It's The Half Term Holidays!

The last week of school seemed to go without any issues for Picklepot, though there were two incidents I heard about from other mums who have kids in his class which concerned me.

Both times it was due to the kids playing a game called Bulldog before school started, in a corner of the playground that is quite hidden. The first incident was a boy from the 6^th year getting pushed to the floor and getting beaten up by the surrounding crowd, fortunately he got away without being too seriously injured and his mum was able to calm him down and go and speak with the staff in the office. He’s now able to go into school through the office each day, to avoid another incident in the playground. The mum was informed that the kids shouldn’t be any kids playing in that corner of the playground at all, and that a teacher should be in the playground monitoring the kids from 8.30am to ensure this kind of thing didn’t happen. A couple of days later another kid was pushed to the floor in a game of Bulldog in the same corner of the playground; he had his trousers pulled down and the surrounding crowd were laughing at him. His mum, understandably, was absolutely fuming (I would have gone mad if it had been Picklepot in that situation) This happened after 8.30am, but there was no sign of a teacher in the playground monitoring the kids, and again they were in the corner they shouldn’t have been in. This incident prompted one of the staff going round to every classroom that day, telling them that the game Bulldog was banned, and that the corner of the playground was off limits before school. Whether or not that is enforced or will deter the children from doing it I don’t know yet, but I for one am keeping an eye on that corner and will be over there like a shot if I see it going on again. I wonder how kids can be so mean to one another – it’s always been the same, I remember it at my school (though not to that extent in primary school) There’s a couple of names that keep coming up time after time with issues, one of which was involved in both the incidents in the playground during the game of Bulldog last week, and that name is also the same child who has been causing Picklepot issues and slammed his hand in the door the other day, so whether his parents will actually take notice of the school telling them again that he is in trouble I don’t know. He struts around the school with this smirk on his face, he is a proper little nasty piece of work, and while I know he has a lot of issues himself and a lot going on in his young life I don’t believe anything gives him an excuse to behave like a thug. I am keeping an extra close eye on him, and his siblings. (He has an older sibling that Picklepot thinks is his friend, but basically they wind him up at lunchtime until he gets in trouble for misbehaving because they’re telling him to do stuff, hiding his lunch, holding his property above their head and making him jump to get it, and then he gets in trouble for fooling around)

The school was closed on Friday for an inset day, so Picklepot came to Disco Duck dance class with Sunshineface and myself, and he seemed to really enjoy that. Sunshineface got a certificate to say he completed a full half-term of classes. Then on Saturday morning I dropped Picklepot off at the Beaver hut for Roald Dahl themed camp weekend. He was really looking forward to that, so I hope he’s had fun. I pick him up in a couple of hours.

Next week I’ll be working so we can’t do much, but on Monday while I’m in the office there’s an exhibition about Magical Creatures (based on the Harry Potter books) at the local library so I’ve told Daddy P he should take the boys to that (apparently there will be real owls to meet) and on Thursday there’s a new parent & child group starting off at a local tea room so I’m planning on going along to that as well. I’m hoping to get the boys out to visit some friends too, so hopefully they won’t get too bored. 

Don't Upset Mama Bear

It’s been a difficult week for me as a mum this week.

Picklepot informed me that one of the kids in his class has been particularly nasty to him recently. For the last 2 years this other child has been deliberately kept away from Picklepot as they would argue and fight, but starting at the beginning of this term the other kid told Picklepot that he was “done being nasty” and wanted to be friends this year. Picklepot being the forgiving boy that he is, he accepted this and for the first couple of days things were good.

Then the other boy started his old tricks again. He pinched and kicked Picklepot when the teachers weren’t looking. He pulled Picklepot’s hair, called him names, told him only girls have long hair, even smacking his bottom if Picklepot tries to walk away from him.

The last straw for me came when Picklepot came home from school with a red line across his fingers. I asked him what had happened.

We’d had a discussion the night before about this other boy, and I told Picklepot that a bully is normally a bully because they’re jealous of you. I told him he was good looking, clever, kind and thoughtful, and had lots of friends. This other boy was probably jealous of those qualities, so the way he made himself feel better was to try and make Picklepot feel bad about himself. After that, Picklepot drew a lovely picture, showing two boys smiling together, one labelled with his name and one with the other boys name. It said “We be friends” over the top of the two boys, and he said he was going to give it to the other boy and tell him they should be friends and stop being mean. I thought it was very sweet of him and he took it into school the next day to give it to the other boy.

He did as he planned, and gave the picture to the other boy, and told him that they should be friends, and the other boy said “OK I accept”. Picklepot thought this was genuine and went to walk away to go for break, when the other boy called him back so Picklepot paused with his hand in the doorframe of the classroom. The other boy slammed the door shut on his fingers, laughed at him and screwed up the picture, calling Picklepot names and saying he would never be his friend.

My eldest son went to the first aid room for an ice pack for his fingers, but he didn’t tell them the whole truth about what had happened. Though only seven, he has noticed previously if he reports an incident and names this boy, when the teacher then talks to the boy he knows who has ‘grassed him up’ and he will come back after Picklepot twice as bad as before. So Picklepot, aged seven years old, lied to the teacher attending the first aid room that day and didn’t tell her that this other boy had deliberately slammed his fingers in the classroom door, because he was scared of what would happen if he told on the other kid, and the other kid coming after him to do something worse.

To say I was livid would be an understatement. It took all of my self control the following morning not to march up to the other kid and drag him by the scruff of his neck to the head teacher. However, I managed not to. I managed to keep a lid on it until my meeting with the acting head teacher that afternoon, when I spilled to her exactly what has been going on with this boy since the start of term, and explaining to her in a barely controlled voice that wobbled because I was SO angry about this incident that I expect this to stop, right away. I do not expect to hear any reports of any more name calling, pinching, kicking, hair pulling, much less bottom smacking or slamming of fingers in classroom doors. She was aghast, she had no idea what had been going on, and she promised faithfully she would sort it out.

For now Mama Bear is resting, but her ears are listening and she sleeps with one eye open. You’d better believe I will be growling if anything happens next week!