This thread might need to be split into a thread re the benefits of martial arts and self defence for kids.

When it comes to bullying, shouting out, calling out and being vocal is really important: tell everyone. Bullying becomes an ongoing, entrenched issue when victims go quiet and the bully feels he/she can repeat an action without any repercussions.

If school don't listen, keep complaining. Registered letters are good to ask schools for their bullying policy and enquire how they keep kids safe within the school grounds? Don't be fobbed off, keep asking and escalate a complaint if you need to.

Getting back to the thread.

I find it a little bit disconcerting that the Swiss teachers who frequent this forum (and there are a few who who mentioned that this is what they do), and who are usually quite vocal on other threads, have decided not to give their point of view or offer advice on this thread.

Sometimes it is what people don't say that is more revealing than what they do.

Still prefer this:

You'd need a pretty big table to cope with some of the bullies I've come across here.

But yes, a resolution that would be good.

The big problem is that most parents wouldn't want to admit that their little angels are actually vicious bullies.

This.

Sadly this is horribly true.

Do you want to ask something?

In the 6 years since I started teaching there was just one case of bullying which I noticed (It's really difficult when it doesn't happen in class but this case was obvious).
The student was kicked out of the apprenticeship 3 weeks later, which was mainly due to my intervention. (The daughter of a forum legend here might remember, I think it took place in her class).

Yes. Wasn't I clear enough?

Thanks for answering.


Most of it (obviously enough, for obvious reasons) happens outside the actual classroom.

I guess your example is with much older children, whose parents probably wouldn't be paying you a visit.

I was thinking you wanted to ask something more specific

Exactly, in my current first course i have 7 students betwen 14-16 and 6 over 20, great mix....
Unfortunately, those over 20 are currently in the process of implementing a pecking ordner between them. In some ways normal, but I don't want that about school or school related stuff and already had some short discussions with some of the students.

To be completely honest, there have been isolated cases (for example a student just had a bad day and reacted in a inappropriate way to a fellow student). which I handled in a unfortunate way and it didn't let me sleep for quite some time.

Of course it depends on which school one is in. There are the " notorious" ones that are usually mixed nationalities. Here bullying and gangs are normal everyday life.

But shouldn't be.

That is so true! I think I have already written on this thread about witnessing how my neighbour's daughter was bullied by a couple of boys. Guess what, I am on very good terms with one's mom. (her little brat told me I am a foreigner and he shouldn't listen to me, him and mom and dad and brother being all foreigners too...I'm last on his pecking order you see )
What did I do though? Nothing. I couldn't bring myself to tell this lovely woman I have seen her little one doing nasty stuff. One time, she told me that another mom has wrongfully accused her little one, and that couldn't be true because he's not able of doing such things....I was speechless and had a deep desire to bang my head on some wall.
So there.

When that's normality then something is definitely wrong. Luckily they don't have AK47's like in USA

I get what you're saying but in CH all schools have mixed nationalities and problems can arise from everywhere, due to reasons that have nothing to do with one's nationality or parents' background. It is so ing wrong to look only at this aspect. Anyways, there are a few notorious ones, indeed, where most kids are of immigrant background and where there are 2-3 major groups, it's tough if you're
a. not Swiss and
b. not one of the dominant nationalities either.
It's a jungle...I know someone who moved schools because of that. (and apparently "You're a shitty foreigner" it's like a mantra down there)

Nope, just a Stgw 90.

Did you tell the woman the truth of what you witnessed her son doing? That might help her recognise the truth, and do something about it. If the problem is not known/acknowledged, then she can't help her child learn and grow beyond being a bully.

No, I told this girl's parents that I have seen some boys bullying their daughter, and not only once. I just went to their door and told them (I never do that) because I knew kids don't always tell their parents what 's going on with them - they might feel shame, guilt, lots of mixed emotions that prevent them to do so.

At the time I thought once they talk with each others' parents, and involve the school teacher (the girl told me they are from her class, so I can only imagine the amplitude of her torment) sooner or later things will change. (it turned out I was wrong, it continued till they finished the primary school...how was that even possible?)

With the other mom, my relation was a bit more distanced and we didn't see each other that often because she lived a bit further away. We knew each other from other place, actually. When she told me her son was "falsely" accused by other mom she didn't mention who exactly accused him or her, and I was too flabbergasted by the whole situation and, as it happens to me sometimes when words just fail me, I didn't react, I just mumbled something like "oh, well, kids can do bad things when we don't see them" or smth. This story is older and everything happened at some intervals in time. I think I would react differently today, with the risk of appearing the nosy mom who's preaching left and right about parenting.

What can I say, I could have done better...

When my son was about 10 I had to use his phone for a couple of days and a bully left a really nasty and threatening voicemail not knowing I would listen to it. I took the phone around to the parents house and played it to the father, who I discovered was a bigger bully than the child when I demanded that he held his son accountable and not laugh it off. He was a lawyer and threatened to sue me if I played the message to anyone and told them it was his son's voice.

My response was that I would report him to the Law Society for abusing his position as a lawyer and also take the phone to the police and report the threats as a crime. The only way he could stop that action was for both he and his son to hand write and deliver apologies within 24 hours and I would keep a copy of the voicemail in case of further bad behaviour 2 notes were delivered within an hour!

How often is it the fault of the parents that the child is a bully. If I had backed down it would have sent a strong message to the child that he could act as he wanted without consequences. Sometimes you have to force the parent to take appropriate action to put a stop to their child's behaviour and make it very clear that there will be consequences for them if they fail to do so.

I'm revisiting as I"m about to have a conversation with the Kita here.












Somthing I've noticed about the Swiss System (seems more and more backwards the more I learn) - is that they don't teach Kindness or being Nice. The other day, my child came home I told me the the kids at his Kita in his gruppe (3 to 4 year olds) are saying "you're not my friend so you can't play with us". As kids they don't do it grudingly, its a one-off per activity event but it's not a nice thing to say and it appears the "Staff" don't respond to that by informing the kid its not nice.




and hense where the bullying start. Sometimes, our 3.5 year old will say something that's not nice - he's saying what's on his mind (ah the innocence) and to those who don't remember he's a 3.5 year old, they can be insulted - hell he'll annoy the hell out of me sometimes. But, something we DO ..in MY household is we do teach Empathy or Re-enforce it vis a vis Books and talking about a situation. For example we read him a book called "Be Kind" - about a little girl who spilt pain on her self and how another little girl was trying make her feel better (short summary), the Whale and the Snail etc.


I don't think the staff teach on this topic - yes they do letters, weather, etc. but it is a very important topic. Whist in the US this past week, I spoke to some friends and the US is advancing here (they're nipping bullying when it happens and its in the spotlight news wise), not to meniton how connected I felt with seeing other Fathers so engaged with their children (that's anohter topic). They are talking to their kids about bullying, about being kind, about sharing and about being nice...I don't see that here.


So - just a note, I will raise to my Kita - its odd, that I"m not a PhD in Child Develpment/Raising but I think I know alot more that these so called "experts" at the Kita. (cause I freaking READ!). I'll probably piss them off. but anybody feel the same.....does the school systtem here teach emphathy, kindness,?? do parents?

In my experience, 3-4 year olds that tell another kid to get stuffed one day, are usually best buds the next day.

If I were a teacher, I'd just keep an eye on the situation, knowing kids and their lightning-fast friendships and fall-outs.

Only if it escalated or became sustained I'd step in. As soon as you make something "a thing" with little kids, it becomes an issue.

Jeez, the amount of times my son came home saying "I hate so-and-so cos I couldn't play with the car he had/climb on the same branch/eat his lunch" then the next day they'd be thick as thieves, giggling together.

I wouldn't read too much into it at this age.

One krippe teacher we had used to take away the toy which was causing a bust-up, saying the toy had been misbehaving rather than singling out one of the kids. That seemed to do the trick. 5 pre-schoolers speechless for a few minutes must have been hilarious.

One of the mums we used to knock about with had this toe-curling empathy speech whenever one of her kids was even remotely impolite to another kid. A 3 year old trying to understand her mum babbling on about "how do we all feel when we are bad to each other? Can you imagine how xyz was feeling sad when you tripped over his leg/picked up the toy he was going for/other minor infraction? We don't like feeling sad ourselves so we shouldn't make others feel sad, should we? Now go and say you are sorry and hand him your favourite bucket". Or some similar jaw-droppingly cringy stuff.