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!

Yes Angelina, we have to be very patient and friendly while handling them.

You mentioned another thread, which I haven't seen so am not sure of the backstory.

MN has gone very strange and polarised about behaviour threads. I feel like the number of people suggesting corporal punishment has also increased in recent months/years, bizarre when it's such an outdated and almost universally not recommended method, indeed illegal in several countries including parts of the UK.

IME look for the posts where people actually have experience dealing with what you are dealing with. Not just the people who say what they "would" do. And consider posting in sections like Parenting, Behaviour/Development, Education, or even SEN if that is suspected. You get less traffic overall but you also get less people wading in whose experience is a generation out of date or who don't have children at all.

Have you told school this?

Is this teacher's classroom noisier and more chaotic than what he's used to?

What names did the other children call him? Which stuff did they move? At what point did an adult intervene?

I'm a teacher in secondary, but I have several boys who can manage a certain amount of irritation and then they just snap. So guess what? No one is allowed to irritate anyone else in my classroom. Treating the symptom and not the cause isn't useful in a school environment.

He's obviously playing violent games online. Take away his devices.

This is very worrying.

I would bet that he’s either found a way to get online, so on someone’s phone or his own iPad, or he’s regularly playing with kids somewhere who have done this. Kids don’t just make this up from nowhere.

You need to set some really strong boundaries at home around inappropriate behaviour- thinks like warnings and time outs. No jokey swearing, play fighting or “roasting” at all for a while.

I would take him offline completely (no access to devices at all for a while) and also arrange a meeting with school to try to get to the bottom of this. Ask them if any of the other kids are doing it? Does he play with older kids at break or lunchtime? Does he have access to chrome books at school?

Also have an honest chat with his Dad about this- again don’t accuse him but say how worried you are, how it’s affecting his schooling and friends and how if it gets worse you think that the school will escalate things and you’ll both have to get involved. His Dad is likely to be defensive but this might sink in behind the scenes.

I would also spend much more time reading with him, looking at books and pictures and discussing what he did. If you just chat to him in a non—accusatory fashion it’s likely to come out.

If this doesn’t work and it gets worse I would see your GP and see if he can be referred for counselling or to a psychologist.

seriously? stop trying to tell the OP to do something which is not just bad parenting but actively illegal where she lives.

It wasn’t my suggestion, but a PPs, I was just pointing out the difference between abuse and a smack. I have acknowledged that it is illegal in her country.

My husband stabbed someone who was annoying him with a pencil at this age. There was an incident where he hit a neighbor as well, with a bat, to the back of the head.

His parents paid the doctor bill and got him into therapy right away. Something changed and he was able to get control of his anger and never physically acted out again.

He just says the feelings he was having at that time would come on so strong and he didn't know how to control it.

Aside from the advice that's already come in, I'd say carry on engaging with and working with the school and any support and advice that's available. The worst thing I see at our school is when parents go into "mama bear" mode and "protect" their child at all costs, even when that means never accepting that their child has done something wrong. We had a mum a couple of years ago who thought the sun shone out of her son's bum and whenever there were consequences for his actions (he was violent, aggressive, mean, swore, used racist and homophobic language and slurs, this was not a one off), she would keep him off school at home watching films with her and having a mum & son day or a treat out. Wild. He obviously never learned from any of this, or rather he learned that he could do anything he wanted to do and his mum would always be his biggest fan and he'd get away with everything. Unsurprisingly, he's now being very challenging and regularly suspended from high school, with much the same adversarial relationship between mum and school - it's always been very "them and us" in her facebook posts, like the world is out to get her precious little boy who is now a dangerous and terrorising teenager.

Where I've seen more positive outcomes is when parents in your position do what you're doing - look for advice, take it on board, work WITH the school and teachers and any other support agencies who come on board.

I won't pretend to know exactly what's going on with your child, I don't. I'm sorry that it's obviously a source of stress and worry for you. We all want the best happy lives for our children so I know it'll be upsetting for you.

Like others have said, cut out the gaming and devices and screens completely. If nothing else, at this point that's got to be a consequence for his actions. It'll also help him to regulate better regardless of whether he has additional learning needs, good sleep, nutritious food, fresh air, plenty of physical activity will all help.

Have you talked to the kids at all about what goes on at dad’s house? If he was controlling and nasty with you, it’s possible he is also not the nicest to the kids. My kids come home from their dad’s very dysregulated. He is snappy with them and I know he doesn’t give them a lot of attention as he spends most of his time scrolling on his phone.

Kids don’t often tell us when they are upset or worried but instead they show it in their behaviour. If my son was displaying concerning behaviour like this I would want to know what was underneath it. He is obviously struggling with something and I doubt it is all due to the teacher. Since the other adult providing care outside of school is his dad, it might be worth considering that something might be going on there which is causing him distress?

How recent is the split from his dad ? Could that be why he is angry , does he want to stay at his dad’s every weekend ? Is he worse after going to his dads . I’m not trying to blame his dad but usually when children are angry and violent there is a reason ? Big hugs to you it is hard .

"always be calm and make them understand with an example of yours, where you are making them understand and also not scaring, may be if you might need to make up a story. but try to make them understand."

I honestly don't understand what @Maverick11 was trying to say here, and I have not seen your other thread... but I'm going to wade in with my old-person views on this.

There's lots of talk of "helping" and "supporting" the poor lamb but my approach would be to come down hard. At 8yrs, he can surely understand that that kind of behaviour is not acceptable, once it has been made clear. It has been made clear by his school, so now it's time for serious consequences - really uncomfortable ones. I'm not sure how cutesy stories can help. Just good old-fashioned discipline: removal of all devices, cancelling of days out or parties, until he has improved.

I see from recent updates that your son may have been provoked.

Agree teacher needs to be on top of any bullying or antagonistic behaviour. That's a given.

Did this work with your kids @shockthemonkey ?

Do you smack your children @RomeoRivers

Not sure how that’s relevant to OP’s situation.

No, he has never been violent before. In general he's a lovely kid and pretty young for his age.

And I'm not just saying that he's lovely - his club leader has said it, random people have told me that I have two wonderful children.

He hugs the lollypop man every night when I collect him from school!

How is finishing his work too quickly bad behavior? How does a reading car signed in blue pen rather than black equal him behaving badly?

His work was correct and the school has no rules about pen colour for reading cards.

Why was he excluded from after school club, if he had never been violent before and is so lovely?

You need to engage with his father no matter how poor the relationship is. This is too important. This will very likely be about what he’s seeing at his father’s

So he has never been violent before
and since this call he has not been violent since

so a complete one off?

No, I'm always with them when we see my dad. He absolutely dotes on them though and they can't do a thing wrong in his eyes - if anything he spoils the absolutely rotten.

Also what an absolutely dreadful thing to do to someone. Awful ☹️☹️

Yeah, what’s the reason that he can’t go to after school club? Is that a one off, or has he been asked not to attend for the foreseeable future? In my kids school this would only be done where there is very very challenging behaviour.

He's been mostly fine at school until this term where his behavior has deteriorated dramatically.

so what other stuff has been going on if this violence is a complete one off?

I was also wondering the same - your dad was abusive. Could your son have seen anything at all from him like that when you weren’t there for a minute maybe?