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Teasing.

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

Hi,

I have a 17 year old who has an L.D. and A.D.D.. She is a senior in high school and she still gets teased. The biggest thing that has happening lately is that kids are spitting on her. She notified the superintendent and the principle, but yet the teasing continues. Any ideas?

Thanks

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/17/2002 - 12:07 AM

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This goes beyond teasing— your child is being bullied. Most schools have implemented bullying/harrassment policies in response to school shooters who told of facing constant harrassment from their peers. Even though she is 17, I would not hesitate to call the administrators directly and remind them of the seriousness of the problem.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/17/2002 - 2:00 AM

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Heck I would head over to their offices, sit outside their doors and insist
that they deal with the problem NOW!

Anne

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/17/2002 - 6:47 AM

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I am sooo sorry your daughter has to endure this treatment. It is definetly bullying! My son is experiencing this right now (11 years old) and I have pulled him out of his school and will have p/t special ed services and the rest home school. The bullying that has gone on for my son has continued for three years.

Our children really have incredible resilence, yet if we dont speak up for them, who will? Please report this beyond the school. My mistake was that I kept thinking the school would render a solution, and they didnt. My son is now terrified to even go to school.

Good luck and thank goodness she has you to love and support her.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/17/2002 - 12:43 PM

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e went through this in the fall. I tried speaking to the parents (I knew them) but they denied their sweet daughters would do such things. I hired a police officers that gives courses to schools and organizations on bullying. He taught my daughter techniques on how to stand up to the bullies. When a child acts weak, the bullies sense this and the bullying gets worse. We went to the vice-principal and guidance councilor and told them what was going on and gave them a summary in writing. We insisted that they have the girls into the office and threaten them 3-day suspensions and that ultimately they would be transferred to another school. We told them that if they didn’t take a hard line we would get the police involved.
I was very worried that a hard line would make things worse, afterall, when I asked for the support of the parent of the bullies, the bullying got worse.
I arranged for her to sit with a new group of girls at lunch(used my connections in Girl Scouting to get a leader to quietly arrange this). It is hard for a bully to do their work if your daughter is in a gang rather that alone.
I took her shopping and bought her several hundred dollars worth of new clothes so she would fit in better. She has always resisted wearing trendy clothes, I think it finally sunk in as to how important this is. (these bullies were making fun of her clothing and telling her she should wear make up, they even smeared make up on her clothing and school work). Sure, this is shallow and you hate to give in to this, but I would rather buy my kid new clothes than a casket.
They had to speak to the girls twice, but now they don’t bother her. She never talks about wishing she was dead any more and goes happily to school. The scars are still there, but the healing has begun.
An earlier poster comment on how resilient our kids are, but they can only stand so much. The LD chapter in my city has statistics that show that 1/2 of the young people who commit suicide have previously been diagnosed with LD.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/17/2002 - 1:43 PM

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About two years ago my parents started working regular full time jobs. They have always been self-employed but decided that working a permanent position would be more beneficial for them and the kids they had left at home. So anyway one day my Mother was shopping in the mall with my brother who was about 12 at the time. He told her how much it meant to him that for the first time he could go to school with clothes that had a label. She said she has never felt so guilty as a parent in all her life.

I guess my poin is sometimes the clothes do help. It is one less thing for kids to worry about. School is hard enough being teased and tormented beacuse of the clothes you are wearing can be twice as damaging to a child who is also struggling with learning disabilities.

K.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/17/2002 - 5:34 PM

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That’s awful. While I’m a big fan of students taking care of their own issues and being their own advocate, this is one I might not let her handle on her own. Spitting/saliva are considered possibly contaminated fluids these days. It isn’t like the old days when it was just gross and unhealthy to spit on someone. Now it’s considered unsafe and a risk to one’s health. Saliva, bluntly said, can carry the AIDs virus. Spitting isn’t teasing. It’s much more than that.

I’d consider going in to school and adding your voice to your daughter’s in a request for this to be brought to a stop. Find out from your daughter exactly what parts of the school day this is happening in. Remind the school officials of the modern dangers of spitting.

Don’t let them take a back seat on this one. You don’t send your daughter to school and pay good tax money for her health to be put at risk.

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 04/18/2002 - 12:46 AM

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Spitting is not teasing; it is harrassment. Harrassment of special ed kids is discrimmination and is flat out illegal and the school and the board of education can be individually liable if notified and they do not make it stop. Socks has all the legal info - she posted it a little while back.

However, on a side note, even for non ld, some girls can be plain mean. They and their parents need a good slap.

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 04/18/2002 - 5:05 AM

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okay tried as a may to paste the last message I posted regarding harassment it just wouldn’t do it. If you go to the search button,type in harassment ,indicate the last 30 days,and posting of this very same subject will come up. Scroll down to “here is how to make a bomb” Posted by me,Socks,it will give you a policy letter by the Office of Civil rights,telling administrators they had better address harassment or they go on to say a complaint filed by a parent would be investigated. The message is quite clear and strong,stating that a child right to a free and appropriate public education is denied when the school allows harassment to continue and not be addressed. Generally makes a splash with school administrators,when one prints this out and brings it to their attention:-)

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/20/2002 - 7:02 AM

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Unfortunately, I have to fight my son to wear clothes that match and “fit in.” He’s still a bit young to think about fashion (although a good portion of young kids do think about this). Sometimes with boys it’s a little harder because not only do they need to wear “cool clothes” the more atheletic you are the less likely you are to be teased!

Thank goodness we’ve had him in lots of sports (to help him work through some “motor planning” difficulties he had as a toddler), but the pressure to be atheletic and dress “cool” is really tremendous.

Now if I could just teach him how to match clothes, get him to regularly tie shoelaces (so he can wear skater shoes instead of velcro shoes — although gosh those Target velcro shoes are a LOT cheaper than Etnes!), get him to stop tucking in his shirts (because waist bands itch) and get him out of polyester shirts!!! (Eeek! ;-)

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/20/2002 - 7:12 AM

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Wow!!! Great information! Every parent here should have a copy of this on file in case harrasment becomes an issue. These kids have more than enough to deal with just learning and working toward their educations.

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/20/2002 - 12:50 PM

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We had trouble with the shoe laces tying also. We ended up first buying shoes from the GAP, they are slide on and luckily another child in his class has them. \

We recently bought Nike zipper up sneakers at Sears. They were about $30 dollars and if he breaks them he can get a new pair in the same size, so it was worth the $30 dollars.

K.

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 04/21/2002 - 5:57 AM

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Hi K.

Fortunately there are a lot of slip-on shoes in the stores and the style is relatively popular. The last pair of shoes my son had were zip-up. They worked fine but he did complain that they were always unziping. These were not Nike. The Nike zippers will probably be better.

The most recent shoes I bought my son were slip on shoes we just happened to come across at Payless. They look sort of like something out of the Jetsons. He thought they looked neat!

I really would prefer a good quality shoe, that wears well and is healthy for his feet. But it’s very difficult to find shoes that don’t “bother” him.

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