if a child hit your child - and the teachers knew - would you expect

[hatwoman]

to be told about it?

[yousankmybattleship]

Not necessarily. It depends on the situation. Unfortunately I should think quite a lot of hitting and general argy bargy takes place. If it was a real punch then I'd expect it to be dealt with more seriously.

[basingstoke]

I don't think so. Not at school. My DC are 9 and 7 and can tell me themselves. Different if there was an injury. Then I'd be told of that.

[Carrotsandcelery]

That would depend on many many factors.

eg. How badly hit your ds was.
If the boy who hit him had any sort of problems.
If your ds had been tormenting the boy.
If your ds had hit the boy first or in the past.
If your ds was very upset about it at school (he may have been at home once he saw his mum but not batted an eyelid at school.
How easy to contact you were.
And so the list goes on.

Is your ds ok?

[Itsjustafleshwound]

Sorry, I don't think this is a one word answer fits ....

I would like to believe that if the teachers thought it needed to be raised with the parents they would.

[hatwoman]

thanks for the replies. dd is ok about it. well, ok in that she's pretty much accepted it as the latest episode in a long saga (though it's the first time she's reported an actual "hit"). Another child was hit this week too - in a separate incident. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to deal with things. But I'm thinking that there is a "problem" - this isn't an isolated incident. My instinct is normally to leave well alone (in 6 years of primary I have never once spoken to a teacher about anything apart from the normal usually pretty banal chat at parents evening) -but I would really rather this got sorted - for everyone's sake. So I'm thinking I might have a word with the teacher - though, in light of these responses, I won't be cross about not being told.

[Carrotsandcelery]

Sorry hatwoman it was your dd not ds. I am glad she is more or less ok.

If this is a recurrent problem that is affecting a few children in the school then I agree it might be worth a brief and informal word with the class teacher.

You may even be helping the child who is causing the upset if you approach it calmly. It may be that they are experiencing something distressing elsewhere in their life and that they need some support too.

[hatwoman]

yes, you could very well be right.

[ragged]

Before age 6 they are (almost) all at it so often that the teachers would go mental if they had to inform you of each skirmish. By age 6-7 most the time the children can tell you what happened, the teachers don't need to. If the blow left a mark/bruise/swollen bump I would expect teacher or TA to say something about measures to prevent in future.

I fear that DS is one of those children who often randomly thumps others and I am never told about it, (NB: no one has told me DS is doing that); I just know from what he tells me that he at least occasionally thumps and gets thumped, and if the school generally doesn't mention thumping it could be happening a lot more than I know. Not that I can do much about it in either case.

[hocuspontas]

Also a child bumping into another in the playground is sometimes described as - 'He hit me! No, it wasn't an accident it was on PURPOSE!!' Not saying this is what happened to your dd but children sometimes use inappropriate words and meanings and to us parents it sounds like a mass punch-up every playtime! Hope you get it sorted

[Carrotsandcelery]

I have seen the very passive aggressive responses to accidents in the playground first hand and I have seen parents at it too. My ds once fell over and landed on another boy, who was fine and not upset about it at all, and the mums in the playground went crazy. The teachers were even upset about the parental reaction. He is only 6 and was distraught.

[ragged]

That's the thing, Carrots. One time in school yard DS was standing at the end of an icy stretch and other boys kept sliding into him (football tackle style, DS would jump out of the way). Finally DS made as though to fake tripping up one of the sliders; suddenly the boy's mum sharply tells DS off; okay for her DS to try to knock DS over but not okay for DS to fake threat the boy back .

Recently DS said that his mate punched him in the throat. On further questioning it transpires that mate was trying to show off a karate move and misjudged & punched DS in the throat (but it wasn't malicious or deliberate). Of course I'm not going to take that up with school.... but if DS thumped the child back for the throat punch (DS has poor impulse control) I could well see the other parent complaining (coz of course it would be deliberate if also provoked violence on DS's part). So I'm mostly grateful that the school sensibly exercises some discretion about what to tell me.