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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a teacher I’ve seen it at virtually every grade/age, even preschool. But typically it gets to be more of a problem around 4th-5th.[/quote]

+1. We moved from one of the more affluent (wealthy) ESs to a strong ES/MS/HS path that was more UMC and ethnically diverse.  My then rising 5th grade DD fought the move, hard. A month into her new school, I asked her how it was going, and the answer was: "Mom, the kids are so much nicer here.". It stayed that way through HS. My DD was not a queen bee. She was more of “a few close friends” kid. But she says she was never bullied.

The year before we moved (DD after 4th grade and Dd after 2nd) I volunteered once a month as a lunchroom monitor (give the teachers a lunch break, etc). 3-4 girls from DD’s class where standing around on of DD’s friends. She on the heavy side of normal, but healthy and actively participated in athletics and dance outside of school.  She had a very nutritious lunch packed, but the Queen Bees were *writing every bite she took in a notebook*.  To take home and get the calorie count and report it back to her the next day to “help her be less fat”.  They were telling her that fat girls shouldn’t be eating bananas.   I told the girls to go back to their seats and cut it out, and reported it to the teacher in charge who shrugged in a “kids will be kids” way. So, I emailed the teacher who was basically like “yeah, kids can be mean sometimes”. I was horrified. That happened to a 9-10 year old, and that the teachers and Admin just let it happen.  Probably because these girls moms ran the PTA, hadna lotmofmtime enrgy and money to spend, and the newish principal wasnt willing or able to cross them.   I ended up talking to the girls mom, who was a friend/acquaintance. She had no idea this was going on.

I knew the mothers of some of the girls who were bullying DD’s friend and they were 40 year old mean girls (which is not a good look, no matter how much Botox you get)!  They very snotty about  the fact I worked, in a condescending, "pconcern trolling, “it must ne so hard to be away from your kids all day, but maybe your husband will be able to suppprt you and kids one day".  Michele Obama was telling you to Rise Above at the time, so I just said, "maybe". I thought but didn't say:  B**ch, I survived law school and the bar.  I can survive you. AND, I’m. d*mn well going to use my degree (plus I hate cooking, cleaning, decorating, etc).

Meanwhile, several of these women were SAHMs with FT nannies on early release Monday (still a thing then), after school and weekend.  These were the moms who laid by their pools at end of the year get together and moaned about being unable to move a piano lesson away from the nanny's day off, and it was just too much stress to for them to deal with the lesson by themselves so they were thinking about cancelling the lessons.   The other WOH mom and I in the group just looked at each other and left, said oir goodbyes and left.

I was an EC co-leader, and the prior year, when DD was in 3rd grade and we were at an activity,  I watched some of the same kids bully a girl who was a bit "off" in how she presented herself and later got a Dx of HFS and ADHD. They were mimicking her body language and tone and were saying in loud whispers that that the girls and I could both hear that the "re**rd" shouldn't be in a group with "normal" kids.  I called  the mothers of the 2 ringleaders. one was "Don’t over react to kids being kids".  The other mother flat out accused me of lying and said (i kid you not)— Larla would never do tnat because we are Unitarians".  W.T.A.F???h

We moving anyway for a number of reasons, including Dh and I not fitting in because we both worked. Getting closed to his job  But what sealed the deal was the cafeteria incident.  And the day that DS came home upset (2nd grade) because kids were mocking him for being poor.  Why did they think a lawyer and a software engineer was poor? Because we didn't have an in ground pool. WTF?

I didn’t want my kids to grow up in a bubble where the kids who live in “only” $800k homes (20 years ago. At least double that today) were “The Poors” because no pool, where a mom who worked had her kid excluded from outings and play dates, because they were scheduled on early release Monday and I worked (moms were expected to be there with the kid.  And on and on. And because ai knew if this was accepted by parents and the school in 4 th grade, MS and HS were going to be a living he11.

BTW— the ADHD/HFA kid moved to private in HS after absolutely shocking bullying that the school did not address. As in, a boy she had a crush on combing her to send a topless picture in 8th grade, then blasted it school wide (no real consequences at the school or from local LEO the mom contacted). The a little bit pudgy girl’s family also moved to a less wealth/ more UMC FCPS pyramid. And one of my fiends had a SPED daughter a couple of grades behind my kids.  They spent years looking for a Dx to explain her cognitive impairment and off mannerisms and  finally genetic testing showed a rare illness.  They moved to a different pyramid.

I don’t want to cave for bullies, but if the parents and school allowed it, ai wanted my kids out of there.  And, a
I’m not saying our new schools were perfect. But the education was great and bullying went way, way down.

The saddest part of all of it is that among the girls who bullied (DS moved as a rising 3rd grader and had not hit much bullying yet), the worst offenders had mothers who either refused to believe their kid could do any wrong or were themselves bullies (this was not an area where dads were very involved. Over six years and multiple ECs, I literally never saw some of the dads). My DH and one other were often the only dads showing up for PT conferences, to chaperone trips, to help man GS cookie booths, etc.

Check in with your kids.  Let them know being bullied is not somehow their fault and they should always come to you. IME (which I know is limited) the bullying often gets “half naked pics distributed to a middle school” bad before parents find out.

And realize you can’t choose your kids friend group in MS and ES. . But you can certainly influence it, by signing them up for ECs with and encouraging them to have play dates with nice kids with nice, down to Earth parents who would shut down bullying behavior. Kids don’t just wake up one day as bullies.  They often have spent their lives watch mom and dad bully others, and themselves started bullying with no consequences.

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Wow. Diarrhea of the mouth, much? Or should I say keyboard. [/quote]

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