My 6 yr old has attacked another child

I am in a very similar situation to you OP with an autistic child - I even have a thread on it but it's in Education>SEN section where the replies are more measured. Take a look if you want.

Initially when my 5 year old was rough to a particular child I messaged to apologise and it was taken positively, however the behaviour has escalated in a really upsetting way and I don't message the mum anymore. Although you mean well just let them focus on their kid - don't make them hold space for your feelings as well. I think about the other child a lot and hope that they have a little bit of empathy for our situation as well, as they are nice people, but at the end of the day they have to focus on theirs, and me on mine.

Some children just cannot be made to behave though. It’s these kids that need to be educated elsewhere. 30 kids to one teacher only has a hope of giving an effective education when that teacher can teach. She can’t teach if she’s trying to stop a child from ripping up some work, or the other child needs their nappy changed etc etc. get the children who need extra help out of the classroom so that the teacher has a hope of teaching, and the other children have a hope of learning. This is the most economically effective way to get a good education into the majority of our children. This reduces the chances of the majority of our children witnessing traumatic scenes at school, and stops the majority of children seeing school as a place of fear.

And then throw lots more resources at the other places of education for those that struggle in a mainstream setting. Merging everyone together into one big violent and disruptive blob helps no one!

I hear what you are saying and mainstream isn't the place for everyone. We currently have a couple of children in our foundation stage who are extremely challenging and to be honest are hurting the staff more than their peers regularly. Some staff are going home with bruises. These children don't have any diagnosis or assistants though they are in the process of seeing if there are underlying reasons which are contributing to the behaviour which can take a long time. It is really really difficult for everyone and I'm not sure mainstream is a good fit for these kids. Attacked is quite a strong word because at this age the non SEN children hurt eachother all the time. I had some aggressive behaviour from my SEN children last year but it didn't go beyond what nearly every class in every school is dealing with. For the most part they were coping well in mainstream school. I have no SEN children this year and I had an incident last wk involving 2 of my girls fighting each other. I have two boys who are best friends, who play well most of the time but they also hurt eachother at times too. 5 and 6 year olds are still learning how to play, share, turn take and regulate their emotions. We are there to support them. If a child is regularly being hurt by the same child then absolutely something needs to be done but children loosing their temper and hurting eachother is a regular occurrence in every playground in every primary school. The staff deal with it the best way they can by talking to parents, modelling good behaviour to the children through puppets, social stories, circle time, issuing sanctions, consequences (which can be difficult as some parents are up in arms if their child looses 5 minutes of play), lots of discussions, praise, rewards and trying to step in before things escalate etc. It is difficult to suspend a child even without SEN. Behaviour is getting worse across the board and there is very little we can do about it.

I've read some suggestions about getting the other kid a gift and honestly, I don't think you need to go that far. Don't make your wee one feel he has to buy forgiveness. Trying to find a way for him to apologise himself to the other child is fine but please don't go overboard. He's just a child.

Also a neurotypical 6 year old can also have difficulty understanding consequences, that's why we have criminal ages of responsibilities and other judgements of capacity set at a much higher age. I think we focus heavily on the SEN aspect but it's also still fairly typical.

Doesn’t it depend on severity of condition though? I don’t think the PP was saying all autistic children or those with ADHD shouldn’t be in mainstream schools, but those where it is severe enough that other children are at risk or subject to violent attacks perhaps are better schooled elsewhere- for the benefit of all. Living your day in fear of attack is just horrendous, it’s not just the physical harm but the mental injury which continues and can make other children’s lives at school a living hell. Of those five children AU-ADHD in your class @EatMoreChocolate44 , and the three not yet diagnosed, how many of those violently attacked other children, and how many times? The school system simply isn’t funded well enough for the all inclusive school utopia we would all like.

I think you've answered your own questions. I am not sure I'd send my child back to a school were they'd been attacked like that. May be you have nothing to worry about?

This is only going to get much, much worse as the government close special schools and veto exclusions. It won't be long before we see school staff being killed. I work in a main stream primary where a 9 year old attacked his 1 to 1 and nearly killed her.

I've been there.

My 6 year old son ASC and ADHD is on his 4th suspension since November (6th overall). He had EHCP and high award funding.

I used to want to try and fix it with the people involved too. I still do but I've have learnt now it is best to leave it.

(P.s. it sounds like he is on internal suspension so make sure you get that written in email etc as can count for evidence for EHCP.)

Not true. I think people are projecting. We are not talking about systematic bullying or a violent child. We are talking about ONE EPISODE. One! Surely that calls for preventive measures to make sure it never happens again- not excluding a 6 year old from school for life.

This is what schools are like these days, particularly primary. Pretty much half of parents think that their child should have their own 1:1 personal teacher plus a million and one other adjustments. It's chaos.

If my child had been attacked to the extent of having marks all over their face, I wouldn't want to talk to the parent. If approached at the school gates, I'd have some very choice words for the parent and the child too, autism or no autism.

The parents will be very angry and upset, OP. I think you should leave well alone now. And honestly I think if you had any decency you'd keep your child off school until you have had a chance to speak with the school properly about what the plan is to prevent another violent attack.

I wouldn't send them another message at this point but I do think it's good that you sent an apology, even if they haven't responded it shows that you are taking it seriously. They probably don't know how to respond because you can't argue with someone who is apologising, but at the same time they can't say 'no worries it's fine', so have just left it for now.
Talk about it further with the school.

Who on here said that there should be no consequences? I don't think anyone has said that - and certainly not me. Of course there should. No one is saying that it's ok for a child to attack another child.

People aren't "blaming" the child! Most replies are acknowledging that it's a difficult situation but the priority should be the injured child's safeguarding and sense of security.

Many have said that the LA has ultimate responsibility for providing suitable support for SEN pupils (in an ideal world, of course, which this is not).

The majority of posters have expressed sympathy towards the OP.

But the overwhelming response to the OP's actual question is not to contact the other parents again. She's done a decent thing by apologising, but now leave them to care for their injured child and process the incident in private. That's not "nasty" advice.

I’m sorry this happened, OP. It might be best to post this in the SEN section, as most people here aren’t qualified to comment on this subject.

I don’t know if this will help you, but to ease your worry. The mum won’t see this and know it’s about her. As awful as it sounds, these kind of incidents are more common than you think! You might feel awful right now, but there’s parents up and down the country who have had the exact same day as you 💕

Would it be possible for your child to make an apology card? Or to give the child a drawing as a peace offering?

I wouldn’t seek out the parents, but be ready to speak with them if they approach you.

I’m really sorry that this has happened. It’s a horrid situation and you, the other parents and teaching staff will all be feeling awful about it. Are you happy with the support your child receives at school? Have the school made any suggestions yet about mitigating this again?

Indeed, of course people would still feel compassion towards the victim and want safeguarding plans to be open and accountable and not want the OP to just carry on, leaving the victim in the same room as their attacker as though nothing had happened.

Absolutely.

And the only venom I am seeing is from those who think the victim should just get on with it, that the 6 year old who attacked him should just carry on as before, and there should be no consequences or plan enacted by the school.

So well put.

Not one of those arguing against the victim being safeguarded or any sort of clear consequences and plan put in place would tolerate walking into a workplace and being punched in the face randomly, never knowing when their attacker might turn on them again based on a "Oh don't worry we had a word quietly, it's all fixed now". Nor should they.

Your child's experience would damage any child's sent of safety and their trust in authority. I'm so glad you found a way to kep them safe.

Would there be the same amount of venom being spouted if the child wasn't autistic and it was the first time an incident like this had happened.

YES! 🤷🏻

I think another key issue with a child that has attacked another and nothing is seen to happen (such as the child being suspended) the victim gets the message that it’s ok for them to be attacked, they don’t matter, they shouldn’t expect to be safeguarded, and the rest of the class gets the message that you can beat someone up and nothing will happen to you.

I always told my child that things would be happening behind the scenes that they cannot see, that the attacker will be dealt with sternly etc but they didn’t really believe me, and I didn’t really believe myself as my child did keep getting beaten up day after day.

And then we moved them to private school because his anxiety in having to sit in his class with his attacker was getting so bad. In his new school no one has laid a finger on him since and he’s never seen any other school based violence either and he’s happy and confident going to school. Making our kids tolerate violence in a school environment is so damaging for them.

I actually think this is a really good idea op, not only will it make your son understand his actions and consequences but it may make the other child feel a lot better.

Lots of people seem very angry at the victim on this thread and furious at the notion of keeping children safe.

I have not seen one person saying anything unkind or unfair about the 6 year old who attacked the other child, but many spitting venom at those of us who acknowledge that "sorry" matters but won't be enough, and that a 6 year old victim of a violent attack must not be instantly expected to sit in a room with their attacker, and that something must be done, a plan put in place, to keep the 6 year old victim safe.

It's extremely compassionate and fair to point this out, and in no way unkind to the child who attacked the other child.

Reality is not about your emotive response, and the reality is the victim cannot be and must not be expected to sit in the same room as their attacker without more being done first to assure their safety.

It's good that the OP has dropped her plan to aggressively pursue acceptance of her apology from the mother of the victim, as that would have been absolutely appalling.

Moving forward, she cannot just take her child back to school as though nothing has happened, of course. What is the OP going to do to prevent her child assaulting another child again? School intervention is a must and that must be pushed for hard by the OP.

I had the same experience, I lost all faith in schools though and moved countries 😶 figured everything would basically be the same shit but different post code when it comes to London. Overstretched and overworked.

@FlippityFlippityFlop of course, I didn’t want to go into the all the variables, it was just addressing the use of waitlist that I wanted to do. From experience too much information isn’t helpful if someone is not in the right process. Op has clarified that it was just phrasing although @FeelShame I think you could benefit from some support in moving this along as they’ve breached timeframes a lot.