Worried parent

[worried parent]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? IN

I have a situation where I am wondering if I need to retain an attorney. I have a 13-year-old son in the 7th grade. He gets good grades (in fact he was picked as a 7th grader to take the SAT) and received a letter today inducting him into the National Junior Honor Society. He is fairly popular and athletic. There is another boy in his class who I guess you would say is a “special needs” child. He has emotional and anger issues. He has very few friends and in elementary school he had several incidents where he would start screaming and yelling at the teachers in class and have to be forcibly removed and taken to the principals office. So far in middle school this year he has been in several fights and detention on more than one occaion. Our son has had none of these issues. In fact one of his teachers always makes a point to put on our son’s report card. “_____ is an exceptional student.” Over the past year there have been some incidents between this boy and our son. This boy is twice the size of our son and was pushing him around. We have always told our son to take the high road and get a teacher when these things happened, but there were a couple of occasions where this child struck ours and ours struck back. Now these parents are convinced that our son is bullying and tormenting their son and have likened him to “the columbine shooters.” The mother left a note on our doorstep today stating that if our son doesn’t leave hers alone she will be forced to call the police. Her letter also stated that she had mailed the same letter to the school. Last year we talked to the schoolteachers and after receiving this note today we called the boy’s scout master (who is aware of the situation) and some other parents. We asked them if they’ve ever seen our son exhibit any of these behaviors. Because if he did we would certainly want to know about it so we could address it. Consistently everyone has told us that they feel our son is a perfectly normal 13-year-old boy. And that they feel the other parents are completely blowing the situation way out of proportion. We have tried talking to the parents in question, but they refuse to listen to our son’s side of the story stating that their son “never lies”. That because he is different he has a target on his back (their words, not ours) and that our son is out to get him. We plan on talking to the school officials about this, but as it’s Spring Break we will have to wait a week to do so. This situation is eating our family alive and we don’t know what to do about it. We have told our son to avoid the other child, but the child seeks him out and gets literally in his face and says things like, “You’re not supposed to talk to me. You better stay away from me.” All while being in our son’s face. We just want to live our lives, but are currently going through a lot of mental anguish over this. I would appreciate any advice you might offer.

Thank you for your time.

 

[needhelpnow111]

You may want to remind his teachers again of the situation, so they can watch out for your son while you can't. Make sure your son is never to hit the other boy, or, for that matter, hit him back. In my experience, self-defense rarely exists in schools. Your only defense is the teacher. Make sure your kid just walks away if the boy comes up to him.

 

[worried parent]

Thank You. We do plan on talking to the school and letting them know the situation. When we talked to the Scout Master we learned that this mother had sent him a 3 page letter in a nutshell telling him that he was a horrible leader because he did not protect her son. She sent this letter to various regional leaders as well all in an attempt to have this man removed from his position because he told her there wasn't a problem. Last year we had told our son to walk away. Unfortunately that only made the situation worse. This kid was always in our son's face. "You can't talk to me. Stay away from me or else." And pushing and shoving him. Other students then stepped in and told this kid to leave our son alone. Their parents have also received letters from this mother telling them to "control their kids". In one way we're like "fine call the police. We have nothing to hide." But on the other we really don't want to put our son through this. Bottom line it's one students words against another though there are other students that have witnessed some of this and will back up our claim. We are at the point where we wish we could sue for slander or mental anguish or something just to get them to leave our son and us alone.