Carol Emory.... "my son had it worse"? So, you're saying that the experiences of WilvanderHeijden and Ed Souza are "less than" your son's? What should they do with such a statement? Ignore their experience? Apologise for have had their experience, because you believe the experience of your son was "worse"? While I'm sorry for anyone who is the victim of bullying, this isn't meant to be a competition of one-up-manship, to dismiss the experience of others. I'm glad that your son received the help he needed from yourself, the therapist, and the school. Hopefully, more can receive such assistance, and this comparitive / dismissive "your situation wasn't as bad" dynamic can stop altogether.

My son had it worse. Turned out one of the bullies WAS his teacher. You should have seen my son's therapist at the disciplinary meeting for my son (he lashed out at the teacher when she pushed him too far). You could not wipe the smile off my face as therapist proceeded to jump down the Teacher's throat about acting like a five year old towards students with special needs. He asked her "Who is supposed to be the adult here?" He then demanded that the teacher be removed from special ed stating that he'd be more than happy to file a formal complaint with the State Board of Education if the school failed to comply (they were already in hot water for misappropriating funds from a tax levy for school improvements to give themselves a raise.) My son was in a new class by the next day and the teacher was suspended pending "re-training."

Yeah well, imagine a teacher being a big racist prick and harassing me for years, at some point even saying '' who dares being friends with this 'thing'? " *pointing at me* Ofc I never had the support of the school staff, so as I always did, I fought back and ended up insulting him :) and he couldn't do anything against me, because he knew what he'd do to me. We are not victims, they are not almighty.

No..I'm saying that it's one thing to be bullied by another child when you have the ability to go to an adult and possibly get them to stop. It's another thing when that bully IS the adult that you were supposed to be able to trust to protect you. I had bullies in school that attacked me both verbally and physically. But that's nothing compared to having to go home to your own mother who was a bully that got off on slapping you around every time she felt miserable about herself. While I felt empowered to rat my school bullies out to teachers and the principal...who was I supposed to go to about my own mother...especially when it seemed several people were aware of the abuse and no one did anything about it. So yes...my son had to deal with his teacher bullying him. It wasn't until he finally stood up for himself that I and his therapist found out about it. That should never happen.

I guess not everyone appreciates your sarcasm..:) I'm totally aware of the spineless principals and spineless schoolboards that allowed parents to take over. It may be bad in the US but it's certainly not a whole lot better in Europe, be it for different reasons. Over here a school has a duty to protect children from bullying. But if the school actively confronts parents with their child bullying other children, the parents just take their kid from that school. One less kid is less subsidy and for a small school it could even mean that they have to fire one teacher. And as always, no school wants it out in the open that bullying is a problem . It could cost them new pupils.

I saw only one instance of bullying when I was a teacher. The kid was calling another kid a terrorist. This was right after 9/11. I told him to shut up and stop being an idiot, then turned to the victim and said “aren’t you Indian?” I might have turned to the bully and repeated “idiot”.

@ Wil Thank you for recognizing my sarcasm... I guess I should have noted that at the beginning of my statement.