DS in trouble at school. How to respond?

[occa]

I've just had an email from 16 yo DS' school about an incident involving him and another student.

Basically, the boys from his class were all mucking about while getting changed for PE, throwing one boy's shoes about etc. The boy pushed/grabbed DS and DS flipped the boy over his shoulder and damaged the bathroom wall.

DS has been suspended. Don't know if the other boy has been punished. School have basically asked for comment from me and I'm not sure how to respond, tbh.

I'm pretty cross with DS as he's a black belt and knows full well he is not allowed to do judo off the mat, but the other boy did grab him first, so I sort of get it?

Your son was being u mind and humiliating another child.. what did you expect him to do just stand there while your son made him a laughing stock.

start with.. if you were the other boys mum what advice would you give your son.

there doesn't seem to be any dispute that the other boy made the first move and that DS responded

His response was hugely disproportionate, if all the other boy did was push him, after provocation. Were they all trying to shove the blame onto the other boy, rather than taking responsibility for their part in what happened?

You seem to keep wanting to place blame on the other boy for making the first move, are you even acknowledging your son is in the wrong here? The boy ‘made the first move’ after obviously getting fed up of your son throwing his belongings around! Your son and friends started this not the other boy

I was just coming on to say this! I would imagine his instructors won't be too impressed with this.
Op your ds is too old to be behaving like this and you need to tell him this

The head of year sounds like a dick head.
I hope that the other boy's parents are getting involved.

As for what you should say about this.
I would apologise, offer to pay for the wall and say that you have told your DS not to take other people's belongings.

Was the shoe throwing part of a pattern of behaviour where the boys were bullying this other lad?

Not necessarily. I have asked the OP in a more measured way.
It might be bullying. It might be a bunch of lads who regularly throw each others stuff around. It's not wise to jump to conclusions.

Agree, some of these responses are very, very OTT at this stage.

Oh my, your son and his "friends" sound awful OP.

Throwing somebody's property around is not messing around, it is bullying.

Your son should buy the boy he bullied a new pair of shoes. He should also apologize publicly and find new friends.

So a boy being bullied (having his items thrown around) ends up being pushed into a wall enough to damage it. Your son is rightly suspended and should be utterly ashamed of himself.
You are victim blaming here. I'm not surprised the boy grabbed your son, it was his attempt to get the bullying to stop i would imagine. He didn't start it.
Btw stud walls are not bloody balsa wood. They take a lot of force to push through.

Your son (& friends) started it, your son then overreacted and got suspended. Seems fair enough to me. I wouldn’t have expected the other boy to be punished at all.

Sounds like your son is a horrible bully. No I don’t ‘get it’ that he threw the boy who was being bullied when he tried to get back his trainers. Poor boy and you should be ashamed of your ds for bullying.

You don't seem to have acknowledged the bullying that happened. Your son is absolutely right to be suspended and I'd come down on him like a tonne of bricks.

Does sound like your son may have been involved in bullying and that's why he has been suspended.

You say 'mucking about' - maybe it was really 'picking on someone'.

What do you think?

Any group of children doing an activity to another lone child which means them having their belongings messed with is out of order for me. Banter is everyone joining in the fun together, not one person singled out.

Oh well that’s ok then 😳

I don’t think that the other boy should receive any punishment. He was being bullied; he attempted to retrieve his property - his shoes and he was picked up and thrown over OPs son’s shoulder.

It’s luck that he wasn’t injured.

Your son made the first move by throwing this other lads shoes about. Using black belt karate moves in response to a push from a clearly heightened boy who was being bullied by your son is hardly self defence. Come on now OP.

@sprigatito wishing your son well.

I don't think it's helpful to automatically assume the OP's son is a bully. He may be. The other boy may have been the butt of this "mucking about" for god knows how long.

Today the OP's son behaved abhorrently and had a violent outburst. That the violence incorporated a judo move is, if anything, even more concerning and I'd be thinking very carefully about letting him continue his sport. That his immediate reaction to his victim was to throw him against a wall is deeply worrying. It's not a normal reaction. What if they'd been on the street "mucking about" and the boy had gone into a brick wall or through a plate glass window?

At the same time, if my son were the victim today I'd want an absolute guarantee from the Headteacher that nothing of this kind would ever happen again. I'd be looking into taking the legal route if I didn't get it.

I don't think the OP is a troll. I do think unfortunately she's fallen into the "boys will be boys/it's all a bit of a laugh/bantz" mindset that all too often parents of boys use. NABALT but we are doing them no service by letting them do it and by excusing violence against anybody as mucking about.

Come on OP sounds like your kid was acting like Billy Big Shit and now he has ended up in trouble someone else is to blame. Have a word with yourself.

This!!!! X10000000

Don’t minimise it at all!!!

It sounds like your son and his friends were bullying this poor kid and he’s (quite rightly) retaliated.
Id be absolutely fuming with him.

Very few 16 year olds have black belts in judo. It sounds like he has a physically aggressive streak that was channeled into martial arts from a young age. Some pretty big red flags here. The school was correct in suspension.

I can remember the girls at school taking my stuff and throwing it around. I can remember how angry/ scared/frustrated I felt and how I used to shake with anger and cry which just made them more gleeful. After months of having my pencil case or water bottle stolen and thrown around, I stopped trying to get the stuff back and I slapped one of them so hard round the face my hand stung. Am I proud of it? No. Did they steal my stuff again? Also no. I took my detention as punishment and saw it as the end of the matter

I think you have to bring him to the judo coach and be explained this is something you never ever do against someone off the training facility. You could kill them very easily