to be really, REALLY fucking angry.

[HarrySnotter]

DD is 6. Was very quiet when I picked her up from after school club (at 5.30pm), unusually so but I kind of worried that she was coming down with something so after the initial 'are you feeling ok' I kind of left her to it and didn't question her too much.

Ran the bath, gave her a quick cuddle as she was getting undressed and she winced, actually winced, then started crying. I got her undressed and she had blood on her shirt at the back. Her shirt was actually sticking to her back. Then it all came out - one of the girls at school was poking her with a stick and was lifting up her coat and cardigan and scraping it down her back. I asked her if she told anyone and she said that the playground supervisor saw it and told her to stop crying and that she was acting like a baby.

Her back is scratched to absolute fuck and she was sobbing as I was trying to clean it for her. I am beyond mad. The issue with the child is one I shall bring up with her teacher but I am absolutely fucking furious at the playground supervisor.

How do I handle this so that I don't get a 'oh sorry about that' response. I'm so angry that she spend the whole afternoon sore and upset and she didn't want to tell her teacher because 'Mrs X said she was being a baby'.

[Apileofballyhoo]

Well unless the OP is lying and posting on mumsnet for bizarre attention from strangers, I do feel that the school has failed OP's DD as she has non accidental injuries. The school is responsible for the children while they are there. The injuries should not have happened. I realise that things may happen in a very short space of time and playground monitors do not have eyes in the back of their heads, but perhaps there should be more monitoring staff, and if budgets do not allow for this, at least ban sharp implements from the playground and forbid playing with sticks. When I was a small child our school banned balls in the playground as ball games were causing too many accidents, little children being knocked over etc. Us bigger children resented it but there was a lack of suitable facilities and we just had to suck it up.
A 6 year old should not come home with a bloody back. They were hardly playing good friday, and if they were, they should have been stopped. I can not see how the school is not at fault. Non accidental injuries are completely and utterly unacceptable.

[armagh]

Barbarian Mum i think a 6 year old knows what will cause another pain. I am so sorry for the little one who was hurt. I would worry for the 6 year old who used the stick- it's not normal. What's happening in her life? I would certainly let the Board of Governors know in writing what had occurred with accompanying photographs of the injured back and the bloodied shirt also, not just the HT.
See GP. Poor little pet. Perhaps the supervisor did not see the stick....Clutching at straws.

[clam]

"perhaps there should be more monitoring staff, and if budgets do not allow for this, at least ban sharp implements from the playground and forbid playing with sticks."

Of course sharp implements and playing with sticks would be "banned." But, as a parent, can you honestly, hand-on-heart sy your own kids have never got hold of anything they shouldn't have and made mischief with it? And if you saw it happen, you'd step in, but if you didn't see it, for perfectly good reasons, then maybe something bad might have happened.

Schools go to tremendous lengths to minimise potential accidents/scope for bad behaviour. They then get it in the neck from parents about "mollycoddling" children by not letting them play with conkers/footballs. But with the best will in the world, some things will slip through the net. The key thing then is how the HT deals with it. As here.

[zipzap]

But Barbarianmum - at 6 most children are old enough to know that picking up a stick, grabbing another girl's coat, cardigan and shirt, lifting them up and dragging a stick down the skin to make it bleed is wrong. And to do this repeatedly is very wrong.

She might not be aware of the finer points of the fact the victim is diabetic and therefore will be more prone to infection. But she knew that she was deliberately inflicting nastiness on her victim.

She wasn't giving the girl a cuddle or playing nice games with her. She wasn't even playing with a stick, losing control and inadvertently scraping it down the back of the OP's dd's coat once and then saying sorry. That wouldn't have been nice for the dd but it would have been an accident, she should have said sorry, the teacher should have given her a hug better and then it would have been forgotten about.

The problem is that in this case, the child's actions were deliberate, they were drawing blood repeatedly - enough for the back to be 'scratched to fuck' - this is not just one or two little scratches, it is the action of somebody who set out to hurt somebody else. And at 6 you should be old enough to know that you do not actively go out and deliberately hurt other people, even if you are jealous because they get to spend a little extra time with the teacher each day.

She would have known damn well that what she was doing was both wrong and naughty, and whilst she might not have thought through any consequences beyond wanting to hurt the dd, she sure as hell knew that she was not being nice to the dd.

Doesn't preclude the fact that she might come from a screwed up environment where this would be seen as normal behaviour - chances are it would be normal 'punishment' behaviour rather than normal all-the-time behaviour. or that the girl herself will need some sort of help in controlling her anger or emotions or impulses or whatever, to get some sort of understanding why she thinks this is an acceptable thing to do to another child that has unwittingly annoyed or upset her (it's not like they were in the middle of having a stick fight from what the op has said). But she also needs some sort of punishment and warning about how what she has done was wrong.

[Floggingmolly]

Barbarianmum. I would be seriously concerned for any 6 year old who didn't understand that this was wrong, and likely to cause injury.
I agree about the lack of impulse control; so lashing out when provoked would not be completely untypical of this age group, but this incident sounds both unprovoked and sustained. Unless the other child is a psychopath in the making - she would have known.

[havingastress]

I have no business working with children because I have stated that kids know what they are doing?

What kind of a bizarre comment is that?

You're probably the same type of person who thinks then it's ok for a child to do this because 'they're only 6 and don't know any better.'

Those children will have known that what they were doing was wrong.

Incidentally, as a teacher, I would also be concerned about those children and worry that something in their home life was causing their inappropriate behaviour.

My number one priority in teaching is the safety, wellbeing and security of the children within my care. I object to your comment.

OP - I hope your DD is feeling much better. Do let us know how she is.

[Stixswhichtwizzle]

Hope your meeting went well this morning OP.

[armagh]

Havingastress i agree with you. Do hope op and her dd are ok today.

[scarletsalt]

So let me get this straight: A lunchtime supervisor saw that your DD was bleeding and knew that a child had deliberately repeatedly scraped a stick down her back, and just told her to stop being a baby? Jesus Christ!

I am a teacher and know that there is a lot of shooing away of the 'he looked at me funny', 'she called me stoopid' stuff, otherwise you would constantly be dealing with ridiculous stuff. I also know that it is incredibly difficult to keep an eye on everything that happens on a busy playground, and sometimes children will get hurt.

But if a child is ever hurt it is always dealt with immediately and seriously and the sort of thing that you have described in the OP would be a very serious matter indeed with both sets of parents being contacted by staff.

I agree with havingastress that a 6 year old (so year 1 or year 2?) would definitely understand that deliberately hurting someone in this way is not acceptable. Barbarian I find your post very strange, of course a 6 year old knows that dragging a sitck down someone else's back is going to hurt (and even if there are SN involved, it still needs to be dealt with).

The only thing I could think of (and this is really clutching at straws here) would be if your DD often fusses is one of those children who seems to pick up an injury at every playtime, and the lunchtime supervisor didnt see what had happened at all and...........................nope, it is still unbelievable. Surely if a child even mentioned that they had been scratched on the back with a stick you would at least check?

Hope that you have spoken to school and they informed you of how this is going to be taken forward.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

I hope that your dd is feeling a bit better this morning, OP, and that the school sorts this out promptly and properly.

Re: six year olds knowing what they are doing - I think it is complicated. I do believe that most six year olds would understand a basic cause and effect in a situation like this - ie. that hitting or scratching someone will hurt them and upset them. I do also think that most of them know that hurting someone is wrong - I know that I had told my boys that plenty of times by that age. But I don't think that, at that age, they are planning sustained campaigns of nastiness or bullying - I suspect that they tend to react 'in the moment', and without thinking about the rights and wrongs, or the effects of their actions.

[coraltoes]

Let us know how it goes, and I hope your DD bounces back from this sad episode x

[BarbarianMum]

Ok I guess my post wasn't clear.

I agree that the vast majority of six year olds would understand that scraping someone with a stick is unacceptable, naughty and unkind. And I would expect them to face some consequence for doing so (mine would be in big trouble).

But to say a child knows exactly what they were doing suggests a much wider comprehension of the impact of their behaviour on others. However unpleasant the other child was being I doubt she thought about how the OP's child would be in pain for the rest of the day, how much her confidence might be shaken by firstly being hurt and then disbelieved, how it might make her feel about going to school in general. She clearly didn't understand that leaving wounds on someone is going to have pretty big ramifications (for her) later on... That is the sort of bigger picture thinking and empathy for others that develops later on.

So all I'm saying is six year olds do not think like adults. That is why we don't treat them like adults.

[Seabird72]

Hope she's better today and that the Head is dealing with the matter. It has to be dealt with obviously but my other concern is what if something happened that resulted in DD needing hospital treatment? If the matter isn't reported and on someone's file somewhere (and I read the GP's post that says it had to be recorded by the police rather than a GP) then SS could get involved if the hospital then didn't believe that the injuries were caused at school by another child. It's a "what if" scenario I know but I think when an injury to a child occurs, then as a parent you have to protect yourself these days.

[Lollybrolly]

Gosh I am so shocked treading what has happend to your DD.

I would be so upset and angry too.

I hope all is OK with your daughter today and the Dr is happy there is no infection.

If you have not already been in to see the HT then good luck and hold your head and high and stand firm.

[ZenNudist]

OP did the HT take this seriously? I hope it was resolved to your satisfaction.

[Lyrasilvertongued]

Barbarian the development of theory of mind - the ability to think in the way that others are thinking - begins from around 3 years old, and along with it the ability to empathise with others, so an NT six year old should understand that what they are doing is wrong if they're deliberately inflicting pain on another child. The bigger picture part regarding the extended consequences of what happened doesn't really matter in this circumstance - and actually a lot of adults would struggle with this too which is why sometimes people don't think twice before violent outbursts. However, they still know, or should know, at the time that hurting someone else is wrong even if they're not thinking about what will happen afterwards.

This is beside the point with regard to school's response to the incident, as clearly the child should have been dealt with at the time and OP's dd cared for immediately, so I hope OP managed to have a conversation with the HT today.

[Stixswhichtwizzle]

Any news OP? Did the HT take it seriously?

[hermioneweasley]

I'm late to this one, but am shocked. Hope the HT took it seriously and set out what will happen next.

[GregBishopsBottomBitch]

Im late too, and that HT would have got a real ear bashing,

[propertyNIGHTmareBEFOREXMAS]

Fucking hell. I'd be seething with unbridled RAGE. Your poor dd, how absolutely disgusting that this has happened. Definitely take pictures and make a serious complaint. I hope dd gets over this xx

[forgetmenots]

Just saw this thread - I really hope you managed to see the head and a doctor, OP, your poor DD, how awful.

[yummumto3girls]

This is truly horrible and there is a lot of anger and jumping to conclusions on this thread. I hope your DD is ok. As a previous LEA officer who has supported many child protection investigations I urge you all to approach such matters directly with the Head. A formal complaint needs to be made and a formal investigation needs to be carried out to find out EXACTLY what happened. Speaking to other parents, children, supervisor etc should NOT happen at this stage, it may tamper any investigation process and any outcome. For example if the supervisor is found to have failed in her duty of care and disciplinary proceedings are commenced against her,, any investigation will have to stand up to legal challenge. Please meet with and write to the Headreacher, copy to Chair of Governors and LEA and let them investigate. If they fail to do this then you can take it further. Obtain a copy if the complaints policy. In my opinion this is not a case for the police, the children are 6 and the other child should be dealt with appropriately not via a witch hunt from other parents.

[whitby36]

How is your dd today?

[ScrambledSmegs]

Hope your DD's ok today OP.