My son was hit on the head by the swimming instructor

[ali1982]

My son came home from school upset because when he went swimming with the school the swimming instructor whacked him on the head with 2 floaters.My son told me that he was stood by the pool and that the woman was telling the class off and then she whacked him and another child on the head.I have made a complaint to the leisure center about this person and also to the school.But the school seems to be not taking it seriously.I have said that if my son was naughty i dont have a problem with him being told off but the woman should not have hit him on the head.My son is only 8 years old.What should the school do in this situation ?

Ds1 used to have towel flicking fights with the staff in the kitchens he was working in..

He came home loads times with massive welts.

But loved it.
And unfortunatley for DS2 he got very good at it.

I remember the GAFG school of parenting pagwatch.
You should patent the name.

Exactly, think of the assaults siblings subject each other to . . . . .kicking, punching, pushing, throwing objects. Not good i know but think how much worse that is for kids day in , day out. !! Plus the verbal abuse.. . . ."you're horrid, hate you, Wish you were dead , " etc

I love a good tea towel fight.

Many happy memories of youth group camps there.

My siblings and I were always trying to injure each other/slag each other off.

Woe betide the outsider who said anything though.

'I suspect many parents think it is which is why volunteer sports coaches are like gold-dust, and likely to become rarer.'

Yup. I help at a sports club. There is one mother, who ought to know better as she is a teacher, who causes hilarity by telling us how her son is being bullied by other children at the sessions. What we see is HER son tripping people over, pushing them, etc.

LeQueen...are you from Stamford
Lucky you if you are.
I love Stamford.

I'm from Stamford.
Went to school in Rutland.

Would move back if we could afford it.

Ali - whether it hurt or not, he obviously felt shocked and humiliated by it.

I know for Early Years (EYFS Achieving Positive Behaviour Policy) the following rules apply:

? We never use physical punishment, such as smacking or shaking. Children are never threatened
with these.
? We do not use techniques intended to single out and humiliate individual children.

Maybe you can find out from Ofsted what the relevant document may be for older children, don't see why they shouldn't be afforded the same respect.

Whilst I can see why some of my learned vipers colleagues have got the wind up their tail about this (it does seems very minor compared to some of the things we've all seen at school), if she gets away with it this time, she may progress further with her 'techniques'.

I don't really get either side of this thread, tbh.

On the one hand, I imagine a young swimming instructor reaching over with a float and jovially tapping a kid. Not something I'd imagine many kids would be upset about - or even humiliated or embarrassed.

On the other hand, I can also imagine a teacher being quite vicious/bit bullying and being physically aggressive using the float to jab at the boy(which I'm sure is possible, as words don't leave a mark either).

It all depends on context. Scenario A, the boy needs to be told not to take things seriously. Scenario B, the instructor needs to be told to take it easy in future. I think there's no real evidence in this thread to conclude which is more likely - we have no info about the boy, how he normally gets on with others, how serious or social he is and nor do we have information about the event.

There's Scenario C - the possibility that the kid misread the situation and thought that she was intending to be more aggressive than she was, and there's learning to be had in that too. I don't think kids' concerns about this kind of thing should be met with a "man up" attitude - it should be talked about with respect for the individual kid's feelings and a desire to know the whole story. If it emerges in the conversation that it's a bit of a mountain out of a molehill, well, that can be explained and discussed. I dislike the use of macho language here - man up, wimps, wusses etc. He felt upset, he communicated that. You can do and should be able to do at 8 that without being mocked. A lot of things are still new - they will be at 14, at 18, at 22. It doesn't mean that feelings need to lead to mummy sorting the big bad lady out and it might be that he needs some feedback about how to act in those situations.

God, the 11 year olds in my secondary are still little babies (though they pretend to e streetwise ). I think it's reasonable for an 8 year old to not really "get" how to act in this situation which was, essentially, a new experience and one that just didn't make a lot of sense.

Additional "that" in there somewhere, sorry. Poor edit.

working9while5 - I do agree with what you say. Some of us have been exaggerating for comic effect.

Can I share a story about the time I nearly drowned a child in a swimming lesson? I leant over them, fell, and landed on the bottom of the pool with the child underneath me. The parents were very grateful that I'd rescued their child when she'd got into difficulties .

Breath of fresh air there from W9W5 in the horrible sweaty changing-room this thread has turned into.

Jeee - I did something similar with a little dog I rescued...

Working

I was the third poster on the thread and asked op exactly that - to try and ascertain whether the ds has misunderstood what happened given the likelihood that an 8 year old is often able to unintentionally exaggerate.

The end of the thread is not mocking the op. It is a reflection of the astonishment that posters feel police involvement would be a way to go or that calling a child a muppet must be damaging.

That position remains nonsensical and whilst the comedic air that has permeated later comments have exaggerated the opposing view it is no more ridiculous that the idea that a swimming instructor should make no contact with their charges for fear of hysterical suggestions of certain assault.

The 'sweaty changing room' air is no more unpleasant than the joyless, contactless, automated manners some parents seem to want their teachers and coaches

to adopt.

I agree entirely pagwatch.

No, I wasn't suggesting you were mocking the OP: I was saying I wouldn't really like to respond to a child's upset by mocking it using terms like "man up" or "wimp" or "wuss". I wasn't actually having a go at the tone of the thread at all, just making the point that I think you need to talk these things through with kids and that I feel I can't call the situation on the info here.

Working
I do see what you are saying.
And actually think we are agreeing.

I think though that people (not you) are also assuming that anyone encouraging their child to get a grip is standing over them barking.

I never bully or shout at my dd.it is perfectly possible to say to a child ' I can see you are upset but actually you are being silly about this and I need you to calm down and stop being ridiculous'
It is equally possible to recognise when your child is being knowingly silly and that can be dealt with more ....briskly. My dd often finds a reason to be distressed when it is bed time. It is a stalling behaviour which she still feels confident may work . In that situation ' pageboy just frightened me' may well be met with ' oh stop being a wuss and go to bed' because she is trying it on.
And then there are all points in between. Which does include ' mrs teacher shouted at me for no reason and I cried ' which, when I suggest that I may phone mrs teacher to check why that happened has become ' well I was talking to Mia and she called my name out, it may not have been a shout but I jumped a bit.... And dropped the ball I was playing with...which she confiscated because we were meant to be writing..."

Well, it's all about perspective, isn't it? I think 8 year olds are pretty naive, most of the time, and if they are in a potentially confusing social situation they can react disproportionately from an adult's POV but their upset is no less real. I don't think it has to be "acceptable" from an adult point of view to be taken seriously (though by "taken seriously" I mean "heard out", not "call in the cavalry"). From the fact there was disagreement on the thread, I'd say that it might have been one of those instances in which the child was a bit confused and potentially misjudged it.

I personally wouldn't see that as "petty chinging" or "grumpiness" or "tale telling" in a case like ths, but I guess we do all have different perspectives. It's so dependent on the individual kid and their history, how they generally are with things etc. It sounds like this was a surprising reaction for this boy which is why the OP was concerned. Of course, telling a kid to "man up" or stop being a "wuss" is one way of communicating your feelings as a parent about these types of things but it doesn't have to be the only way.