The news came sooner than I expected. Every kid inevitably encounters bullying at some point in their lives. For me, the most prominent memory (if I recall, the only one actually) was around 7th or 8th grade. I was dismayed and saddened to hear that for our little guy, it’s beginning at age 4. Since I don’t want to publicly trash a 4 year old by name if anyone in our circle of friends someday reads my blog, I’ll endearingly refer to him as “Satan”.
So, for the past couple weeks, our 4 years old’s been coming home saying that Satan is mean to him. At first, we figured it was some typical kid that might be a little crazier than ours or perhaps Kevin was just overreacting or something. Upon further questioning, he’d change his story a few times and then if asked if he did anything to Satan, he’d say that he contributed to the situation by making faces at him or doing x, y or z. Then it subsided for a while. However, more recently, he started to say that he hated school and didn’t want to go any more because Satan was always mean to him.
We went to a school concert and I got to see Satan first hand. He clearly has some sort of disorder, he seemed almost drunk the way he was acting. Since they were all on stage, he didn’t pick on any kids in particular, he was just kind of swaggering around the stage, his eyes were darting all over and I can really only liken his behavior to someone that isn’t well. So, evidently, he has some issues. His parents seemed very nice and pretty normal, so I can only deduce that he’s a future diagnosis of some type for special treatment and perhaps, pharmaceuticals at an early age. A few more weeks went by, including some claims from Kevin that Satan had hit him or called him names like “baby” and “poopy-head” (while somewhat amused, I guess at 4, it’s upsetting to be called a poopy-head..he seemed genuinely disturbed over it). On one hand, I didn’t want to be that “helicopter parent” who just hovers over every issue and coddles our child, but at the same time, with Kevin so distraught over the situation and always referring to the same bully, there seemed to be something abnormal going on here.
So, we just had the parent-teacher conference and my wife asked about the situation. We were relieved to hear that a) while citing some degree of confidentiality/discretion, the teacher did let on that there was “a situation” and that it wasn’t our kid, it was Satan and b) that she had already taken evasive action and started rotating the children around in groups to separate Kevin and Satan. She then let on that Satan is now behaving the same way toward other children. While I wasn’t necessarily happy to hear that some other child was now feeling as badly as Kevin was (or perhaps even worse), but admittedly, it somewhat lessened the blow to hear that my child wasn’t the “sole victim” in the class, but rather, Satan basically took up his behavior with whoever was around him.
There are a few months left in the pre-school year and I’m relieved to report that they will not be going the same kindergarten. However, occasional confrontations continue to occur. Most recently, Kevin said that while the teacher stepped out of the class to talk to someone in the hall, Satan hit him in the face. My son’s a little young to understand how to deal with a bully; I recall that it took much internal conflict and a “screw it, see what happens” adrenaline rush to finally stand up to my bully. In retrospect, I was just one in a long line of victims for some kid who came from a broken home and probably didn’t go anywhere in life. After a couple weeks of persistent bullying, we finally threw down in the school yard, I actually got the best of him and even though he sucker-punched me when the vice-principal was holding me back, he knew I wasn’t going to stand for his cowardly bullying behavior any more. He moved on to someone else after that.
Kevin’s obviously too young to teach how to box like my father did when I was much older. For now, I just tell him to let Satan know he doesn’t like how he’s treating him and I went as far as saying that if Satan is hitting him and the teacher isn’t there to intervene, to just hit him back. At 4, what’s the worst that can happen? Perhaps Satan will back off a bit.
Anyone have similar experiences with a Bully at this early age that can share some advice?
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Hi there i have just briefly read over your artical, My daughter is also 4 and in my opinion is being bullied on a regular basis she is coming home with marks, bruises and upset from one child in particular i have spoken to teachers on several occasions and not seem to be having any satisfaction, The biggest problem of all is my daughter is always trying to be friends with this child which as you can imagine i do not understand. Today was the first day back at school after xmas half term and my daughter was really excited but did say to me on the way to school she didnt want to go because this child (mentioning no names) frightened her, I told my daughter not to be silly and low and behold when i picked her up she had a bruise on her face were the child had hit her. Due to my daughter trying to be this childs friend i dont know if i can call it bullying or just a naughty child, as much as i dont want to pull my daughter out of the nursery im begining to think this is the best thing to do. Im sorry i have no advice for you but i really need someone to talk to who has a simular situation.
Find the biggest kid in the school, slip him a 20 spot and tell him to make Satans life a living hell. Let the bully become the bullied…
God I hate bullies.
To C:
I am experiencing the same problem. My daughter had started school, now through 3 months and the bullying has not stopped. The first incident: my daughter was excited for school, wore her pretty jewelry, she came home with scratches, one where her ring was (now gone), one where her bracelet was (now gone), and a few on her face, where the bully was trying to take her headband. Another incident she got pushed and fell on her face and was taken to the office to get ice. Last incident was she was on the slide and got punched in the eye and pushed down. I have addressed the concern before the last incident and the teacher said “oh we will keep a good eye on her” well the next time I went to go pick her up, I received a phone call from the vp, he told me he was going to come talk to me. He then told me about the last incident and while he was telling me, the bully’s mother was beside me. He said they were going to keep a good eye on this and the next action would be to separate them. Why wait for another time for my daughter to get hurt. She is 4 years old and getting bullied from a kid in her class that is much bigger and was even held back in jk. I am so disgusted with this whole situation. I don’t even know what to do. It’s so unfair to my daughter to take her out of school. No disciplinary action has taken place. The mother cannot even acknowledge the problem. I am sick of getting the run around.
Hi there
I know this was a couple of years ago but can you tell me what you did about the bullying?
My Son started at school in September and has been doing great for the most part. He has been excited to be there and has being doing very well with the work. Over the past few weeks though his interest in being there has been waining. He has said that another boy has been hurting him almost daily. This morning, for the first time he was saying that he didn’t want to go. The first thing he said this morning was “I can’t go to school today. My mouth is sore.” Obviously we checked him out. His mouth was fine. To cut the story short we found that he didn’t want to go because he was afraid of being hurt by the other boy.
He had started off by having a motivating and positive expierience with school and I don’t want this to be ruined when he has barely started.
To CB:
You should talk to the teachers. If they have an open door policy, go in and see what goes on. Find out if you can, when this kid picks on yours. Is it during class? Recess? Then ask for more supervision. Demand it. Let them know what is going on. Make sure they know you will not tolerate it, at all. If the problem persists, then talk to the principals. They need to inform you anytime, if your child is hurt. Let them know you want your child to be in a safe, supervised, environment. Especially since these schools have a “no tolerance” for bullying. Call the school board. Even if you suspect anything, it’s better to act on it, then do nothing at all. Your little one, like mine, doesn’t comprehend the impact it will have later in life, or to deal with a bully at such a young age. I am going through the same thing, and it’s horrible. But you need to protect your child, or they won’t be heard.