WWYD, teacher related

[Bellini81]

I won't witter on but basically my son who is in year 2 has a teacher L who I like.

Yesterday when I picked my son up he was telling me about a boy who kicked one of his friends in the stomach and when my son told the lunchtime supervisor the boy tried kicking him in revenge etc

I asked L if she had heard anything from lunchtime staff about this as it was obviously playing on my sons mind (as it was the first thing out of his mouth when he saw me.)
L bent down to my son and his friend (who had been kicked) and said loudly "did you tell me" and when they both said "no but"... she put her hand in their faces as to say well I can't deal with it and turned her back on us. When my son finished his sentence he said ..."but I did tell 2 lunchtime staff who dealt with it but the boy started again at the end of afternoon play."

In the end I got out of my son that the boy (doing the kicking) was made to say sorry and I told my son he did the right thing by telling the lunchtime staff.. end of story or so I thought.

Today at lunchtime play when they were lining up to go into class my son and 3 of his friends were pulled to the front of the line by L to talk about playing rugby at lunchtime and told they can't do that any more as its too rough as the lunchtime staff were doing a handover.
Then L said to my son 'well as you go home and tell half truths to your mum about being hurt in the playground I will ban you from (certain play equipment) as you tell your mum you are getting hurt and she comes in to talk to me about it, you are a liar'
and then talked about yesterdays incident with the boy?

How do I approach this? I have had 2 mums confirm she called my son a liar in front of their child but I won't drag that up as it looks tit for tat. My son is upset, he can talk the hind legs off a donkey but I can honestly say (yes 100% honest) he doesn't tell lies.

Do I just put it down to her having a bad day, does it sound okay that she actually said you are a liar to my son? I am upset but am I over reacting?

[AutumnWind]

Write it all down.
Speak to head.
Look into moving schools.

[RedHelenB]

Tbf ALL children tell lies at some point in their lives. Were the Mums there listening to the conversation or did they hear it from their children? Usually when there are serious lunchtime incident teachers do get to know about it but if it has been dealt with at the time they don't go into lessons talking about it or else lessons would never get started!! Also, half truths is not the same as a lie, it merely means they haven't told the whole story, just tbe bit they consider important. If there aren't any other issues & generally your son gets on fine with her I'd personally leave it as a misunderstanding.

[dazzlingbrook]

The teacher should not be calling you child a liar but I often say to a child "You have lied to me". I say it quite often to one little girl who has a habit of trying to bring things like staples, blu tac she has pulled off displays to the carpet. When I ask if she has something with my hand out, she usually says no and then hands it to me! I always say something about the lying. However it is how it is said. I don't point a finger and say "you are a liar". I would say "Why did you tell me no when you clearly have? You have lied to me". A child may come out of my class saying Ms X said X is a lair when infact they just have retold something in their own words.
Regarding the incident, maybe it was investigated to be not entirely as your child has told you. ALL children lie!

[dazzlingbrook]

liar*

[bundaberg]

were the other 2 mums there?

[leaandperrins]

I think you should support your son. I don't mean steam in and undermine the teacher, but ask for a meeting.

Say you need to get to the bottom of the incident because your son is upset. Ask why he was banned from using the equipment.

But do accept that your son might be lying. When I was at primary school a boy kicked me and I thumped him back. En route to school I got harangued in the street by the boy's mum. I said he had kicked me and I will never forget the vicious way she looked at me and said it wasn't true and 'my son is not a liar'. Well he was, little shit, hiding behind her skirts.

I told my mum and she said I should just forget it. But I still remember it vividly more than 30 years later!

It's not fair on your child to ignore this, if it's true he is probably very upset, but also it's not fair to steam in and blame the teacher. Your son may be lying. You need to be grown up and go and discuss it calmly.

And be prepared to give your son a bollocking if he hasn't told you the truth.

[Retroformica]

Write it all down point by point. Email the head.

[Bellini81]

Thank you for all your replies. I just jumped out of a bath so will read them properly in a mo. But thanks for taking the time to reply :)

[cherrytomato40]

I would ask the teacher to clarify before steaming in and speaking to the head.

In my experience as a TA there will often be groups of children who engage in rough play/playfighting type games, which often involve hitting and kicking each other, or pretending to. Then one of them decides he has had enough and goes to tell an adult 'X kicked me' failing to mention that actually they were all involved in hitting and kicking.

I'm nog saying that's what happened here but I would proceed with caution and get the whole story first.

[DoJo]

It does sound incredibly garbled and unlikely to be a verbatim report of what was said. Children are often programmed to hear the version which most fits their current mood as well, so if he thought he had been hard done by, then he may have only heard the negatives in what she said.
I'm also not sure on the procedure - would a member of lunchtime staff necessarily tell a class teacher about this kind of incident if they considered that it had been dealt with?

[CoffeeTea103]

I think you should verify all that you've stated, ie. confirm from the 2 mums themselves if they've heard her call your son a liar. Your son might not be intentionally lying but relaying the story from what he thinks happened.

[intitgrand]

How were the other mums there at lunchtime?

[Mummyoftheyear]

I gasped. She called him a liar?! Horrified - and I speak as a teacher. My 5 year old was called lazy by his teacher last week. I didn't say anything but can relate to how you may be feeling.

[Quoteunquote]

what Autumnwind said.

[thehorridestmumintheworld]

I didn't like the way you say she talked to the boys when you were there. Not waiting for them to finish, getting right in their faces and so on. Also he did not tell half truths at all but only told you what happened, the only thing is the boys had not told her, but told someone else.
Having said that if it is just a one off thing it is hard to know if she really called him a liar or he was mistaken so if it was just that time that he couldn't use the equipment it is maybe not worth making a fuss.

He sounds quite articulate and can tell you if she is unfair to him again or if he is not allowed to use the equipment regularly when others are. If that happens I would complain.

[Bellini81]

Fab advice thank you everyone. The other mums wernt there of course. I was text by one mum to say her son was telling her about playtime and repeated what the teacher said to my son, she was a bit shocked so sent me a text to see if my son had mentioned it.

I still don't know what to do. The only problem I had was that the teacher bought up an incident from 24 hours previous to then call my son a liar but as I wasn't there I can't judge how it was said, all I know is my son doesn't want to go on today...

[Bellini81]

In not on... That sounds rather dramatic ha

[fluffyraggies]

So the thrust of this is:

Yesterday ... my son was telling me about a boy who kicked one of his friends in the stomach and when my son told the lunchtime supervisor the boy tried kicking him in revenge ... In the end I got out of my son that the boy (doing the kicking) was made to say sorry

Today at lunchtime play ... L said to my son 'well as you go home and tell half truths to your mum about being hurt in the playground I will ban you from (certain play equipment) as you tell your mum you are getting hurt and she comes in to talk to me about it, you are a liar' and then talked about yesterdays incident with the boy

So it wasn't your son that got kicked, he was reporting his friend getting kicked, and the kicking boy was still trying to be rough. The boy was made to appologise.

I don't understand what your son is being accused of lying about This doesn't quite make any sense at the moment.

I would be wary of thinking you know word for word what the teacher said re: lying. It's been passed form a child to their mum, and then to you via text. You need to make an appt. to go in and talk the the teacher properly about what was said and what happened. You need to tell her what you have been told (you needn't say who by). Has your son been banned from the equipment because of some other incident? It all sounds really garbled to me.

[Bellini81]

That's just it, the teacher was telling my son she will bar him from certain play equipment (a climbing frame etc) as punishment for telling me half truths. Each class gets a certain day to play on equipment so it doesn't get over crowded so she has said he may not be allowed to

[Bellini81]

Bugger sorry pressed send

Play on it today even though the equipment has nothing to with any incident.

I am confused too!

Going to ask for a meeting anyhow! Thanks

[thebody]

you should talk to the teacher of course but if your son 100% never tells lies then he is the only human being on the planet who doesn't.

approach with an open mind.

[cornflakegirl]

If the teacher was talking about rugby and half truths, could it be that the boy was trying to kick (so your son told the truth) but that the others were playing just as roughly? I don't think it's on for the teacher to call your son a liar, but it may explain why she told him off?

[cornflakegirl]

Also, from your original post, it sounds like you approached the teacher before you found out from your son whether the incident had been dealt with appropriately. My sons often tell me about people who hurt them at school - I ask if they told an adult, and did the adult sort it out. Assuming the school has dealt appropriately and it's not a recurring pattern, I'm not sure why you spoke to the teacher in the first place?

[bundaberg]

i don't think it's unreasonable to ask the teacher first.

how many times are people on here told not to trust their kids versions and to ask the teacher. teachers should bbe used to that and not get all defensive over it!
i've often had to ask ds1's teacher, and the head on occasion, about things that have happened at school. he has asd and often has a very different interpretation of how things went! None of them have EVER treated me, or him, like this, despite him making some fairly dire accusations about staff at times! They've always explained what has happened and that's been the end of it

[cornflakegirl]

The OP said that her son reported that the lunchtime staff had dealt with the incident and the boy had been made to say sorry. She told her son he was right to tell the supervisors.

The teacher didn't need to be involved in that.

Obviously sometimes children report stuff that you do need to ask school about (with an open mind). I think that's different.