Hello lovely ladies. I'm sorry I've been MIA in recent weeks, somehow a few issues came out of nowhere and took a lot of my energy. The biggest one is what this thread is about.

I am facing sensitive situation and need as much wisdom as possible.

I have very good reasons to believe that several boys from my son’s class are a bit more than usual rough and boisterous. I actually had my eye on one particular boy (boy A) from the very first day of school because I saw him kicking another boy completely unprovoked during the ceremony for the first graders - and for the reason I can only call instinct my alarm went off. Over the time I’ve been seeing or hearing things which proved to me boy A should not be ignored, but kept at safe distance. On the surface it all looks just fine: charming, clever boy, well taken care of by the doting parents, popular… big, strong, good football player. “He mostly wins when he fights” my son commented once, to my disbelief. Fast forward to recent events - the problematic group of boys is what my son refers to “A’s gang”.

My son was one of the kids occasionally being targeted by these boys and it was still mostly at the level of pestering (chasing around the school yard, e.g.) but a few days ago he came with different story. 4 of them, the core of the gang (other boys are in or out on daily basis, but 4 names are consistent), caught him at the break and were telling him to go to the football field and kick or hurt other kids. DS did not do it, but came back home in a state I did not recognise straight away and still I hate myself for missing it. Only later in the day when I noticed he was unusually sensitive he told me about the event. After careful questioning I’ve learnt a lot more, enough that I needed time-out time to calm down. I was so shaken that my beautiful, gentle, considerate child was subjected to little tyrants and he did not see it coming - he could not, the concept of unprovoked aggression is still alien to him, nor he had any idea how to react.

I wrote everything down, the wise advice I found in some article on-line, and have given it until the end of the week to see if this was one off event, but the story grew over time. The boys’ teacher was on sick leave and different replacement teachers were in, with whom I thought was pointless to speak. In any case, I now know who’s in or out of the group and what they do. The way I see it, the boys are probably just being boys and some feel stronger in the pack, but boy A worries me. He actually once gave the group instructions to chase other kids only when the break supervisor is not around! This is 8 year old kid.

I shared these concerns with another mum only, because her son’s name came up as the kid who was targeted one day and because I’m developing very nice relationship with her and feel I can trust her. I wanted to tell Izzy what was going on and also hear my son’s story from another child’s angle to make absolutely sure I was not overreacting and seeing too much into the normal or expected boys’ school yard games or animosities. What did I learn? My friend Izzy already has a history of problems with this boy A from when the kids went to kindergarten, and she knows he can be very unpleasant with kids, but sweet with adults. Worse of all, her experience is that his parents are completely uncooperative when it comes to problems caused by their child and would not for the world admit he’s capable of anything nasty.

Right now there is one week school break and as soon as the school starts again I’m going to speak to the teacher about the incident with my son and the troublemakers. There is a potential good turn of events for me - Izzy actually told me that she talked with her husband about this whole thing and because he is on the Parent’s Council he offered to come with me to meet the teacher. I guess they took it all extra seriously because of their own history, but I’m grateful for the offer.

This is potentially “my word against someone else’s” type of situation, but as subjective as I am when it comes to my own child I think I am being objective when with my concern that there is potential bully in the making in boy A and I think he needs to know he’s watched. In trying to see things from as many sides as possible, I’ve talked to both my stepmother (she’s school psychologist) and another friend who’s a teacher herself, and they both said that my son’s (and boy A’s and Izzy’s son’s too - all kids are in the same class) teacher probably knows there’s something going on with the boy A, but maybe not the full story. Another friend whose own son was in our teacher’s class before told me that the teacher is rather fair and reliable in situations like this, and her advice was to speak up before anything worse happens.

My questions for you: do you have any advice or wisdom to share? Do you think I’m overreacting? I’ve calmed down - it almost seems surreal and unbelievable now, which is why I’m so glad I wrote down all the details my son told me so I can recall them, plus I know how upset he was and that hurts me most of all. I now have one week of the school break before I speak to the teacher and would appreciate any advice how to prepare myself, because I want to be quick, efficient and taken seriously in getting my message across. I want to avoid risk of being too emotional (tough!), appearing paranoid or unfocused - I am well aware that everything I “know” is what my own son told me: these are not facts, but I know my child and I know the weight of his emotions or the interpretations of the situations .

What do you think is possible course of action that I can/should expect from teacher? Do you think that asking her to keep my son’s name out of the discussion about who alarmed her about boy A is reasonable?

Thanks for reading and thanks in for any responses. Please excuse me in advance if I don’t reply to you individually.