Another reception year thread

[GladHatter]

Posting for traffic, apologies for bad AIBU etiquette.

Ds is in reception and generally happy. Has lots of friends and relatively confident. Another boy (let's call him James) in his class has been bossy with him and other children from the beginning, pulling faces, saying he is not allowed to play and acting in a stroppy and unkind way towards my ds when James doesn't get his way. I have seen some of this myself during the school run.

Today I found out that James wanted to play with my ds but ds wanted to play with his big brother at playtime. James pulled a face and told ds "i'm going to kill you".

I suppose there is an AIBU in thinking this is an awful thing to say and that I don't want my ds to be spoken to in this way? It seems to me that when James doesn't get his way he tries to intimidate my ds.

I am going to speak with the teacher tomorrow, who is very experienced and generally brilliant.

Is there anything I need to consider in how I bring this up? I have been keeping a quiet eye on this since I first become aware of the problem. I feel now it's time to act.

I think I would just be telling DS to stay away from him. I'm not sure what the teacher can really do about this as they are not watching them constantly at play time.

Ah we had a 'James' they are now nearly 10 and at parent's evening before half term apparently DS is now picking on the 'James' kid now he has decided to not speak to him because he is a spoilt kid with no discipline!

In all honesty, I expect the teacher will already be trying to tackle his behaviour. I think all you can do is tell her that your son has been having difficulties with this boy and was upset by what he said.

I have also found it has helped with both my children to have an age-appropriate chat about the reasons children might misbehave - obviously not 'because their parents have taught them no batter's, but 'some people find making friends, starting school etc harder and this can make them crow's and give you dd clear strategies to deal with it e.g. if someone is mean, tell a teacher.

Auto correct madness there, sorry! Can make them cross! And better, not batter

My youngest is in reception and says things like this because he copies his older brothers phrases who has asd (he picked it up from another kid and now parrots).

Have a quiet word with teacher about language the other boys been using. Myself and school are using a reward book to encourage my youngest ds to only use kind words with his friends.

Swirling - advice is good in helping your ds to learn to respond to situations too.

Sorry to disappoint you but I think most classes including reception have a at least one James in. Some James are much worse than others. The best thing you can do is instill in your DS that James is best avoided all together sooner or later others will get sick of James and will also avoid him.
The James who entered reception with DS now nearly 14 is on his second Secondary School. Is not so big and brave now. After bulling many kids at primary and later any new year 7’s when he went up into year 8. His parents had no control over him and preferred to let him make his own choices etc. So their was really very little the primary school teachers could do. On and on James went but in a big secondary school their are likely to more James with even less to lose.

Brighteyes27 I believe you are right and agree that encouraging ds to try and stay away from James is probably a good idea.

I feel a bit sorry for James as he clearly doesn't know yet how to cope with frustration and not getting his way. And on the other hand there have been a couple of times when my ds has enjoyed playing with James and James has helped him once or twice when ds fell over or when another by was teasing ds.

But on the whole James seems to want to control how other kids play and acts with anger when other children have other ideas.

"In all honesty, I expect the teacher will already be trying to tackle his behaviour. I think all you can do is tell her that your son has been having difficulties with this boy and was upset by what he said."
Yes to this. I'll keep it low key to inform the teacher so she knows whats going on in her classroom.

Makes me sad for ds though, he is so little still fining his way but I guess that's life and an opportunity to learn to deal with this sort of thing.