Restraining Order Against Fourth Grader Was Dad's Best Option

on January 26, 2012 at 10:39 AM

fist My daughter used to come home from preschool every day with a report on her bully. "She didn't let us play with her today," I'd hear. She couldn't have made me feel more helpless if she'd tied my hands behind my back and shoved a dirty gym sock in my mouth. It's that memory of feeling like I was failing my kid that came straight to mind when I heard a dad was taking the controversial step of filing for a restraining order against his fourth grade son's bully.

Robert Casteel's methods are getting a lot of criticism today. After all, he went to court and convinced a judge that another kid should have to stay at least 20 feet away from his 10-year-old son. How you make that happen when two kids both go to school in the same building in the Jurupa Unified School District is anyone's guess.

I'm sure educators around the country are watching this case in horror.

But when I listen to Casteel talk to ABC News, I don't hear a dad who is just trying to make life hard on the staff at his kid's school. I hear a dad who knows what it's like to wake his kid up in the morning and have absolutely no choice but to send him to a place where he feels unsafe. Casteel says his son Christopher's bully brought a knife to school and threatened to kill him. No surprise the poor kid was terrified to go to school!

Part of sending our kids off to school every day is trusting that the adults we're entrusting to care for them will protect them from tormentors. It's not always easy for these surrogate parents. My daughter's bully used words, not her fists, and my daughter did not report it to her teacher. On loud buses, in crowded cafeterias, bullies have learned how to make their moves without being detected.

When it happens, we, the parents, don't have much recourse. We have to depend on the school to now make it stop. And if we're not satisfied with how they deal with it, what is there? We can call the other kid's parents, but often a kid is a bully because of what they're learning at home! We can't go to our kids' school every day to act as bodyguards, either.

So what else is there? In Casteel's case, the bully was given a five-day suspension, but he's back in the classroom, and who knows what he's got up his sleeve next. But at least this dad can feel like he's done everything he could to keep his little boy safe.

Have you had to take drastic measures against your child's bully?

Image via cogdogblog/Flickr

About the author Jeanne Sager

writes articles for The Stir by day, slays closet monsters and bounds through bedtime stories with her elementary schooler by night. Diet Pepsi courses through her veins. The Phineas and Ferb soundtrack reverberates through her brain.

Filed Under: bullies, behavior

Comments (62)

RogueRabbit

on Jan 26, 2012 at 11:01 AM

I went to the bullies parents and told them that I know way too much about forensic science and how to get rid of bodies for them to continue to allow their kid to pick on mine. It worked.

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booklover74

on Jan 26, 2012 at 11:27 AM

Good for him. Schools to often look the other way onserious bullying or under react to it.Oddly they often are quick to jump right on a five year old for hugging or using their slice of pizza as a toy gun as well as try and charge 16 year olds with drug possesion for taking a tylonal on their own.

The school didn't react to this in a way that would keep his son safe. Putting the attacker back int he very classroom and enviroment as the victim is the same as telling the victim to just get over it and move on with life because it isn't really a problem.

His son wasn't safe and the school wasn't taking proper precautions to keep him safe. Because the school wasn't addressing the issue well the dad had to do something to keep his son safe.

rainskisses

on Jan 26, 2012 at 11:33 AM

After a little boy that rode my children's bus threatened to throw my youngest son UNDER the bus, I had enough. No one at the school wanted to do anything... I kept getting the run around. So I pulled them out and put them in an Online charter school. You can't protect your children anymore, and you can't hope against hope that the school will either. It is YOUR responsibility to take action, and I'm proud of this father, but give it a few years... that kids going to REALLY have it out for his son when he's old enough to take action into HIS own hands to punish the 'big mouth' that got him in trouble (and suspended). I don't take any chances, kids these days aren't just mean... they are downright viscious, and have no sense of mercy whatsoever. My children will be protected. I don't care what measures that takes.

mama2allblue

Good for him! Our son was dealing with a bully for 3 years, the school did very little to protect him. He finally defended himself and got a harsher punishment than the bully. Our next course of action was going to be having the child arrested, sounds harsh but our son has scars, both physical and emotional from the abuse he suffered at this "child"s" hands. Thankfully as suddenly as the bullying began it stopped. I often worry though he's simply found a new target. I can't say that I am not thankful my son is no longer his focus.

Nonmember comment from Joanieb

on Jan 26, 2012 at 11:36 AM

He threatened him with a knife and nothing was done about it? Put the parents in jail plus the little bully rat in juvie. I wish these kids could just stand up for themselves b/c bullies are nothing but cowards.

isles

on Jan 26, 2012 at 11:40 AM

I'm so thankful for teachers & principals that are pro active with bullies-

Nonmember comment from Mrs. Clark

If the bully brought a knife to school and threatened to stab somebody, why the help was he not expelled????

PamalaLauren

on Jan 26, 2012 at 11:44 AM

I think he did the right thing. My daughter was being bullied and I went to the school who told me that this child had been an ongoing problem and they were working on it. What annoys me is I send my child to a private school with a no tolerance clause, and here is a child who is an obvious problem and they've done nothing. So I did what I thought was right, one day while dropping my child off I heard him saying things and I told my child loud enough for him to hear, "You tell him to stop being mean to you and that it's not nice! " The kid has stopped. I don't know what it was or why, maybe he never realized that I had noticed, but it got through to him. Or maybe he's finally getting it. The kid is six years old, so sometimes you have to cut them some slack, but it seemed that maybe at home they weren't really making it priority to get him to stop.

Ima101

on Jan 26, 2012 at 11:46 AM

@ RogueRabbit, I hope you aren't serious. Did you really threaten another person's child? Or did you threaten the parents? That is really sick. Go to the bully's parents and have a conversation with them, and if that doesn't work go to the police, but NEVER threaten a child's life. You should know better.

OtherMonkey

on Jan 26, 2012 at 11:54 AM

It's a shame that the school didn't do more to protect the child in the first place. If they had, the dad wouldn't have had to resort to such measures. You'd think with all of the media hype and intolerance towards bullies that it would make things easier instead of harder. I know the teachers can't everywhere all of the time and see everything that goes on but I still find they're lacking when it comes to suitable punishment or arrangements to keep bullies away from the other kids.