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Asker

To Sam

my 'best friend'

i've known this girl nearly my whole life and she has always been violent recently it got really bad she punched me in the stomach and severely damaged my feet. So i told the school twice her mum and my mum. Recently I was with her and she is becoming violent again not just to me. She started hurting her other friend so i stood between them because I feel really bad just letting it happen. If you tell her to stop she carries on and laughs. She is like a sister to me and I don't want to lose her, but what can I do?

thanks

Ask Sam

Sam

Hi,

Thanks for explaining to me what's going on with your friend. 

I want you to know that what your friend is doing is physical bullying and it is wrong. You don’t deserve to be treated like this. It’s not acceptable for her to be violent towards you or anyone else.

You mention that you have told school twice and both your mums what is happening. I’m wondering what happened when you told them and how you would feel telling them again. School has a duty to keep you safe while you are there and they will have an anti-bullying policy which sets out what they will do in cases of bullying. You could get a copy of this from school to check out what they say you can do. You might also consider speaking to a different teacher, like you Head of Year.

It would also be a good idea to keep a record of what you have done to use as evidence of what you have tried already. It’s important that you keep telling adults who you trust, like a teacher and parents. It would be possible for your mum to visit school to talk to them about what is going on or to write in to the Head Teacher or School Governors. Perhaps you could talk to her about this. There is some information in Explore about Bullying.

You might also like to have a look at the ChildLine message boards, where you can get support from other young people and share ideas.

If you want to talk about this some more, you could contact ChildLine and speak to a counsellor either by phoning them free on 0800 1111, 1-2-1 chat or sending an email. The counsellors are there to listen and support you.

Take care,

Sam

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