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 ?

I'm joining Pags' School... I really despair for some of the kids today. How are they going to cope in the real world without their Mummies coming in to battle at the slightest provocation, real or imagined?

Schools are struggling to discipline their pupils. Many pupils don't listen and are all too aware of their 'rights'. We've handicapped the teachers by storming in for every little thing and we hovver around to make sure the teachers are doing their jobs properly. We shouldn't be. I'm not a qualified teacher, I don't have the qualifications nor the experience and at some point you have to let the professionals do their job.

Yes there are bad teachers but there are also good ones. It really is getting to the stage where the slightest thing is blown up out of all proportion. "Bullying" is the new mantra and the kids are suffering under the weight of being impotent to deal with anything themselves. They are going to suffer in later life and the precious mummies can then 'pat themselves on the back for a job well done'...

OP... you're asking what the school will do about it. Why don't you ask them if you're so sure that you're right. It doesn't matter what anybody says here, you're outraged and all you will get here is other outraged parents agreeing with you or those of us who actually think that you might be overreacting just a lot.

Cross posted with you there pagwatch, yeah.. I agree. Mind you, I think the opposite is also true that anyone who thinks the teacher shouldn't have hit the kid is enveloping ickle precious Johnny in a cloud of cotton wool

Why not ask your son whether he wants to go back to swimming next week?

If he does, well - it couldn't have been that bad, could it?

Personally, I wouldn't be pandering to what seems to be an overreaction (he's eight, fgs, no four!) on both your parts. But if he can't cope with the atmosphere there, take him out. Simples.

Agreed.

But having a conversation does not preclude the idea that ultimately your advice to your child may be that they stop being a wuss.

now I x-posted.

I agree with that too.

I am just slightly comforted that had the swimming instructor set about the boy with fury and aggression the school would have reacted more fully.
And I remain unconvinced that a pat on the noggin with a float is a 'hit' regardless of intent -as some on here do

Indeed - my view is that sometimes at this age they do need this spelled out to them a bit. As I work in a secondary specialist language base for kids with various special needs, we seem to spend a lot of time discussing this type of thing with kids e.g. spelling out why Mr. X was mean (because you chucked your book across the classroom). I've realised over the years of arbitrating with these kids that certainly in KS2 up to the end of Y7, many of the "typical" kids really lack the perspective that they have brought about a particular diagreement. Their understanding of their own role is quite limited and easily influenced by peers egging them on in their grievance.

Hit her back...with a melon

That is interesting working

Ds2 has severe limitations upon his understanding. Trying to get him to get over the shock of not understanding why something has not gone well for him is very hard.

It is really easy to see how , if I gave in to my desire of support and symathise with him about the many difficulties he faces, it would create in him a sense that life is something he needs to be comforted though.

V. Interesting.

Get the police involved??? REALLY?? Are you all for real?

You'd jeapardise this woman's career for something that may have been misinterpreted by your son (hurt pride maybe?) and has caused him no damage??

No wonder the Daily Mail sells so many copies!!!

all bonze

No not even close to all.

I think two people said that.

yeah Bonce you big melon!

I think you're over reacting a bit. She was probably trying to get his attention or something. It's not like she whacked him with an oar or her shoe.

Seriously, your child needs to take little things like that in his stride and won't if you make an issue out of every little upset.

this has just jolted something in my memory..aged 10 or 11 and swimming with the school..the instructor frequently thwacked us on the heads with the floats , often pushing us in. First time i've remembered it..

but that was in the 80s and things were v different then!

bonzo - i said call the police, it was more injest than to be taken seriously.

I once cut a knee badly at junior school and the headmaster accused me of something and made me KNEEL on the bad knee! He was a sadist and i've never forgotten that. However..my parents would never have intervened...even if i was in the right. If i was in the wrong, even if the teacher was harsh i wouldve received a good hiding from my parents had they discovered (as they often did)

true...toughening up for the real world is one of the best things my very strict and definitely harsh at times, parents did for me..

My kid might come home and mention it, no way would he feel hurt, either feelings or physically (from a swim float ffs) BUT he would be MORTIFIED if I marched into the school/had it out with the instructor or went to the police

I think he would die of shame and never, ever tell me anything again. If I made so much fuss over something so minor, he would be terrified what I would do over something big and important. I bet he'd keep his gob shut next time, then you won't be able to help him when he really needed it, cos he won't want you involved.

And yes, I think you need to look at the bigger picture here. Firstly, your son's development and the ability to take the rough with the smooth & to stand on his own feet, and secondly, as has been pointed out, by complaining in these circumstances, you chip away at the people getting involved with kids, be it parents helping out with football/scout/etc. or people becoming or staying teachers under these impossible circs. I used to be a secondary school teacher, I will not be returning to the profession.

"It is really easy to see how , if I gave in to my desire of support and symathise with him about the many difficulties he faces, it would create in him a sense that life is something he needs to be comforted though."

Hmmm, I don't know. I think this is a bit to do with perspective too. It also depends, to an extent, on whether a person can be supported to understand a situation on a cognitive level. There are definitely students with almost intractable difficulties understanding perspective, and these students need a clear-cut behavioural directive. However, if you have developmenta difficulties contributing to a lack of understanding social situations, you need support to understand them. You are unlikely to work out the subtleties and nuances alone. I worked with a student who would "check in" at the end of the day with a list of things that had happened with peers that he was "unsure" about and we would talk them through. He would say things like: "but wasn't it a bit personal and rude of him to ask where I was going on holiday? I don't even know him. He's a stranger!" etc and we would talk about the social conventions around it. This was a young man whose primary career had consisted of spending most of the day locked in some sort of broom cupboard "quiet area" kicking seven shades of crap out of some beanbags. He was immensely frustrated with these perceived injustices that no one had really explained to him. Giving him the opportunity to clarify etc was an immense outlet on an emotional and behavioural level, but I don't think that these contextual lessons in "social understanding" were teaching him he required comfort from life. He did require someone to help explain. Over the years, these repeated ad hoc lessons really did impact upon his behaviour.. and he would come to tell us rather than ask e.g. "I noticed something today about the way Mr. X talked to me.. I suppose he was making small talk and he didn't really mean to find out what I was doing at the weekend for any nefarious purposes" etc. These "observations" became more and more refined. Truthfully, I think he needed to have a safe place to work all this out, as I think we all do. We all deserve a place to speculate, to clarify. That's why so many of us are on MN, after all! Working out the complex rules of parenthood and who can park where and use which loos..

Working. With respect. I am talking with experience about my son whom I love very much and who has very profound difficulties the nature of which are specific to him, complex and well understood by me and his teachers.

Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned him. I am not desperately appreciating a 'hmm' in the context of how I support my son.

Sorry, I didn't mean it in a sense, more in a musing sense? I suppose I wondered if you thought I was saying that sympathy was something that would make a person with difficulties with understanding view life as something to be comforted through. I have had to look back at that a few times to remember how you worded it, which is why I cut and pasted it the first time - not to cast aspersions on your reflection with reference to your own son. I didn't quite understand how what I had written related to your response, so I was clarifying what I had written, not commenting on your son.
I did make sure that I wrote that obviously, for some kids, stuff has to happen on a behavioural level because discussing it on a cognitive level would be inappropriate and unhelpful and obviously, I know nothing about your son. Just sharing my own perspective on these types of discussion.

LeQueen, if she's going to go into school and to the leisure centre to discuss it, she probably can find the time to discuss it with her son.