left only to be told, about a week before school started that, a new family had moved into the neighborhood and the space was gone. We both cried when she was leaving for school on the first day back. This year I received a letter rejecting my application even before I’d had a chance to make another request. I have written a strong letter to the Deputy Superintendent but she does not appear to be budging at this point.
What are my options? Part of me wants to put pressure on then by naming and shaming publicly -not that I even know how to go about that-but I am more concerned that my daughter is put in a healthier environment than retaliation. I just don’t know what avenues are open to us at this point. Private is not an option. I used a lawyer to get her an IEP -expensive - so it will be tough but if it is our only option we will have to do that.
Any advice will be appreciated.

It doesn't sound like you are witnessing theses actions. And it sounds like your DD is overly sensitive just in general.

What happens when you have an overly sensitive child and any non-super positive interactions with another child or an adult, the child views and feels far more deeply than a child with normal sensitivity and it means that situations get blown up in the child's mind to a level that doesn't match reality.
For example, pulled hair may have happened once but an overly sensitive child will report it as always happening because in their mind the one time that it did happen means that it is always going to happen the next time any time they see the child even if the other child never approaches the child again or even speaks to the child. Its not like the child is willfully lying by saying it happens all the time but rather they have serious anxiety about the situation and they have no other way to describe or even understand the feeling so they turn into something concrete they can articulate.

While you peruse school options, you might also want to in parallel really think about seeking an evaluation for your child. Yes, you can switch schools but you may find this same issue appears again for your child.

The entire post immediately above is gaslighting bullshit. Do.not.listen OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you said that your two older kids are doing fine in this same school.
So maybe this racial bullying is not a school wide issue but just a matter of a couple of mean girls tormenting your daughter. If so, can you get in touch with their parents?
N. Arlington area is very liberal, I am sure parents will be mortified when they hear that their children are involved in racial bullyng. They might stop their kids from bullying your daughter.
Meanwhile, you need to do something to integrated her into your school community. Perhaps you can have a party and invite her classmates?

Are you really suggesting to OP that she should invite racists into her home? BAD IDEA OP Don't.do.this!

I am sure not all her classmates are racist. These are 8 year olds we are talking about. But having a party for her classmates and setting up play dates will help OP’s daughter to find friends in her class.

She is in class with them all day. If hey haven't clicked there, they aren't going to. I doubt the entire class is racist, but teachers usually have a policy about inviting the entire class (to include the racists) or no one at all to parties when invites are given out at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people keep suggesting catholic school?
That is a terrible choice for a child of color who is being bullied. There would be even less diversity there than in public school.

Actually it's a good choice because you know religion.
Kids are reminded constantly that Jesus loves everyone, that they should love their neighbor, that it's important to follow Jesus example of being nice to everyone and so no. I grew up in the area and attended Catholic school back in the 70/80s.
We had a handful of black kids. We were not allowed or supposed to discuss that they were black or ask any questions. Everyone was exactly the same in the eyes of God and skin color didn't matter to Jesus so it couldn't matter to us. That type of thinking brings it own challenges of course and I don't think this is the right way and that race should be acknowledged but at least bullying based on race was not tolerated.
Lastly, we as kids simply viewed Black children who attended school with us as extensions of our white selves. They might have had darker skin but in our minds that was the only difference and we just assumed they liked the same things we liked, their families did the same things we did, and so on.

I honestly can't tell whether you are trolling here or not. We are Black and a family member went to Catholic school all throughout K-12. The kids were racist and classist but the choice was that or inner city public schools. Not sure why anyone would think that just because someone is religious they can't be racist. In fact those two things have gone hand in hand in the US- particularly between Christians and Black people.

When you were in school, why couldn't you talk about your classmates Blackness? It's not a disease or an insult to acknowledge that someone is different from you. You missed out on learning about a rich culture in your school administration's efforts to be colorblind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you said that your two older kids are doing fine in this same school.
So maybe this racial bullying is not a school wide issue but just a matter of a couple of mean girls tormenting your daughter. If so, can you get in touch with their parents?
N. Arlington area is very liberal, I am sure parents will be mortified when they hear that their children are involved in racial bullyng. They might stop their kids from bullying your daughter.
Meanwhile, you need to do something to integrated her into your school community. Perhaps you can have a party and invite her classmates?

Are you really suggesting to OP that she should invite racists into her home? BAD IDEA OP Don't.do.this!

I am sure not all her classmates are racist. These are 8 year olds we are talking about. But having a party for her classmates and setting up play dates will help OP’s daughter to find friends in her class.

She is in class with them all day. If hey haven't clicked there, they aren't going to. I doubt the entire class is racist, but teachers usually have a policy about inviting the entire class (to include the racists) or no one at all to parties when invites are given out at school.

OP, different poster here. Set up play dates--no teacher can dictate those. And the policy of "invite everyone" applies only if you distribute invitations AT school--the teacher cannot make you invite the whole class if you send invitations yourself via an online invitation or email or mail. I'd start with play dates, though, not the pressure of a larger party. Most of all ensure DD has activities and friends outside school with no relation to school at all.

Of course that's all secondary to raking the school system over the coals for ignoring this vile bullying. Call the board member for your area as a PP said.

[Anonymous]

Why is everyone acting like she is lying about the lack of diversity? Jamestown in 22207 has a 1.5% black population. There is a slightly higher Hispanic and Asian population, but not much. Not that crazy that her child would be the only POC in her class. And even if there is a child of another race in her class, the experience of a black child is very different.

http://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/jamestown-elementary#fndtn-desktopTabs-enrollment

I am sorry you are going through this OP. I would also be more aggressive with the school as suggested by many in this post. I understand that private may be unaffordable. If that is the case and the school is unwilling to help, I would move. I know that is a hardship though. We go to school in S. Arlington and have been very happy with the diversity and the education (my child is Hispanic). Hopefully you and your child can find a safe place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone acting like she is lying about the lack of diversity? Jamestown in 22207 has a 1.5% black population. There is a slightly higher Hispanic and Asian population, but not much. Not that crazy that her child would be the only POC in her class. And even if there is a child of another race in her class, the experience of a black child is very different.

http://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/jamestown-elementary#fndtn-desktopTabs-enrollment

I am sorry you are going through this OP. I would also be more aggressive with the school as suggested by many in this post. I understand that private may be unaffordable. If that is the case and the school is unwilling to help, I would move. I know that is a hardship though. We go to school in S. Arlington and have been very happy with the diversity and the education (my child is Hispanic). Hopefully you and your child can find a safe place.

Because some people like to think racism doesn't exist and will come up with any excuse to gaslight the experience of minorities (see previous page)

[Anonymous]

For more info

Taylor - 2.8% black population, 5.6% Asian and 4.7% Hispanic

Discovery - 1.9% black, 7% Hispanic and 7% Asian

These schools are not beacons of diversity folks. . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone acting like she is lying about the lack of diversity? Jamestown in 22207 has a 1.5% black population. There is a slightly higher Hispanic and Asian population, but not much. Not that crazy that her child would be the only POC in her class. And even if there is a child of another race in her class, the experience of a black child is very different.

http://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/jamestown-elementary#fndtn-desktopTabs-enrollment

I am sorry you are going through this OP. I would also be more aggressive with the school as suggested by many in this post. I understand that private may be unaffordable. If that is the case and the school is unwilling to help, I would move. I know that is a hardship though. We go to school in S. Arlington and have been very happy with the diversity and the education (my child is Hispanic). Hopefully you and your child can find a safe place.

Because some people like to think racism doesn't exist and will come up with any excuse to gaslight the experience of minorities (see previous page)

Folks are disgusting. Again, OP I am sorry that your daughter is going through this and I am sorry for the idiots in this post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone acting like she is lying about the lack of diversity? Jamestown in 22207 has a 1.5% black population. There is a slightly higher Hispanic and Asian population, but not much. Not that crazy that her child would be the only POC in her class. And even if there is a child of another race in her class, the experience of a black child is very different.

http://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/jamestown-elementary#fndtn-desktopTabs-enrollment

I am sorry you are going through this OP. I would also be more aggressive with the school as suggested by many in this post. I understand that private may be unaffordable. If that is the case and the school is unwilling to help, I would move. I know that is a hardship though. We go to school in S. Arlington and have been very happy with the diversity and the education (my child is Hispanic). Hopefully you and your child can find a safe place.

Because some people like to think racism doesn't exist and will come up with any excuse to gaslight the experience of minorities (see previous page)

Folks are disgusting. Again, OP I am sorry that your daughter is going through this and I am sorry for the idiots in this post.

+100

Agreed. There have been posts that deny racism because those people are racists. They are gaslighting you by calling you "sensitive" or worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, what have you done to document these issues? If the answer is nothing, then start now. Write down specific events, dates, names and keep a log at home. Record how many days she comes home crying. Use this information to email your child's teacher and copy the principal and assistant principal. Include detail on how this makes your daughter feel. Ask what specifically they are doing to address these issues. Ask for a meeting. Physical and emotionally abusive encounters need to be dealt with, whether at school or on the bus, and you should insist that they be addressed. If the responses are not to your satisfaction, escalate. The school board members have email addresses online and they read their emails. I have personally witnessed a school board member being told, after the fact, of a discriminatory issue at a school and she stated, email us because we want to hear about these issues.

My daughter was in APS starting in preschool and she somehow lost her winter coat on a sub-20 degree day, and APS sent her on home with no coat and no call to me. I showed up in person to complain to the assistant principal because I felt that the school needed to do a better job of looking after their very young charges. Obviously a piddling issue, but the point is you need to show up and make yourself known. APS parents complain about everything and the squeaky wheel does indeed get the grease.

I can't speak to what this must be like on a personal level for you, we are a white family. But I would encourage you to advocate strongly for your daughter and to let her see you advocate. Otherwise, she may take away the message that her concerns are trivial, that what is happening to her is NBD and just something she has to accept. That's not correct. Bullying and especially race-based bullying is wrong. I believe your daughter will benefit from seeing her parents in her corner, stating strongly that this is wrong.

I'm sorry you're going through this.

+1000 In 22207 ONLY the squeaky wheels get the grease, because there are so damn many of them.
I too am sorry this is happening to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apologies in advance for long post.
I am not prone to histrionics. When one of my children complains of an incident in school where he/she felt unfairly treated by either another student or a teacher, I have always asked in -depth questions on the facts and, once I am satisfied that it is not a really serious issue, which it usually is not, I help my child to see things in perspective, arm them for any future similar situations in cases where I believe they might be being over sensitive or simply teach them how to stand up for themselves to say something along the lines of-“that’s not very kind. Please don’t do that” in a firm voice. There has never, until now, been a strong enough reason for me to escalate anything to the teacher or higher. I have two other children -14 and 10 and my youngest is 8. She (youngest) has had the most awful time since she started at her school which is different from her siblings because we moved.
It is a predominantly white school (well known for good academics) and my daughter is mixed -white/Black. I must stress that I do not think the school is racist per se but because there are so few children of other races -5 families in total I was told last year by the social worker though it looks like there are a couple more this year- many of the children are curious about differences and have asked my daughter many awkward questions and postulated various reasons why they believe she looks different-none of them nice-think covered in mud, being likened to various animals etc. I can see why this is happening. Faced with being on close proximity , even friends with someone who is different from them, they want their curiosities assuaged and my daughter has borne the brunt of these questions as the only child of color in her class until this year when a South Asian girl was added. Don’t even start me off on Black History Month and lessons on Slavery-ugh! This year the curiosity has ratcheted up to unkindness and there have been 2 children in particular who insist on teasing her about some aspect of her looks -usually related to her race -who ask her almost daily whether her bottom is so large because she is black. My daughter is very slim but when she walks she juts her bottom out. It looks very cute to me but clearly these 2 girls think otherwise.
She has been bullied on the bus, had her hair pulled, been shoved, and the questions have taken on a meanness which did not exist before.
Her reaction has gone from despair and hating herself for being brown, wanting to die, not knowing how to be happy being brown, believing brown is ugly and her beautiful golden brown curls are nasty, being angry with her black parent for not having white hair and white skin like other parents and for making her brown, to this year, just trying her best to disassociate herself from her blackness by insisting that only her white parent attend school functions and, to be honest, she seems happier. She has gone from oscillating between extreme anger and hysterical tears upon arriving home from school to being just anxious that her friends will see her non white parent and she’s obsessed with comparing her complexion with her brother and sister (who could not care less) and deciding that she has the lightest skin and lightest eyes.
I am hearbtoken for her. Of course we both go to school events where all parents are invited but she has pleaded with black parent not to volunteer in the classroom so only the white parent does. However, more than once I have heard children ask her where her other parent is when we are both there-gives black parent a wide berth. One child, upon hearing her sister (who has zero issues with her color) refer to that parent as mom/dad, asked my daughter who the person was and her sister piped up again that “he/she is my dad/mom”. My daughter looked mortified and the little girl who had asked looked utterly confused and looked to her parents, to whom we had just introduced ourselves, for confirmation. We laughed it off but I felt so sad for my daughter that she has had to create this fallacy in order to fit in. An 8 year old should not have to deal with these things. She should be in a safe environment as she develops a love of learning.
I have requested a transfer for two years in a row now, to a more diverse environment where there are a smattering of children of various races/complexions so that she does not have to endure this any longer. I despair over how this will all translate in the pre teen and teen years-I fear it will not be good. I also do not want to compromise on academic rigor.
The first year I was told verbally that there was room for her at another very good school both wrt to academics and diversity because a student had left only to be told, about a week before school started that, a new family had moved into the neighborhood and the space was gone. We both cried when she was leaving for school on the first day back. This year I received a letter rejecting my application even before I’d had a chance to make another request. I have written a strong letter to the Deputy Superintendent but she does not appear to be budging at this point.
What are my options? Part of me wants to put pressure on then by naming and shaming publicly -not that I even know how to go about that-but I am more concerned that my daughter is put in a healthier environment than retaliation. I just don’t know what avenues are open to us at this point. Private is not an option. I used a lawyer to get her an IEP -expensive - so it will be tough but if it is our only option we will have to do that.
Any advice will be appreciated.

It doesn't sound like you are witnessing theses actions. And it sounds like your DD is overly sensitive just in general.

What happens when you have an overly sensitive child and any non-super positive interactions with another child or an adult, the child views and feels far more deeply than a child with normal sensitivity and it means that situations get blown up in the child's mind to a level that doesn't match reality.
For example, pulled hair may have happened once but an overly sensitive child will report it as always happening because in their mind the one time that it did happen means that it is always going to happen the next time any time they see the child even if the other child never approaches the child again or even speaks to the child. Its not like the child is willfully lying by saying it happens all the time but rather they have serious anxiety about the situation and they have no other way to describe or even understand the feeling so they turn into something concrete they can articulate.

While you peruse school options, you might also want to in parallel really think about seeking an evaluation for your child. Yes, you can switch schools but you may find this same issue appears again for your child.

The entire post immediately above is gaslighting bullshit. Do.not.listen OP.

No, this is not an example of gaslighting.

Anyway, I am speaking from experience. My child is non-white if it helps and she is hyper sensitive - just her personality - and she had serious anxiety. The OP mentioned that her older children did not have the same experience. It's entirley possible they did face some of the same issues but they have normal sensitivity so they had the ability to cope with the issues in the moment.

I think there are lots of great suggestions in terms of what the OP needs to do to approach the school - document, etc but she also should not discount that her DD might need help for not just dealing with these school issues but overall issues.