Now A First Grade Bully
Last year, I wrote about, “Mary” our little kindergarten bully. I’ve tried to be optimistic that once she got comfortable at her new school she might mellow out and quit being so rotten (she moved to our school mid-year). Yeah, well that was a pipe dream. If anything, the child has gotten more rotten as she has gotten older.
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Yes, I feel a bit bad calling a 6 or 7-year old rotten. But there really is no other word for this child’s behavior. I do feel sad for her because I assume the rotten-ness she projects onto my child is probably similar to the behaviors that she sees and lives at home. I don’t know what else would cause a child so young to be so rotten unless they are living it every day. I do feel sad for her, but at the same time she needs to watch herself and leave my child alone.
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My first instinct is to protect my child. Now the Big One is wicked smart, I know I’ve said it before, but it’s really true. She is well above grade-level in everything. What that also means is that like many really smart kids, she is academic-smart but a little lagging in the social-emotional area. She lets this little bully get to her. This morning as we were walking to the Big One’s classroom, Mary was walking the opposite direction as us. As the Big One tried to avoid her by walking to the side of her, Mary zigged in front of the Big One, who then moved to the other side to get around Mary, who then zagged in front of my child again. She was blocking my child from getting to her classroom and I was standing right there. If this child is doing this in front of me, I can only imagine what she does when I am not around. Of course the Big One got upset and ran back to me to get away from Mary. This just added to Mary’s evil grin because she felt that she “won.” I, of course, gave Mary the stink eye, which quickly wiped the evil grin off her face and caused her to run to her class. I don’t want to bully a child, but I’m not sure what else to do to stop the behaviors at this point.
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The Big One tells me some days when Mary bothers her. Usually it’s in the form of running up behind her and screaming or trying to scare the Big One at recess. They do “run-walk” often for recess where they just run or walk laps around the playground. They can earn little plastic feet charms that go on a necklace for every 50 laps they complete. The Big One loves her foot necklace so she always does laps.
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In addition to scaring the Big One or chasing her when the Big One tries to run away, Mary likes to tease the Big One. There is a little boy in the Big One’s class that is wicked smart too. They are reading buddies and like to do run-walk together. The other day as they were walking together, Mary came up behind them singing, “{Big One} and {Boy} sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G….” OY! I know it’s a silly little song that we’ve all probably been subjected to at one time or another, but it really upset the Big One and the Boy. So now the Big One mostly avoids her friend at recess because she doesn’t want to get teased.
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As much as I hate to bother her teacher, I think I am going to have to say something just so that things don’t escalate. I know it’s harmless silly stuff in my eyes, but in my 6-year old’s eyes these are huge injustices. And I am fairly certain that things will not get better with this child, they will continue to get worse.
fixitmommy.com 
Oh man, that’s some big time bullying for so young. Definitely talk with the teacher. These kinds of interactions may make your big one begin to hate school. Especially if this Mary person is isolating her from her friend! Good luck! I’m so sorry she’s dealing with this!
My daughter is going through similar situation in 1st grade. While she minds her own business, the little bully monster kicks her chair, pulls her hair, snatches her ball at PE, throws HATE word at her. I confirmed fro many kids fro her classroom that this little bully onster does not like my child and she really bugs her. This happens in the classroom and during PE. We first asked my little one to ignore her and do not respond at any cost. She followed that for a while. It did not stop the monster to stay away fro her. Then we asked little one to say in firm tone to monster girl that Stop it otherwise I will talk to the teacher. This made this monster girl wait for teacher and then complained against my little one that she is mean to me. What a liar at this age. All the kids at my little one’s table told teacher that that was not true-fortunately my little one did not get red card for not doing anything. So, we asked her to now complain the teacher or helper out there. When monster kicked my little one and snatched the ball, she had a visible bruise ( at least by evening when she returned home ), she complained PE teacher. PE teacher just called the monster girl and asked to give ball back to my little one. Is that enough? Then the same day, while teacher was checking classwork, this monster got up fro her seat to grab tissue paper, kicked her chair, whispered ‘I hate you’, stick toungue out and walked away. How come teacher does not notice it over and over?
During story time, monster kept on pushing my little one to scooch over until she lost balance and her reaction was ‘Stop Tea’. And guess what teacher gave my little one RED card for disturbing class.
I wanted to my daughter to be self sufficient to handle issues in a proper manner and so I stayed away until now. But I really felt bad when she was sobbing and asking me ‘mamma, are you going to do anything about it? I am tired of being punished when I am trying to be nice to everyone.’ Surely this is not the lesson I want to teach my daughter that she has to pay price to be the nicest girl in the class. May be this is first grade and writing to teacher may help. In two years, my daughter may not share so much with me. Is it fair if I tell her that if she pulls your hair, pull her hair back and then get red card rather than get it just for saying ouch and disturbing the class??