Reply to If your child with SN was bullied by another child did the parents apologize?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DS, who is 8, has been hit, pushed and called names by a group of older boys at his school. His awkwardness and big reactions make him a frequent target. The recess aide is on top of it and has sent these boys to the principal's office a few times. They sometimes try to provoke him as individuals and sometimes in pairs or a larger group of 4-5. These boys are very polite to adults and are considered "nice" boys in the neighborhood. Never once received an apology from the parents even though I see them around often. I'm starting to feel like they think they don't owe DS an apology because he's odd and has special needs and therefore deserves to be treated badly. The principal has had to call their parents several times already. Is this normal parent behavior? 
[/quote]

Are you sure that the parents know who to apologize to?  When my DC got in trouble for interacting inappropriately with another child, I wanted to apologize to the parents and I wanted to work with them to have my DC apologize directly to the other child.  The principal refused to reveal who the child was due to privacy reasons.  I guess I can understand that not every parent would respond in a positive manner like I hoped to, and not every victim parent wants to have further interaction even if well-intentioned.

In another situation, I made sure my child apologized directly to the child he hurt and the parents.  However, the boys were old enough that I didn't apologize to the parents myself, whom I knew only slightly and perceived as somewhat unstable people.  The boys were older, and my personal parenting philosophy was that my child did the action and my child needed to make it right directly with the other child.  My contribution as a parent was to do a lot of explaining to my child about why what he did was wrong and how to apologize effectively and make it clear what I expected in terms of his future behavior and consequences from me if something similar happened again.  This took multiple conversations and practice and that effort wasn't visible to the victim's parents, so I'm pretty sure they thought I was a terrible parent.

So, there are different reasons you might not be getting an apology, not necessarily due to "bad parenting". [/quote]

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