Peer-to-peer abuse: Victim's parents call for changes to guidelines

Sweep!!!!!

What would dad do?

This is an interesting point. Mr Whatshisknickers works nights, I work days, so he always picked the kids up after school and had already involved the police before I knew anything of it. I was at work.

Would I have done the same? I'm honestly not sure.

sweet under

I personally think all forms of aggression and violence are too well tolerated in schools and not enough is done to stop it.

My experience with my kids was quite fortunate, very little bullying etc. However, I know of children who were punched, kicked and, in one case, hospitalised in primary school due to bullying.

The targets are male and female. The perpetrators were male.

If protecting all kids were a proiroty schools would never sweet up the carpet damaging behaviour. It is on no one's interests.

Who are we protecting here and why.

So women go in as dad would 'go mental'.

Going mental is correct response to child being sexually assaulted in school.

Send the men in. Maybe then they will fucking well do something.

I'm not joking.

Arnolds post ffs

Sorry for awful typos

Posting on rarely used tablet thing

Arnolds pay is great.

It's usually the worth who deal with or try top deal with this stuff.

We are socialised to be nice, and give benefit of doubt.

Ok. Fuck that. Kid has been sexually assaulted. What would dad do?

Go through the roof.

And, obviously not advocating violence. Lots of threads on here though, what should i do school are ignoring.

Do what he did. Are you calling the police. I all n going to sit here until you call the police. This is a crime. Etc.

No it shouldn't be up to women to sort out Male sexual offences at any age. But we are where we are.

"It makes them look bad so they don't want it to be public knowledge."

I know but when it does come out, and it often seems (quite rightly) emerge, the fact there are cover ups make a it so much worse.

AngelasAshes

We have blinders on when it comes to girls.

But you've come along to show us the error of our ways

I'm glad she's doing well. Yes I so agree that coverups don't help the perpetrators, well adults it does, but that's a different conversation.
A child or young teen exhibiting that kind of behaviour usually has something going on behind the scenes.

I can't really say to much more about the situation in my neighbourhood at risk of outing, but yes, very troubled young girl, unstable family dynamic.

italiangreyhound

They're reluctant for the same reason any institution is reluctant from the BBC through Scouts to the Catholic Church. It makes them look bad so they don't want it to be public knowledge.

ArnoldWhatshisknickers

"Schools in my experience are very reluctant to involve outside authorities.

When my own daughter was sexually assaulted by a boy who had already similarly assaulted numerous other girls in their final year at primary school the police were only involved because Mr Whatshisknickers sat in the head teachers office, phone in hand, and flat out asked whether she was calling the police or he should?"

I'm so sorry this happened to you daughter. Glad it was a relatively minor assault. Your husband was totally right to involve the police or rather push the head into doing so.

If other parents had been proactive then this boy could have been stopped sooner.

I don't understand why schools are reluctant to involve the police. If I were assaulted at work and my work place failed to follow the proper procedure or tried to hush it up, I coulf probably sue them. We need to take children's safety as seriously as we take our own safety.

Thank you DanaPhoenix. It was a long time ago and my daughter is fine. Perhaps more importantly as far as I'm aware the boy in question is fine, there were no further incidents, his behaviour was nipped in the bud. He came from a difficult background and we felt that other parents were reluctant to take the matter further because we were all aware of this having known him since nursery school. We also felt once he moved to secondary school other families who didn't know his circumstances would be less sympathetic. There was a risk that if he targeted a girl from a different primary school at that point an older brother might take matters into his own hands. I am not convinced that cover ups are in the best interests of perpetrators any more than victims.

LangCleg yes, I agree it is mostly boys. I just meant it is not peer to peer.

The term peer on peer is definitely problematic, I was reading some American literature on the subject and in many cases they (education, criminal and psychiatry institutions) were refering to peer groups as being up to 7 years in age, essentially making a 11yo the same peer group as a 4 year old, which is rediculous in practice, but probably makes sense on paper as that age groups conveniently lumps whole primary schools and secondary schools together.

Let's call this what it is, School Based Sexual Abuse.

Ok thanks for answering Arnold for your daughter . It should absolutely be changed then, I'm gobsmacked that schools don't take the matter further, though in fairness I'm not sure that they would here in OZ either.

Surely it's basic safeguarding procedure?

A lot of head teachers, unfortunately, view arse-covering as their default response. (Way back in the 70s my mum taught in a rough inner city comp at the height of football hooliganism when the "Inter City Firms" were running riot. Turned out some of the boys had been making "kung fu throwing stars" for use at football matches in the school metalwork shop! The head's immediate response was "how do we stop the police being involved?" He was most affronted to be told this would not be possible.)

I realise everything should be guided by the victim's needs, and that many victims may not want to report, but I'd strongly advise any parents to go straight to the police in parallel with going to the school. If the school is any good, they'll understand why you've gone to the police too. If the school's shit, you won't have wasted weeks being given the run-around by their restorative justice scheme.

It was an issue I flat out asked my son's potential secondary schools about - because I don't want him to be in an environment where this isn't taken seriously.

I think reporting means reporting to the school.

Schools in my experience are very reluctant to involve outside authorities.

When my own daughter was sexually assaulted by a boy who had already similarly assaulted numerous other girls in their final year at primary school the police were only involved because Mr Whatshisknickers sat in the head teachers office, phone in hand, and flat out asked whether she was calling the police or he should?

(the police incidentally took the matter very seriously and provision was made to ensure our daughter and the boy were in different classes when they entered high school despite it being a relatively minor assault, but that was 12 years ago now and things seem to have changed for the worse)

.

I'm really sorry, this question is going to sound stupid, but by reporting are pp meaning that the victim has reported, or that whomever the victim has reported to taken the incident further and reported to the appropriate authorities?

I only ask because as a parent I was in a difficult situation where DS1 and another child spoke to me about a neighbourhood teen who was showing many kids pornography (not nudes actual internet videos). I spoke with parents of the children (not the perpetrator) and quite a few were reluctant to actually do something about it, except ban their kids from playing with her. I reported to social services and police, because I was quite concerned that her behaviour was an indication of abuse at some point I. Her past and the fact that she was interacting with men on porn sites.

I agree with littlebrowndog that it should be called sexual assault. I very much feel like the 'peer on peer' phrasing tries not to stigmatize the perpetrators. And it obviously needs statistics to be recorded on sex and age of perpetrator and victim, if you want to implement meaningful measures.

As the mom of a boy, I am keenly aware that they can become victims, too. Which is, why I am vigilant when he might be around other, particularly older boys. And no, as annoying and transgressive as an unwanted kiss can be for a child (I've been there), this is not the type of stuff I fear (referring to a previous poster here).

And society always blames or ridicules the victims. Here is a story of a family who ultimately moved, after their son was sodomized with a pencil by some of his team mates. Their dad, a coach, thought nothing of it.

www.salon.com/2013/06/24/rape_culture_punishes_boys_too/

(I understand some on here won't be thrilled I dig out the one story where a boy was victimized, when girls are victims 10x as often, but aside from my probable bias, because I have a son, I do believe we won't make any headway as long as boys grow up in a culture where they seem to only have the choice to be victims or victimizers).

As with the hate crime laws though, sex is excluded. Why?

Because there aren't enough prisons, courts, police, specialist schools to deal with all the perpetrators?

Because then society would have to admit sexual assaults/harassment are endemic?

Because men might actually have to change instead of virtue signalling?

Excellent thread highlighting the increased sexual assault in schools by boys on girls, and the nonsensical ‘newspeak’ that names it as ‘peer on peer’. If you can’t name sex you can’t name sexual assault. #sexmatters

From a twitter thread