to think this wasn't a cause for celebration?

[vladthedisorganised]

I have only heard one side of this, so perfectly prepared to be told IABU here.
I was talking to an acquaintance recently whose DD is 5. The mother told me proudly that a boy in her DD's class had tried to hug her and she didn't want him to, so her DD "threw him to the ground and gave him a big kick in the goolies". Apparently the boy in question burst into tears and wrote her DD a letter saying sorry. She is immensely proud of her DD's feistiness and told her daughter "you go, girl - it served him right'.

I know it's important to teach children that it's OK to say no to unwanted attention, but I'm inclined to think that it would have been extremely different if the genders had been reversed - "a girl came up to my son and tried to hug him, so he threw her to the ground and gave her a good kicking until she cried." Lots of 5 year olds are still indiscriminately huggy and a simple 'no, I don't like that' should be enough - I don't feel violence is something that ought to be praised.

AIBU?

How did the 5 year old write and deliver her a letter without parental help? Bit confused. Was this at school? Or the girls house? Are the parents aware?

The girl could be excluded from school for that behaviour. The school may also look at home circumstances to see if their is violence within the home.

YANBU

I was pretty disgusted by a thread on here, in which a boy had twinged the bra strap of a girl and the girl punched him in the face. Now before anyone says, I am NOT saying the boys action was right. Completely wrong in what he did. But a punch to the face? Most people thought this acceptable too.

I totally miss read your original post. I thought the parent attacked the child. Jeez sorry...appalling behaviour.

The child may well have written the letter under the supervision of the school.

There's no point reporting it to the police because the child is well under the age of criminal responsibility and they won't be interested.

However if it was me I would be reporting it to the local council's children & Young People's dept, the section with responsibility for schools so they could investigate.

Children shouldn't be subjected to violence in school and the school certainly shouldn't be validating it by making the victim apologise.

I feel really sad for that little boy. The mother must be an awful woman. She is transferring standards for sexualised behaviour between adults to innocent actions meant harmlessly by little children. I suspect she might have few issues....

YANBU. I also don't think making the boy write a letter of apology was right, in fact that's terribly sad.

Poor little boy. :(

Horrible, but we had a similar problem. A boy in DDs class kept hugging and kissing her. She told him No, he continued. He also pushed her against a wall and pulled at her clothes. I spoke to teachers, was reassured he would be watched, two days later it happened again.
So, I told DD to do the following:
Say No firmly
Look for an adult to tell
If he continues and you cannot run away, then kick/ hit him.
I don't want to encourage violence, but my DD has a right to not be touched or kissed if she doesn't want to be also. Was I wrong?

Well I don't think you're wrong, Carol

If "no" isn't enough, then there has to be more, imo.

In the case of the op though, you would think that throwing the boy to the ground would have been enough to stop/prevent the unwanted attention!

So the girls didn't have to write an apologies for kicking the boy?

Carol I think your situation sounds a bit different from the one I heard about - your reaction sounds very sensible. 'Say no firmly, look for an adult to tell' is exactly right IMO; you've been clear that kicking / hitting is a last resort and it doesn't seem to be the same as 'she kicked him in the goolies till he cried'.

Pushing against the wall and pulling at clothes is aggressive behaviour, trying to hug someone else (at 5) might be annoying but might well be over-exuberance rather than aggression, and a 'no, I don't like that' should be enough to stem it.

I'd be livid if I were the boys mother!

My son is 2 we live in a culture where you kiss or hug hello and goodbye. He's not always up for it because he's very British (when it suits him). The first time he pushed a classmate away and the teacher got down and explained that he needs to be gentle with his classmates and just say no, I don't want to hug, it's fine. There's never any need for violence unless you're being attacked. Also kicking a man when he's down is just .

That's appalling behaviour.