School called about my eight-year-old's violent behaviour, what should I do?

[Exhaustedand]

I've just had a phone call from the school to ask me to pick my child up. He's been misbehaving all day - going around and pretending to shoot people, dragging his fingers over his throat in a "slit your throat" gesture and to top it all off, he stabbed another child with a pencil because she was annoying him.

He's eight and has spent the afternoon in isolation because his behavior has been so bad. He's also been excluded from after school club because they don't have the staff there to cope with his behavior.

I genuinely have no idea why or where he's got the gestures from- we don't watch violent stuff and it's something I've never seen any of my immediate family do.

I'm a single mum with another older boy and I'm just at a total loss of what to do next. School are putting a plan into place to give him more support and I'm planning to make an appointment with my GP to discuss things but I don't know how to manage his behavior and to help him. I'm reading the books recommend on my other thread and have been using the things I've learned but I can't see any change on his behavior.

I'd be extremely for any help or advice please!

Blimey give the op a break. You seem really weirdly overinvested in getting her to hit her child. 😬😬

It was once incident that sounds like it's been dealt with.

I absolutely cannot believe you think hitting a child is the answer. From looking at the OP's other posts it sounds like he's probably ND and they both need better support.

I’m not overinvested in OP hitting her child. It was actually a PPs suggestion and I was just pointing out that if it had the same consequences as it did for her, then perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad thing; it’s illegal in her country anyway.

But I do have a problem with OP contradicting what she said and making excuses for her DC’s behaviour.

I haven’t read any of her other threads, but she said on here ‘no SEN’.

No, she said no diagnosed SEN which isn't the same thing.

No diagnosed SEN. We're getting that started now. He's been mostly fine at school until this term where his behavior has deteriorated dramatically.

How is she making excuses or contradicting herself?

All I see is a stressed out mum asking for help and getting piled on by posters who want her to beat her child.

And also if his behaviour has changed dramatically since moving up a class it makes sense to wonder if something in the classroom might be causing it - be that the teacher, the room itself, the work or just the change.

I'm all for supporting teachers but there's the occasional one who seems to absolutely hate children!

You can tell him - truthfully - that there has been an instance of another boy being taken away by the police for using a pencil to stab someone in school. [In Fife, a high school boy used a pencil to stab his teacher in the neck.]

He might not see a pencil as a 'real' weapon, but it can do a lot of damage.

It's unfortunately not that unusual for boys to use pencils as weapons in this way. It's just that they normally get off with it because they've 'only' used it to stab a classmate in the back of the hand.

If your son has seen others getting off with it, he might not see it as a big deal. He needs to know that what he did was seriously wrong.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-45940788

Apologises, I took that to mean there was none.

But she backtracked on calling him violent, said she didn’t say the teacher was picking on him, when she did, and then blamed the teacher when she pulled him up on not meeting basic expectations.

I think it’s only right the acknowledge the severity of OPs original post, minimising his behaviour isn’t going to help anyone.

I have punished him. I've cancelled a special event we were going to and he lost all of his screen time for the month. I also took him to buy a card and small gift out of his pocket money for the other child.

When you’ve spoken to him about it can he explain why he’s so angry this year?

He said the classroom is too noisy and the other child kept annoying him by calling him names and moving his stuff.

Have you asked him what the cut throat sign means (to him) and where he’s seen it? He’s got it from somewhere and at 8 he should be able to tell you where.

Is he being bullied and acting out?

Does he have any different friends this year?

I feel sorry for the other children in his class.

Our DS played up at this age, but I would say it was most of the boys. I remember that year being crazy at school. He lost all privileges, play dates , tv any electronic games and any toys which were remotely triggering. Back to books and simpler toys. We had a boring month of routine and he eventually calmed down. Pre-pubertal hormonal surges sometimes cause rapid mood swings, sensitivity, and defiance around this age.

We were very calm and firm and grew out of it quite quickly and he still remembers that month. He is 20 now and absolutely fine.

So has he been violent before today?
A lot of posters focussing on the finger gun and cut throat gesture, i think these are a red herring ,it is the stabbing with a pencil that is the issue here!
Unless the op reveals otherwise, it seems to havr been a one-off response to bring annoyed by the other kid.Totally unacceptable of course, but I am not getting the need for a GP appointment, and medicalising one incident ?

It is a very difficult situation, and I am surprised to find so many commenters trying to isolate one cause to your DS’s sudden change in behaviour. Computer games, films, father leading him with a babysitter etc. At the moment, try to observe your son carefully and talk to him warmly and lovingly, keep letting him know you want to understand how he is feeling. Something is clearly going on in his emotions, you need to try to understand what without blaming some external trigger

You need to identify where he is seeing the aggressive gestures he is using and remove them. It’s probably the gaming and he’s not yet mature enough to process what he is seeing without it causing harm.

Why are so many posters advocating for hitting children on here these days?

Was he banned from after school care because of one day of behaviour or is he violent there too?

How does he argue with his older sibling? Does he get violent?

If you and his dad are really banning him from the internet and tightly controlling gaming, is he in regular contact with other children while you’re not there? Eg Is he allowed to go out and play without adult supervision? I wouldn’t be surprised if another 9ish year old had a mobile phone and showed it to others. He has seen the gesture somewhere and if it’s not an screen, internet or gaming then it has to be a real person. The only “innocent” explanation is a pirate doing it but if he’s not got access to screens…

Children go around pretending to shoot people all the time. They do it in loads of playground games. However it is normally done in tag type games and in a completely non-aggressive way. If he is doing it out of context of a game then it is more unusual. The throat slitting is weirder and the pencil stabbing is bad. It sounds like he is quite unhappy at school. Could he have some counselling. They can be very good at helping children manage their anger and may be able to help with whatever is causing it in the first place.

Hello,
So there is a classic checklist I recommend:
Hearing test
Eye test

Then there you need to split this into two categories:

Proactive regulation activities:

Consequences post an incident:

If the violence has a root cause in SEN or high anxiety caused by worry because you were in hospital - the impact on the brain is the same - dysregulation and the brain is tipping into fight or flight. Therefore it makes sense to focus on proactive ways to manage that ‘circuit being tripped’ before it tips.

So proactive regulation activities can include:

• Working at a standing desk
• Having a ‘placemat’ on his desk - to mark out his area with his pencil/pen/book - no one is allowed to touch his items on his mat.
• Run before school (skipping, kicking football against a wall for at least 15 mins)
• Noise cancelling headphones - if he will tolerate them.
• Teacher uses calming music when children transitions from break and lunch - quietly playing.
• Explicity teach and practice breathing exercises- he need to be taught how to activate his parasympathetic nervous system. This can be done by breathing in for a count of 4 and out for 6 (if that’s too much go 3/5). He needs to practice and have a trigger to do it, so he starts to do it himself regarly through the day. Eg everytime he goes through his classroom door.
• He needs a ‘feeling irritable’ plan - when starting to feel hot, itchy, irritated - go to the quiet corner in the classroom and tear some paper into strips (get some ‘nervous energy out’. And then use words to say what has happened. Eg to the teacher, X is touching my equipment.
• (This needs to be set up, emotions and feelings talked about and made explicit, a routine to go to preset up resources and then that is modelled and practised - no child is just going to get that straight away. But it’s so worth this time investment).
• He needs some simple scripts eg. No, these are my pens. If you take it I will tell the teacher’. ‘I don’t like you taking my ball. You can ask to play or go away’. - You can think about things he might need to say in school, at home. He needs to be able to say what he wants and think of what to do if his goal is blocked. Learning simple scripts help because they stop your son relying on trying to think when his brain is tipping towards fight or flight.
• Make him join an active afterschool club - Saturday football, judo, swimming. These will channel energy into positive areas and give space for a healthy outlet for aggression.

Consequences post an incident.
Whatever you do eg take tablet away etc
Include a restoration element eg say sorry to the person he hurt/write a letter

You go through this script wiith him - every time so it becomes a routine:
You hit xxxx (don’t ask him, if you know the behaviour - asking invites denial or deflection).
Who did this hurt? (Try to encourage thinking wider than just the one who was hit eg scared the people on the table, made your son feel upset)
What can you do to put it right?

This is a long post.
In short:
-,Check for physical reasons that a child may not articulate
-,Think about proactive strategies for promoting regulation and practice them.
-,Practice and use scripts to support language when the monkey brain is trying to flip his lid.

I hope some of those ideas help. It can feel rotten and overwhelming but there are lots of things you can do, together to help this.

Have you checked the 10 year old's devices? Could an older child be showing him inappropriate content?

If he's possibly being picked on then he needs alternative ways to express his displeasure . If he feels his teacher is unapproachable then he might be better in another class with a plan for how he copes with peers. Ask the school about SEMH support (hopefully they'll have someone who does an ELSA course with him).

Obviously he needs boundaries but he also needs help and some people here are very cruel.

For what it's worth, a child only needs to see something like this once for it to capture his or her imagination, as I well remember from my own childhood and that of my children. I once watched, with my parents, some "movie of the week" horror movie that was probably so tame my parents saw no danger in it, but it haunted my imagination for YEARS.

So this behavior he is imitating doesn't need to come from repeated exposure to violence in video games, TV shows or movies. He could have just seen something once. Maybe even on another child's phone. You may never know. If he picks up the slightest hint that he could be in trouble for watching it, he will never tell you.

One could speculate forever as to why he is doing this, but the most effective way forward is to try to get him to tell you himself. School has already punished him. I don't think you need to punish him too. He needs to see that you care and are on his side and that you want him to stop doing this because it's hurting him and everyone around him.

He must be getting the violent gestures from somewhere and since you don't know where, he's the only person who can tell you. Can you get him to open up without fear of being punished for being honest? Maybe something is going on at dad's that you don't realise, or your ipad restrictions are not as good as you think they are, or he's seeing stuff on his brother's devices, or he's being bullied etc. etc. He's the best person to explain what's going on.

Does he play in a football club? From my experience (2 boys, both thankfully hate football but have been at the receiving end) they tend to be the source of a lot of really bad behaviours - football parents can be really bad role models. we live next to a grassroots football club training ground, and the stuff parents (mums and dads) are shouting is insane!