My 6y old son said something really horrible at school

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Hi all, first time poster here so please bear with me. I’ll try to keep this short.

Today we received an email from my sons teacher informing us our son had been teasing another boy from his class on Friday, and at one point said to him “I hope your mum dies”. What makes this so incredibly hurtful is that this boys mum is going through final stage cancer. I spoke to him about it and he was extremely remorseful, cried a lot and said he doesn’t know why he said it it. DS knows what he said was awful, says he is a terrible boy which of course we have said he is not!

So not to drip feed but we used to live in the UK but moved to this new country 2 years ago. Our son has had to learn a totally new language and is now fluent in it. However since our move he gets insecure around other kids and when he does he has can tease other children to get a reaction. We have talked to him so many times, done what we can to build his confidence and involving him in sports and other activities. He has had regular play dates (he has made couple of good friends). But if they aren’t around, or he mixes with another particular boy he can be mean to other kids in the class. We have tried getting angry and taking away privileges, or not getting cross (finishing work early to give him some alone time with us, extra cuddles etc.)

Just to add when we lived in the uk he attended nursery and we had zero problems. The feedback we got was always that he got on brilliantly with all the children. When we go back to see family and friends he’s back to acting normal. So the behaviour definitely stems from confidence issues.

But what can we do? If he keeps saying awful things like this he will just isolate himself even further. Just can’t believe he would say something so awful 😭 Any words of advice truly appreciated

This is tough. I feel like it's important to be open about the consequences of what teasing and saying hurtful things are, which is basically that kids will come to dislike him and avoid him. He's old enough to understand that's not what he wants to happen.

I'd also talk to him about how he's feeling when he does this and maybe come up with some alternative ways of dealing with the feelings. My son is 8 and I find giving him some very specific suggestions of what he should do if a certain feeling or situation arises helps him. Something quick and easy.

Also, I say to mine (a lot), if they feel that unkind words might come out of them, then it's best to stay quiet (basically if you don't have anything nice say, say nothing at all).

I think it can also be good to try and encourage them to repair some of the damage if they’ve hurt someone. So i’d be wanting my son to apologise to the boy in person or in writing (maybe 6 is too young for that though?). He’d find it really hard, but it's important to me that he learns to own his actions and apologise when he's messed up.

Many many thanks for taking the time to respond. This is very helpful♥️

It’s the move, away from his wider family, the kids he knew before. Now he’s in a country where he had to learn a second language so he feels like an outsider. My mother moved my brother and I as kids, not abroad but from a small village into a large town. I never adjusted, I felt like an alien and all I wanted was to move back to the village and be at school with the kids I had played with since pre school age. So I acted out. Of course I had undiagnosed autism which probably made a huge difference but the underlying theme is similar. I don’t know what the answer is other than to make him feel very secure and loved at home. My mother didn’t do this so it made the situation even worse.

We lived abroad when DS was 3 to 9. DS became bilingual and had a few friends. We decided non of us were picking up on the nuances of the culture and although everyone was friendly it just didn’t feel right for us. We moved home to the UK. DS flourished in the UK state school system. We don’t regret living abroad and DH and I will retire there but DS often says he is happy we moved back when we did.

I would say to him, that feeling you are feeling, that nasty one, that wishes you hadn't said it and knows it was really unkind? That is called "shame". Everybody feels shame sometimes. Sometimes shame isn't helpful, like if people make you feel ashamed about something you can't help like if you have glasses or a funny accent. And sometimes it is helpful, like now. That feeling is telling you that this time, you did something nasty and you let yourself down. Most people don't like that feeling so they try to think before they say something unkind, and try to make it better if they do mess up.
How could we make this better?

That’s good advice from @Aria2023 .
To an adult, saying something like that is really shocking, but we should remember that a 6 year old doesn’t have a real understanding of how bad it is. He’s obviously very sorry, and there’s nothing to be gained from making a bigger deal of it.

@Teenylittlefella that's a really good way of dealing with it.

Apologises! I didn’t expect to get more replies so hadn’t checked mumsnet for awhile. Truly appreciate the helpful responses and take your suggestions on board. Things are much better for my boy.. sadly his friends mum has now passed away and he was genuinely very upset over it.

He still has confidence issues but we are never short on play dates, all of his best friends are girls he just seems to gel better with them. I still feel a massive amount of guilt for the move but hopefully the other positives outweigh this part. We will be in the uk majority of summer holidays which I so hope he will enjoy ♥️

It sounds like he was distressed by the teasing, so said the worst thing he could think of to get it to stop. Not saying that makes it ok, but he is still very young and probably couldn't think of a more suitable way out of the situation at the time. I would work with him on how to tell a teacher, leave the situation etc as well as how if he is hurtful to others, they won't want to be around him. One of my children said something different, but threatening response, at a similar age and I do wish I had got to the root of why at the time. It took a couple of years to really understand why it happened.

Hmmm
It’s really awful but …My children went to an international school and I heard this kind of thing surprisingly often . Maybe someone else can explain it as I don’t know the reason but when children learn a new language they often go through these phases of saying high impact horrible things when they feel threatened. Like some sort of defense mechanism to protect themselves against their weakness with language?

Also using appalling phrases they’ve picked up from tv etc . I once heard a child call another ‘ a mother fucking son of a cunt’ over a scuffle in the dinner queue . It seemed to come out of nowhere because he was a sweet , shy , usually kind boy with a recent grasp of the new language , but it was as if he’d saved up the most horrible impactful sentence to use if he felt threatened.

Thank you for the responses they mean a lot. In re to this special incident he was very sorry and fully acknowledged the death. I went to the mothers funeral and he unfortunately found her “obituary leaflet?” and insisted on keeping it on his night desk afterwards. But this is maybe why his behaviour came as such a shock, he is so in tune with his emotions and aware of all things…
Anyway he seems to be doing much better although I can tell some stressful indicators for example chewing on his sweaters and flapping his arms. Harmless
perhaps but things he only does in environments uncomfortable for him. It just hurts to see him like this and I wish I could gently stop the behaviour and for him to feel more confident. If anyone reads this any advices are much appreciated x

Flapping his arms? How often does he do this?

Hardly ever, and never at home. But if at school in circumstances he’s uncomfortable in he can do it. Hard to explain really, he does it when he wants to be silly but it looks odd.

It's probably worthwhile remembering that a mother dying is one of the worst things that a 6 year old could possibly imagine (or any age) and he is witnessing that at close hand.

So whilst it seems he has been horribly unkind, he is probably rocked to his core at the very idea that the mother of someone his age could die and leave him. Somewhere deep down he's worried it could happen to him too but doesn't know how to express that.

I'd keep encouraging kindness and gentleness, open communication and help him practice empathy for others.

His poor classmate, that's so sad. 😞

That is a very good point, it was definitely the absolutely worst he could think of. We have had to answer many questions on death recently and he wants guarantees we won’t die. I think before it was always something that happens when you are really old so this particular death changes that. He wants to be assured you only get these deathly illnesses if you do something “wrong” and it’s been tricky explaining as we don’t want to worry him but we of course can’t tell him cancer is somehow the persons fault. Just all very sad. I remember having these confusing thoughts at a similar age, I was petrified of dying 🙁