My SS13 was bullied last year. He's never been physically hurt, but he has been teased, made fun of and pushed around a little and his homework has been stolen. DH and I addressed the issues with the school last year. This year SS13 is reporting being bullied again. He is blaming his poor grades on his ADD and on being bullied. While we do understand that those situations will make things difficult, we're also trying to teach him that he still has to do good in school and that he can't use excuses. SS also reported that other children are being bullied as well. Our plan is to get the names of all kids involved, discuss the situations with the parents of the other children who are being bullied and then discuss it with the school. We have already addressed issues with bullying in one particular class. Unfortunately, SS is terrible with names and has yet to tell us who all of these kids are. He can't find his yearbook for us to get the names from it.

We've been trying to teach SS to quit gossiping and stop being over-dramatic. We don't know why he's this way, but he is. We have a feeling that it might be making him a target for bullies to some extent. We highly dislike gossip & drama. We believe that SS has a skewed perception of many things due to his desire to be dramatic. We already know that SS lies about things to avoid doing homework and to avoid getting in trouble. At open house SS made me look like a moron. Last year SS had a reoccurring excuse for not bringing his band instrument home. I believed his excuse. He used the same excuse this year a few times. I spoke to the band director about it. AFTER I spoke to the band director with SS present and the band director gave me a bewildered look of confusion, SS admitted that he had been lying to me the whole time because he didn't want to practice for band.

Yesterday SS came home from school and began telling me how a bully, we'll call him 'Mark', who picked on him last year, is picking on him again. He said that Mark was riding in a car behind the school bus. When SS got off of school bus, Mark yelled at him from the car. Mark made fun of SS' dad's car (which is supposedly same type of car that Mark was riding in, just in better condition & newer). SS stood up for himself and commented back. Mark told driver (assumed to be Mark's dad) to 'pull the car over so I can beat this (insert racial slur here)'. Driver then decided to drive off. SS thought the card literally followed the bus for the purpose of picking on him. SS said that Mark was upset with him because SS reported bullying earlier in the day to a teacher.

I was livid. If a parent is watching their child bully SS and not doing anything I don't really know what to do. I did not believe that the car followed the bus for the purpose of picking on SS, but I did believed everything else that SS said. I made SS tell DH what he had told me. DH had the same opinion that I did. He didn't believe that the car literally followed SS' bus, but he did believe everything else. Mark has a history of bullying SS. DH instructed SS not to make comments back over stupid things like comparing cars. He instructed him to pick his battles because most things are not worth a battle.

Mark often goes to the same donut shop as DH & SS in the morning. He is sometimes there alone and sometimes he's w/his mom. DH made it a point to get donuts this morning to hopefully see them. DH told Mark's mom that he had heard there was an incident that occurred between the 2 kids yesterday. Mark's mom seemed upset that Mark was being a bully, but also said that they only have 1 car, which was not the car described to be approaching SS. DH got the impression that Mark may not even have a dad in the picture at all, much less driving him around (not sure about this, just assumption). AFTER DH speaks to Mark's mom, SS admits that he made the WHOLE thing up. DH was very angry. DH did tell Mark's mom that SS just admitted to lying and apologized, but did let her know there was a history of Mark bullying SS. I had planned to call the school this morning to have them keep an eye on SS because I was afraid of what Mark might do to him in school today if the only thing stopping him from beating up SS yesterday was his dad. DH called me and told me what happened and told me not to contact the school. I haven't had much time to discuss it with DH yet because he was calling on his way to work. I don't know 100% of the details of this morning. DH asked me not to mention it to SS, he wants to handle it. He plans on speaking to parents of other children who are being bullied to hopefully get the truth about what is going on. We unfortunately can't believe anything SS tells us.

Why would a kid lie about being bullied? I've heard of kids saying that they're not bullied when they are to avoid parents stepping in, but we have the opposite problem. We really do believe that he is being bullied, but we don't know how much of what he's telling us is true. The only logical thing that we can come up with as a reason for the lie yesterday is maybe Mark bullied SS in school and SS wanted Mark to get into more trouble. SS knows that racial slurs will really anger me. SS knows that DH is proud of his car. Maybe he's trying to manipulate us by picking up on what he knows are hot topics for us. I don't know what he thought the end result would be though. Did he really think he could get Mark in trouble without ever getting caught in his lie? It just makes no sense to me. Any advice? We have to put a stop to the bullying, but every time we try stand up for SS he makes us look like idiot jerks. Sorry this is so long.