Priorities shift when you become a parent. Your own welfare is no longer the number one priority.

Instead, the well-being of your children becomes more important. Their happiness is paramount.

So what happens when this is threatened? What if you have a child who is so unhappy they want to kill themselves?

For most parents it's an unthinkable nightmare scenario. But for Rosemary Tonks it became an all too painful reality.

The Warwickshire mother will never forget the moment she found her six-year-old son Ross with a knife in his hand threatening to take his own life.

"He wouldn't go to school. He was screaming and crying. He came into the kitchen and I said I would let him calm down.

"When I went in he had got this knife out of the kitchen drawer and he said 'I don't want to be here any more'.

"I froze on the spot and said 'put the knife down and please come to mum'. I held my arms out and he came running to me."

Ross was the victim of a school bully. His threat to kill himself was a desperate cry for help after two years suffering at St Michael's Church of England Primary School in Bedworth, Warwickshire.

Fortunately things improved. Ross, now aged eight, is flourishing at a new school.

But the emotional scars are something the family cannot forget.

Mrs Tonks, aged 41, is keen to tell their story in the hope that it will encourage others suffering in a similar way to do something about it.

Ross's ordeal begun when the slightly-built bespectacled youngster was picked on by one pupil in his year group.

Like many children, he initially tried to hide the truth from his parents.

"My husband noticed there were a lot of bruises on his legs below the knee," said Mrs Tonks.

"We asked him about it and he said it was nothing, just from playing football. But when he was in the shower we noticed he had bruises on his body further up.

"His dad had a word with him and he broke down in tears and said he was getting bullied at school and this had been going on for a while."

Mrs Tonks went to the school the next day and was promised an investigation would be carried out.

But the school said they were unable to do anything because there were no witnesses. And the bullying continued. The torments Ross suffered included being pushed over in the playground and pushed between children forming a circle around him.

"Over the two years he broke two pairs of glasses and cut his eye. There were bruises all over his body, and a split lip.

"You just assume it is going to stop but it went on. The bully said if he was to tell anyone he would make him go to hospital.

"Ross was too afraid to go to sleep because he was having nightmares. He confined himself to the house because he said he felt safe if he was with us."

It was at this point that Ross made his threat to kill himself. Mrs Tonks told the school's head teacher what happened in the hope that action would be taken. She even protested outside but nothing was done.

The Tonks' then found Ross a place at another school, St Giles in Bedworth, and he is much happier.

But, however misplaced, Mrs Tonks cannot help blaming herself for not acting sooner to end her son's suffering.

"I felt I was making him go to school to be hit. He was pleading and crying for me not to take him, but they were telling me if I didn't take him to school I would get into trouble."

The Government has sought to underline its commitment to tackling bullies following a spate of suicides by children desperate to escape playground tormentors.

It wants all schools to sign an anti-bullying charter. But Mrs Tonks is not convinced.

Fortunately for Ross, he has been given a second chance at childhood.

"The first day he went to the new school we were wondering whether he would like it or not," said Mrs Tonks.

"When I picked him up, he just looked at me and smiled. That was the first time in two years. I cried to see it."

* Ross's story will feature on the documentary Inside Out tonight at 7.30pm on BBC1.