Quote Originally Posted by Skiploder View Post
I can't imagine the pain you are your husband are going through. One of the worst fears a parent has is not being able to protect your children. It's a primal fear - there is nothing worse than watching your kid in pain (be it mental or physical) and not being able to get a handle on it.

While taking him to mixed martial arts classes is nice on several levels, it's a palliative. On one hand it can give a great self-esteem boost, on the other, it provides no guarantee that he will be able to successfully defend himself. All bets are off when the real fisticuffs start, and some people can't ever mentally get over that someone wants to do them harm.

If I missed it in a prior post, forgive me, but are you taking him to counseling? From what it sounds like, he's been dealing with a little more than your garden variety bullying. There's probably a great deal he needs to get off his chest.

I'm also wondering what the parents of these other children have to say for themselves. I'm sure your son knows who is bullying him and that the parents of these kids have been notified. I'm curious as to how they've reacted.
The parents are in total denial. Not MY son...blah blah blah. These parents were friends of ours and I use to babysit their kids. We had problems with him previously as did the parents. In fact he beat up his 13 year sister that was visiting for the summer. Parents of course blamed it on the sister and stated he was bothering him till he finally broke. Sad!! After this summer we really stepped away from our friendship as we watched them constantly make up excuses for his scary behavior. Seriously could go on and on with the stories. I do not have Tristen in counseling but that is probably a really good idea that I should look into.

Ok....now for the update. The district came back to me first with a letter stating false information. Basically it was a cover your butt letter. Then they called and told me that Tristen was bullying this kid 50% of the time. They based this on the fact that Tristen has said things back to the kid after this child did something to him. So now....their idea is NOT to seperate the children....but to teach them to work together. Yea....because that has worked in the past. So basically Tristen has to learn to work with someone that has been violent with him on several occassions. Basically I think they are doing this to cover their butts on a law suit. If they make it look like both boys have done it.....then maybe they are home free. I also think they are setting my son up....so they can build a case against us. I asked the super to look look into past behaviors and grades as Tristen has always been an A-B student with excellent citizenship. He felt that dwelling on the past was not important! UGH

So....here we are with decisions to be made. We are trying currently to figure out what type of attorney to get for this type of situation. I am taking my son out of school immediately and will home school him. I have spoken to his teacher and his grades are strong enough that he will still pass into 5th grade. He also stated he will give me all the work that they will be doing for the next 6 weeks so I can do it at home with him. Won't count towards his grades but at least he will have the knowledge and honestly probably more than what he would learn at school. At this point in the year it is too late to set up a "real" home school or move him to a different school.

At some point I feel like maybe we are teaching my son to run from his problems but on the other hand I feel like we are keeping him safe. I really think that Tristen is being set up by the school to fail to ensure that they would win a case and I just cannot let him be a target anymore.