Dad threatens to sue daughter's school as well as her bully's entire family. AITA?

"AITA for threatening to sue both the school and the family of my daughter’s bully?"

I 30m and my Husband 33m have a 11-year-old daughter who’s been going through severe bullying at school.

It’s just keep getting worse. It started of with just name calling but has gotten worse over the past few weeks. Context: She’s adopted, which is something we’ve always been open about and celebrated as part of her story.

Recently, some kids found out about her adoption and started saying horrible things – telling her stuff like her birth mother didn’t want her. They tell her that she’s unwanted tell her she a reject. ( which is not the case her mother loved her very much to the point she literally gave her life so she could be here)

If this wasn't bad enough. A few days ago, she came home in tears with her hair butchered they’d cut off 2 inch of her ponytail well in class all while taunting her names and laughing at her reaction. They will follow her through the halls to make fun of her on a regular basis now.

Both my husband and I have been in touch with the school about the bullying more times than I can count. I emailed, called, even showed up in person to speak with teachers and the principal, but all I got were empty promises that they’d “look into it.” Nothing changed, and my daughter’s mental health has taken a hit she’s anxious, struggling to sleep, and now begs us not to send her to school.

Finally, out of frustration and feeling like no one was taking this seriously, we reached out to a lawyer to explore legal action against both the school and the bully’s family.

Only when the school and her parents learned we were considering a legal action did they start to act. Suddenly, the school calls me to say they’re moving the bully out of my daughter’s class and claim they “had a talk” with her. The girl’s parents reached out too, saying they’d “talk to their daughter” and promised it would stop.

But honestly, I don’t believe them. It feels like they're all saying this just to get me to back off and avoid the legal consequences. I worry that once the dust settles, things will go right back to how they were, and my daughter will still be dealing with this. My family thinks I should give the school and parents a chance now that they’re finally taking action, but I feel like it’s all for show.

So, AITA for moving forward with legal action even though the school and the bully’s parents now claim they’re handling it?

freak writes:

NTA one of my asshole classmates to me and everyone else I was adopted when I was in 6th grade. My parents were waiting to tell us when we were both old enough to understand. My brother wasn’t quite old enough yet. For me it was a light bulb moment: that’s why there’s no picture of mom pregnant.

For a group of kids at school it was a reason to bully me. I heard the same things your daughter did and it didn’t bother me. It was how relentless it was. I developed anxiety and stomach issues due to the bullying. One day a good portion of everyone in the cafeteria was laughing at me because of what one of the man bullies said. I didn’t want to go to school.

I got sick after lunch nearly every day and had to go home. I had all kinds of doctors appointments to try to find out what was wrong with me medically that was causing the stomach issues. The school even tried to say my problem was I was upset about being adopted and was making myself sick. No amount of anything my parents did helped. It only got better after the school year ended and we were all in different classes.

aggsee writes:

Yeah sorry. “Bullying” with name calling is one thing. Physical @buse to a child by cutting her hair DURING CLASS is completely different. Why didn’t the teacher do anything? Why did the teacher allow scissors in class? Why was the bully not sent to the principal immediately?

Why weren’t you notified immediately? Why did your baby have to come home with fd up hair (basically a signature of abuse) for you to find out about it? I’d be suing the school AND that teacher directly for neglect as well as the kids family for abuse. NTA, dad, protect your kid.

Maybe also consider formally pulling her from school, and going to your district with a letter officially stating that the school’s absolutely asinine job of handling an ABUSE (not bullying anymore. They could have stopped it at bullying but let it grow to physical abuse) case is the sole reason why. What happened to all that “zero tolerance for bullying” shit that we had when I was in school??

world6 writes:

NTA…when your daughter came home with her cut, you should have called the police. Sue that school for not only allowing it to happen but also not doing anything about it.

If you are in the USA, I suggest pulling your daughter from school right now and possibly looking into an online school until there is a settlement, which I would require therapy for your child, therapy for the bully child...

(for at least one year each)and that this school has to provide transportation and pay for their school if your choice for your child to attend until she graduates.