Kindergartener is being bullied
ANNA CHANDLER

My son is a kindergarten student at the Rusk Primary and has not been having a good school experience by far.

All during this school year other children have been putting food on his clothes and making marks on his new boots he got for Christmas, among many other things. It isn't often that he gets a brand new pair of boots and so when he did a few months ago, they were special to him. He now refuses to wear them to school because of the other children marking on them, putting food and glue on them.

Just today I picked him up from school and he was telling me that another child had put food all over his clothes in the cafeteria when he had asked her not to. When I asked if he told an adult about the situation he said that yes he had and the response he got was this, "Thank you for being hurtful," and then nothing was done nor said to the other child.

This is not the first time he has been told this by adults at the school; it has been happening since school started. Now I do agree that when children have a problem they need to try to work it out amongst themselves. But when things like this are going on and the child is just told "thanks for being hurtful" by tattle-telling, then something is wrong with the whole situation. I have spoken with a few adults at the school and to this date I suppose I haven't gotten anywhere with them because it is still going on.

I do not appreciate these kinds of things happening to my child and I know if it is happening to one, chances are it's happening to more than just that one.

I send my son to school to learn, not to have food put on his clothes. A school should not be a place where children of any age are allowed to bully other children in any way shape or form.

The lesson he is being taught is this: it's not going to do any good to say anything to an adult (who is supposed to protect a child) because they won't do anything but get on to him. My son is getting to where he just doesn't say anything to them at all because he knows it won't help.

In my opinion this is not what our children need to be taught. They need to know that if you ever need help you can go to an adult and they will help you no matter what the problem.

While the adults in this matter may think they are teaching the children to be responsible for their problems, they are not.

I'm not going to allow my child to be treated in this manner and hope that no other parent out there will either.

I sincerely hope that the next time a child comes to an adult at the school and says something about another child doing something to them, the adults will handle the situation appropriately.