Daughter dragged on floor by Entertainer

[Diamondangel8]

My 8 year old was at School today and it was Pirate Day so they had an pretend pirate come in and do some activities. She has been in tears this evening saying the class was in a circle and he came up and frightened her and grabbed her by the foot then proceeded to drag her on the floor so she was on her back in front of every one being dragged around. She said it was supposed to be a joke but she was scared and it hurt her back. Is it me? Aibu? I'm extremely concerned.

I've got some sympathy with Adrienne actually.

I've been here over ten years and posts from furious parents about to get clarification from the school always end with the school wholeheartedly agreeing with them, it does make me wonder sometimes whether they're giving us the whole picture.

And I do think that some children could do with building up resilience. Not the case here necessarily, but there is definitely an upswing of children who are fearful, anxious, over sensitive. I posted earlier about parents coming into school to complain about trivial things, blown out of proportion by their child. I do wonder whether their validation of the small worries propagates the whole cycle.

I'm not saying that that is the case here at all btw, just think Adrienne makes some valid points.

Would still be interested in how the school justified not stepping in to protect her as it happened op.

Why are we minimizing this?
Is it because it happened to a female?
is it because it happened to a child?

Nothing about what happened to op's dd is OK, funny, part of an act, to be laughed AT ALL

If this happened in an other situation, to an adult then NO ONE would be falling over themselves to excuse it, NO ONE!!!

Some people have expressed scepticism that it happened exactly as OP's dd recounted, that's all.

It's hard not to react like that when you're regularly on the receiving end of spurious complaints from parents, about events that you know with absolute certainty did not happen as per their child's recount.

Of course randomly selecting a reluctant child, dragging her around by her foot, injuring her back, laughing at her, following her and menacing her with a knife is outrageous!

I'm glad Adrienne wasn't my mother.

Well I had a mum like her. It meant abuse from some teachers(being slapped over the face, called a "bitch in heat, had my palms smacked with a stick) , bullying (because kids sort thing out themselves) and several sexual assaults where nothing was done and I had to make my own way through them. On the other hand I'm very resilient indeed. 🙄

.... just think Adrienne makes some valid points.

Would still be interested in how the school justified not stepping in to protect her as it happened op.

Schools can justify not stepping in as there are people like Adrienne everywhere, in whose mind children are despicable liars, not to be protected. And people like you Gloomy think they have some valid points.

Two out of the four teachers at my primary school would have done this and more. It was decades ago but I wish times were more enlightened back then. They regularly gave us chinese burns, crunched our knees or shoulders to the point of screaming in pain and fingerprints and bruises being left and they used to get hold of the hair at our temples and pull up up on our tiptoes with it. A running child would get tripped up by a teacher on a regular basis. I saw this even when we weresupposed to be running such as sports.

Many of my classmates grew up to fear adults generally and those in authority in particular. I personally have never had a shred of confidence my entire life. Had all of this never happened I can't help but feel that my life would have been so much better and I'm no snowflake.

I, like a PP am very resilient but I am still convinced it has affected me even into adulthood. Build resilience in children by all means. It's vital in fact but it needs to be done without cruelty and humiliation.

I came here just to let @adriennej know that just because her child is a malicious little liar (by her own admission) doesn't mean the OP's is

As someone who spent a long time hanging around seaside caravan sites as a kid I've seen a lot of crappy entertainers, and I am nothing short of ASTONISHED at the folks who think this couldn't possibly have happened. It sounds pretty standard to me. I've been humiliated by kids entertainers in my childhood and the adults around me always dismissed it and it's really upsetting when you're that age. Don't do that.

Honestly wtf is up with this thread, so many people who seem to hate children and saying horrible things about an 8 year old they've never met! A lot of people should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

I wonder if it's a full moon

Nobody on here is claiming that this incident is "abuse" or "life scarring" but they are pointing out that it is innapropriate because the entertainer hurt her back and that could have been dangerous.

AdrienneJ Your comments about the OP's DD are a bit harsh. Some children are sensitive. Nothing wrong with that- not all kids are the same and that is OK.

Some kids hate being touched or being joked around with- it feels disorienting or confusing for them. I am not for a moment suggesting the entertainer was acting maliciously.

Agree with lashanatova, I don't think entertainer had acted maliciously either. But his behaviour was inappropriate at this time. Everyone is different. Some may find it funny, some won't. They are young children, so the entertainer had a responsibility to check before doing something, especially touching a child without asking to make others children laugh.

@HoppingPavlova so true. I loved your post x

I remember being at an event where a man had brought his reindeer.
If you put money in a bucket you could feed and stroke them.
One boy of around 10 went to stroke them and the man grabbed him and tried to get him to kiss the reindeer. He had him in a sort of headlock and was pushing his face toward the reindeers head, everyone was laughing ( including the parents) but I could se that the boy was genuinely scared. He kept saying “I don’t want to” and the man and the boys parents kept saying “go on, give it a kiss”. I could see the boy was close to tears so I stepped in and said that I thought the man should stop. Everyone looked surprised ( boy looked very relieved).
The man was actually really nice and had no idea that he was frightening that child and even his parents thought it was funny, it really wasn’t and I can still see the look on his face.
So even if everyone thinks what is happening is “just a laugh” it can be genuinely frightening for some children. One of my DC would hve trampelled their friends to have had the chance to be dragged around the room by a Pirate at school but the other one would have been terrified and upset about it for ages

I feel sorry for @adrienne children!
Having said that I feel sorry for adrienne having malicious little liars for children!

All children lie. I'm not saying OP's dd did on this occasion. But all children do. Anyone who works with children sees it almost daily. Those parents who think their child doesn't generally find out that they do, just further down the line when it's harder to deal with.

I taught a little boy several years ago who told his mum, every night, all of the things that the other children and staff had done wrong that day. Virtually every morning one of his parents came in to tell us some exaggerated story or another, a litany of accusations over the years. I think he genuinely came to believe that he was a victim, that every tiny thing was an intentional slight directed at him. I think mum saw the light when he was about 15 but the story would be too outing.

They do lie, and it's not unsupportive to drill into the detail and find out what happened in order to tailor your response. Nobody is saying that a child must put up with some of the horrible experiences pp have shared here, of course not. But resilience is quite a hot topic in education at the moment. Not resilience to your teacher giving you a Chinese burn or picking you up by your hair, but resilience to the little knocks that keep coming way into adulthood and shouldn't bring us to our knees.

OP, if you're still reading this, I'm sorry that this happened to your dd and it sounds like you are the sort of sensible parent who investigated with the school first. I'm glad the entertainer has been asked to modify his performance and I hope your dd is ok.

I've got to say, I also wonder why the teacher didn't step in. I'm a teacher and I've always watched when an entertainer comes in - I don't know a teacher alive who would leave an unknown adult in charge of their class - you just wouldn't.

The minute they touched a child I would immediately step in and say, "Mr X, we can't touch the children" or "Mr X, can I just have a quick word" and tell the children in a breezy voice to chat quietly for a minute.

It beggars belief that the school apparently didn't do this and I do have some sympathy for that part of adriennej's view.

Assuming it's all true, OP, you need to give the school an absolute rocket. Do not let them put the blame on the entertainer. THEY are the ones with the duty of care.

And yes, all children lie. It doesn't make them despicable, or malicious as some posters are saying on here. It doesn't even make them bad. It's just a natural part of the development of the imagination. Lying is a developmental phase they go through whilst they learn to separate their imagination from reality and work out society's expectations of right and wrong.

As a teacher I always think the best of my children and assume they mean to do the right thing. But they do sometimes struggle to separate fact from fiction, for many reasons which are nothing to do with maliciousness, being despicable or any other ridiculous phrase posters are using on here. Any parent would, as previous posters have said, do well to dig a little deeper before getting too upset. I'm not, by the way, saying the OP's child is lying. But parts do not have the ring of truth unless the school is extremely negligent.

I think most decent parents know that what their children says isn't always totally true. But saying children always lie isn't going to help. They may, or may not. What's important here is that parents have the understanding of what their children say is not always 100% correct, it can be a skewed view from child's pov, and tries to find out facts about it. And OP has done that, I believe.

My 9 year old son would absolutely love this.. sorry your dd was upset op. I am sure there was no maliciousness but it was definitely judged poorly

WHY CAN'T PEOPLE RTFT???

The OP posted this two days ago:

I've spoken to the school and they say the incident did occur the way my daughter described and they have now phoned the agency they used and told them that part of the day was not appropriate

So WTF are we still discussing whether the daughter is lying or whether the OP should have believed her child??? She didn't jump to conclusions, she phoned the school to find out what had happened and the school told her! And people are STILL telling her she needs to dig deeper because lying is part of child development. WHY???

And of course the school is absolutely right, it was inappropriate. Inappropriate because it might have scared and upset some children, inappropriate because it might have done serious harm to other children with invisible medical condition. If anyone had done it to my dd, it would most likely have dislocated something (Ehlers Danlos syndrome) and she might have been off school for weeks.

So WTF are we still discussing whether the daughter is lying or whether the OP should have believed her child???

Interesting question Cory and I believe its because of an insidious attitude to children in the UK that I sometimes see on MN threads - its fascinating and horrifying at the same time. I think we would do well to debate it on here, but the place is so packed with Daily Mail readers lately I doubt we would get a reasonable argument.

"So WTF are we still discussing whether the daughter is lying or whether the OP should have believed her child???"

We're not are we, moved on to a wider discussion about whether children lie or not. Some people felt the need to justify why they doubted the story.

But Gloomy, several of the exhortations not to believe the girl and to dig deeper came long after the school had confirmed her story. And even on this page, musicposy is still saying "Assuming this is true". What does that mean, then? Assuming the school is not lying? Assuming the OP is not lying?

Since op said she'd spoken to the school I can't see a single post, apart from Adrienne's, that suggests that OP's dd was lying. A wider discussion about children lying, some questions about why on earth the teacher didn't step in, the fact that op was wise to check details first.