DDs Classmate smashed a Window today - Would you expect the School to tell Parents?

@CowboyJoanna it's a tad more complicated than that. People may self-diagnose at a whim but to actually get a formal diagnosis those traits actually have to be impacting your life in a negative way. Why wouldn't you want to offer support and understanding to a group of people that experience similar struggles. The 'label' allows that to happen because the world is unlikely to become inclusive without them. Even people who are very obviously physically impacted by disability and use wheelchair and other aids cannot access many things we take for granted, what hope have those with invisible disabilities got?

Im a bit concerned by the way everyone feels the need to label everything these days.
Child is shy/not the most popular kid? They're autistic
Child is naughty? PDA/ODD
Child is hyper? Not good at school? ADHD
Bad at maths? Dyslexia

Absolutely.

Exactly.

You do realise that you used the phrase ‘you do realise’ don’t you

🤦🏼‍♀️

@Wherearewegoing when you say what the school are doing to rectify it what do you mean? They'll have followed in line with the behaviour policy for the school which is the appropriate course of action. Outside of that they can't give much other information to parents without that being a breach of gdpr and possibly a safeguarding concern for the child who broke the window. They won't be able to give any specific information about what they are doing to rectify it to parents and that's exactly what parents will be pestering the school for in return using up the little resources schools have.

You'd lose trust, really?

Lord help you when your kids are in secondary.

If your DC are bothered by something, then ask the teacher for more information. But if you expect an email every time there's an incident you'd be getting them daily in most places.

Well, I think we will just have to agree to disagree. If I found out that something like this had happened in my DCs class and we hadn’t been told I’d be disappointed in the school, I’d wonder what else they weren’t open about and I’d lose trust.

The school didn't need to. There are multiple similar incidents daily in school, really we'd be emailing all the time.

Re the glass, schools have to tolerate whatever buildings they have. There's no money for new ones. By smash, did the whole pane smash, or did it safety shatter?

I won't start on the kid who punched a single glazed 60s window and it looked like a murder scene. Now that was somewhat traumatic.

You do realise that you used the phrase ‘you do realise’ don’t you? Patronising.

No the glass shouldn’t have smashed. Parents should be made aware of the problem and what the school are doing to rectify it.

There will be several kids in that class with vulnerabilities and the school won’t know about them all. The school should have let the parents know. A short statement that is factual, anonymous, reassuring and states what measures they are putting in place.

And...? I have 20 years' experience of working with children, and a doctorate in education, and I think I have a right to an opinion - I think you're the one being patronising here ...!
Additionally, this has seemingly escaped your notice, but as a previous poster has pointed out, the glass shouldn't have smashed anyway. I'd be more concerned about the lack of adequate levels of safety (with regard to easily smashable glass) 🙈

The children were spoken to by an adult, their teacher.

You couldn't inform parents every time something happened in school, they'd be getting daily emails!

Instead the parents should reassure that the teacher was in charge and keeping their child safe. If the parent needs more information they can talk to the teacher. Beyond a "well I'm glad you were safe and the teachers protected you, like always" I wouldn't say much more. Over commenting is just as bad.

We really need to stop over thinking and over reacting to relatively normal occurrences. It's not doing kids any good.

One smashed window doesn't impact mental health unless there are already other issues.

Raise the bar of resilience, talk to your children about what happened and reassure them that they were safe and are safe. There were adults there to manage the situation, and sometimes people get upset.

Yes. If there was shouting and dysregulation and then glass smashing, that could absolutely create a post trauma response. Especially in a child. May be not a severe reaction but could definitely lead to post trauma symptoms. It would depend on lots of different factors and what risk and resilience factors there were. The main thing is how it’s talked about following the event. If a parent doesn’t know then they can’t support their child to make sense of it. It’s really not rocket science you know. This is basic psychology. I thought people were getting a bit more psychologically savvy these days but may be not.

It doesn’t matter whether they knew what the consequences were. If they were angry, kicked a window deliberately and it broke. That could be really scary to witness. I’m not saying this child is a bad kid. Just that witnessing that kind of stuff can impact mental health. Trust me, I know!!

PTSD for a broken window...... Give over.

Yes, they deliberately kicked the window, but it doesn’t follow that a 7 year old would know that kicking the window would also smash it. You aren’t making allowances for their age. They likely thought it was as strong as a brick wall and so kicking it wasn’t dangerous at all, and kicked it rather than kick a person and harm them.

In fact, her kicking the window should not have smashed it if the school building were in compliance with U.K. Health & Safety regulations.

It is not at all comparable to a child kicking and punching another child because in your example there is intent to harm another person. 7 yr olds know not to hit other people, but they don’t usually know the small amount of force to break plate glass. And I know I keep repeating this, but there should not have been any plate glass at kicking level in the classroom because it is easily smashed.

The OP says they were angry and did it deliberately. I’m not demonising the child. They need help and support. But if something like this happens parents should be told. So they can talk it through with their child. My son was in a class where a couple of kids were regularly losing it and acting out. He got punched and kicked. He witnessed other kids getting hurt. It had a massively detrimental effect on his mental health and ability to learn. It effected his behaviour at home and it took us ages to figure out what was wrong because he didn’t say. I’ve worked with hundreds of kids with behavioural issues and the reasons are complex. They need understanding and intervention. AND Witnessing physical aggression can be scary and traumatic.

Kicking a window isn’t deliberately smashing it at age 7. It is unlikely the child knew it would break. In fact, the window should not have been smashable by a 7 yr old kicking it. Unless she can do kung fu jump kicks because all glass at kicking level should be safety glass.

Breaking windows isn’t normal. I have 30 years experience of working with children. Please don’t patronise me. If a child got so deregulated they deliberately smashed a window, that is over and above what you would reasonably expect.

You do realise that little kids are "violent" towards each other all the time, right? Even in my kids' lovely little private school, kids do sometimes push and kick each other etc. Yes as you say of course if adults were doing this at home it would be a safeguarding referal... because they're adults and they know better! But it is not uncommon for small children. If an email was sent out (so parents like you can apparently look out for PTSD 🙄) every time a child saw anything that could be defined as violent, inboxes would be overflowing. That's the reality.

I get what you are saying but if my child witnesses violence I want to know. I want to be able to talk to them about it and keep an eye out for post trauma signs. There is a lot you can do early on after a traumatic event to help prevent post traumatic stress. Witnessing uncontrolled rage like this is at best unsettling and at worst traumatising and physically dangerous. It is also a safeguarding issue. If a child was witnessing this level of rage and violence at home it would be a safeguarding referral.

>calling social services, educational phycologists, writing up the incident and ultimately working towards getting the perpetrator child the help they need

Good Lord! A kid had a tantrum and broke something. Does this really rate a 'diagnosis'?

Nope. School have handled the situation, removed children while staff dealt with the child who is obviously got something bigger going on. Why would they humiliate the child and the child's parents by telling the whole class parents about the child's behaviour

If your daughter is upset or distressed then go into the school and speak to the teacher.

Otherwise teach her some children have big emotions and haven't learned to handled them yet and need a bit more help