my darling daughter is being bullied

As if we didn't have enough to contend with right now, my Pre-Pubescent Beauty, who is in her final year of primary school and has so much to deal with at school and at home, is being bullied. Properly. For the first time in her life.

It's gone on for a while: nasty comments, picking on her, leaving her out. The other day, a 'well-brought-up-butter-wouldn't-melt' nasty little spoilt girl in her class BIT her. Took my daughter's wrist, and sank her teeth into it, leaving bite marks.

Obviously, I went crazy over this. I rang the form teacher immediately, and the next day it was escalated to the Head Teacher and he was calling in the girl's parents. But when he went all Jean Paul Sartre on me about how we could never get to the absolute reality of truth, I started to worry that the resolution to this would not be this horrible child standing outside with her back against the wall for the whole of lunch play for the next six months, or perhaps being tarred and feathered (joking here, I think) but rather just a metaphorical slap on the wrist and brushing the whole thing under the carpet.

The indisputable fact is that my daughter was bitten. There were teeth marks, and the girl admits to doing it. She says she panicked. My daughter says she turned around, spoke to her, looked into her eyes and then grabbed her and attacked her.

Suddenly, with the Head Teacher, I felt as if I was on a bad episode of Judge Judy. My daughter wasn't wearing a wire, so I'm not sure how to prove that her truth, which IS the truth (I do know when my daughter is lying, unlike some parents), is believed and acted on. This girl had previously been picking on PPB anyway, but as I hadn't reported it the school are treating it as an 'isolated incident'.

'This kind of thing doesn't happen in our school', said the Head. But it did. And it happened to my child. If the roles were reversed, I would fully expect to be ostracised as a dysfunctional single mum whose children are fast becoming feral. I wonder what people will say about the posh, rich, conceited mother of the Biter?

I really don't need this right now and neither does my daughter. There is a cake sale after school today for the prefects to organise - she is a prefect and yet was told by the other girls that she wasn't allowed to take part. They then denied this to their mothers, who obviously think PPB is over-dramatising and making things up.

I have to sit in a school assembly this afternoon with the Biter's parents; quite possibly I have to deal with them approaching me and trying to discuss it in front of all the other assembled parents. I have learnt through bitter experience that the only way to deal with bullies is either to ignore them, or if that becomes impossible, to stand up to them in a way which lifts you above them.

I will look this mother in the eye and tell her that in the absence of any kind of apology I do not wish to discuss it with her directly and I am dealing with the school on this matter. Then, I will turn and speak to whoever is sitting next to me. I will hold it together. I will not scratch her eyes out and ask her how her child could do this to my already fragile ten year old who has been through so much this past year. I will not pin her against the wall and scream at her. I have a feeling this could brand me the crazy one.

No. I will hold my head up high and keep the moral high ground. And that will take every ounce of my willpower. And probably a diazepam before I get there.