Son accused of bullying

tinyk68

My 14 year old son has been accused by his oldest friend of bullying. He has been friends with this boy since they were in playschool together. The boy in question is an only child and very cossetted by his parents. Most of the time my son has been his only friend because he doesn't mix well with other kids.
They are now in 3rd year and my son has made new friends while maintaining his friendship with this boy but the boy in question hasn't made any friends of his own. I think he might be feeling left out and I feel bad for him if that is the case.
He told his mother that the other lads were calling him gay and it was making him depressed. Now, obviously I think this is not acceptable but it is common among teenagers these days to slag each other in this way. According to my son they all use this term to each other and the boy in question does it as much as anybody else.
Instead of coming to me about this, the mother went straight to the school and complained. This actually really hurt me because we have known each other so long I really feel she should have talked to me first. There are two sides to every story and I would have liked to try to find the truth of the matter between us and sort it out.
My son was called out of class yesterday and reprimanded by the vice principal and wasn't given a chance to put his side of things across.
My question is this. Should I go into the school myself and try to get some balance into the situation or should I just let it lie and hope that it resolves itself?
My son has never been in any trouble before. In fact last year he was student of the year and has been nominated for the award again this year. His school record is excellent and I don't want an inaccurate accusation on it.
The other boy, by contrast has an atrocious attendance record and is a poor student, and his mother has made accusations like this in primary school against other boys.
Sorry for rambling on but this is really bothering me. Can anybody give me some advice?

January

He told his mother that the other lads were calling him gay and it was making him depressed. Now, obviously I think this is not acceptable but it is common among teenagers these days to slag each other in this way. According to my son they all use this term to each other and the boy in question does it as much as anybody else.

You say you do not think that it is acceptable but in the next breath you go on to say it's common among teenagers. You have to teach your son not to use any of these words or else he does leave himself open to accusations of bullying, whether the other boy does it or not is irrelevant.

If what you are saying is true (and I'm not saying it's not) then I'd also be advising your son to start distancing himself from this boy. He's no friend if this is what he's telling his mother.

seavill

how do they pick a student of the year already after just 8 weeks sounds strange.

Anyway I am not for one second saying anything you or your son has said is a lie so don't take offence to anything I say below. I am just looking at it completely neutral

As the other poster has said you are trying to justify his actions which straight away would let him think that he has done nothing wrong.
Now kids use this word 100 times a day and 99% of the time they don't actually mean anything by it. I'm sure the other boy does use it as much as the other kids. I had my 6th years today use it about 5 times during one class (they were in a funny mood today)
However rather than make excuses I would use it as a chance to teach him - look you may not mean it in a bad way but others can take it out of context and rather than saying everyone does it you can now see what can happen so better off not using it.

Now as you said something about two sides to a story i would find it strange that the VP did not give your son a chance to tell his side of the story. Every school i have been in for last 7 years every child is asked what happened when something bad happens bullying or any sort of an incident. Maybe don't jump to conclusions and believe everything he is saying straight out. I'm not saying he is telling lies however you yourself mentioned two sides to every story so maybe take a step back a little.

The final thing I would say is only worry about your own child rather than slagging off the other child. Your child is your only concern. No one is perfect all of the time. As I said from being a secondary teacher I tend to believe the version of events you set out, its sounds very likely tbh, however that is without the other side of the story or any input from the school, there may be other little things the school know about that you are unaware of.

As with not being aware of things, you may know this family but you also may have no idea why this child has poor attendance. He may be getting bullied by others, he may have anxiety, depression, there may be family issues he may have an illness that no one knows about that keeps him out regularly. the same with being a "poor student" as you put it. He may have learning difficulties you are not aware of, he may just be a weak student, he may have missed too much school and is struggling to keep up.
All of which, despite you knowing them years, you may not be aware of and also all of which is completely none of your business, especially not to be put here to slag off the child and make your child sound like the good one

I also wouldn't go into the school and use any of that in your arguments. There are so many things that teachers are aware of daily that the other kids, and parents know nothing about. There are also numerous things that the principal and VP are aware of that the teachers don't even find out about.

Also on the accusations in primary school, you have no idea what happened there you only have 2nd hand information, they may have been true whether proven or not. Again none of your business and nothing to do with the situation in hand.

I would ring the school and ask to meet but I would go in with an open mind rather than being on the defensive straight away. Ask what exactlly happened, what the other boy said, what your child's explanation to the VP was and take it from there

tinyk68

Thanks for the replies and I appreciate feedback. I hope I didn't come across as automatically believing my son to be totally innocent. That was never my intention and I made it absolutely clear to him that this kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable whether or not he meant anything by it. Also it was never my intention to slag off the other boy. I was just trying to put things in context because I know people would automatically side with the alleged victim rather than the accused, that's human nature. As somebody who was bullied myself in school I know how horrible it feels and would never condone that behaviour from my own kids.
Thankfully yesterday there were some positive developments. My son was called to the office and this time the principal was present. He gave my son a chance to put his side of things across and really seemed to listen to him. He hopes to get the two boys together in his office today to give them both a chance to say how they feel. I am really happy about this and it's what I feel should have happened at the beginning.
It is absolutely unacceptable to bully anybody. I fully understand that - as does my son. However it is quite difficult to prove your innocence if you are accused in the wrong of being a bully. That was why I looked for advice. I hope this will be sorted soon and I genuinely feel sorry for the other boy who, I feel, has lost a friend over this. My son is now afraid that whatever he says to him will be taken the wrong way.
On the student of the year award. They are awarded retrospectively. He is nominated in 3rd year for his conduct in 2nd year. He would be pretty amazing if he could achieve it in eight weeks

Green&Red

OP, you never mentioned whether you asked your son if he was bullying this lad?
Just because your son is academically good at school doesn’t discount him from bullying.

Your post comes across as very defensive (which is natural) but sometimes it might be worth looking at it from a critical perspective. As someone already stated you immediately defended your son calling him gay.

Sorry if that’s not what you want to hear

tinyk68

Of course I asked him. I suppose my post does come across as defensive but it wasn't meant to be. I obviously don't express myself as well as I hoped I did. The first thing I did when I heard about the accusation was sit my son down and talk to him in detail about the issue. I asked him to tell me honestly about anything that had happened and explained that name calling in any form is wrong. I didn't put that in my original post because I assumed people would take it for granted that I would do that.
The reason I wrote about my son doing well at school was not to say that he is good academically and this means he can't be a bully. In the school he attends the student of the year is awarded based not just on exam results but also on your work ethic, participation in school life and crucially, how you interact with teachers and your fellow students. He won it in first year and was joint winner with two others for second year. He wouldn't have achieved this unless he was getting on well with everyone and that's what I was trying to show.
My son is a very gentle person. He is the last person you would expect to be accused of bullying. When I have told people who know him about the accusation they have been shocked by it and have all said they don't believe it's in him to bully anybody.
I am hoping that the mid term break will allow time for the situation to diffuse a bit. I really hope it does because in the week before mid-term my son was becoming anxious about going into to school in case anything more happened with the other boy. I don't want to see a boy, who until now has always been happy at school, turn against it because of an inaccurate accusation.
I hope this helps explain things a bit.