Aibu nightmare child in dd class

[mussymummy]

So will try to keep this brief, dd was at nursery for 3 years with child, let's call him Bob who physically hurt her and other kids from age 2 when he bit another boy in the face. Nursery did not do enough (they have admitted this since) and the mother keeps making excuses for her darling Bob.
So now they are both in P1 in same class, I did request a class change for my dd but did not happen. He is a nightmare, punching kids in face, at afterschool club he has bitten and kicked one of the workers, his mum still refuses to accept responsibility for him and makes excuses
So this week he told my 5yo dd he was goin to kill her mummy and daddy as we slept. Cue tears, my heart breaking as my dd made me lock every window and door in house as she followed me doing it. She woke 3 times.that night (always sleeps right through) convinced child of chucky was trying to break in.
Ladies what do I do? The mother (aged in 40's with 2 older teenage ds) refuses to do anything about his behaviour because she has already raised 2 sons and there is nowt wrong with them.
I am struggling to know how to handle this. I spoke to the school who told me they have a behaviour plan in place for Bob and the last time I contacted the mum directly it did not go well (when we thought dd had a broken nose after Bob smacked her in face with toy car, there was lots of blood)
Any advice on next steps / how I handle this would be much appreciated

@wearywithteens I don’t know what experience you have of dealing with children with special needs but they don’t respond to a talking to and “behave or else” in the way that NT children do. If a child with autism for example has a meltdown it is a response to a particular situation being intolerable for them, they are not choosing to misbehave.

If your child displays unacceptable behaviours at home you can try and develop strategies to stop them happening or deal with it. If your child doesn’t display those behaviours with you you can’t do that.

Weary his mum can't control how school manage (or don't manage) his behaviour. The school can decide to seat him separately, have an adult leading 'games' to supervise playground interactions, and allocate appropriate support. If the school isn't doing any of that, then the mum can't put it in place.

I don't know why we're all supposed to pretend that the children who are injuring others and telling other children they'll come kill their parents in the night aren't going to grow up into psychopathic abusers. The person I knew in grade school who was like this, and similarly excused by his mother, grew up to go to prison for murdering his ex-girlfriend.

Everyone is so convinced that the solution is more inclusion and being kinder, but some abusive people start very young, and kindness and "meeting in the middle" fail when abusers are involved, whatever their age and whatever their reasons. SEN adult men aren't allowed a pass on beating their wives, we shouldn't be giving SEN boys a pass on hurting their classmates.

As an American one of the things that most astonishes me about UK mums compared to American moms is that I cannot imagine a mother in the US simply saying "well, what can they do, if the child has SEN I suppose they have to educate them and just try their best to keep him from terrorizing other children in ways that will impact them for the rest of their lives." This is well beyond the typical range of playground roughhousing gone too far, and no one has an "emotional need," special or otherwise, to threaten to kill a classmate's parents.

The kid I knew used to.threaten.to kill our cat with his pen knife. My parents told me to ignore him. He did go prison for a violent attack in.his 20s. Tbh, it makes me sad he wasn't picked up earlier. Everyone knew what his dad was like.

What the mother does is nothing to do with this, there may be SEN, other problems you don’t know about, and the school and she don’t need to involve you with that.
However your child has a right to be kept safe at school. You meet with the school and express your concerns and tell them you expect her to be kept safe, you will report via correct avenues if she is not etc. However Bob has a right to an education so school is often in a difficult place, I have been there as a teacher with autistic children who have bitten, punched, destroyed classrooms, we have had to evacuate rooms etc. He wasn’t a ‘pyschopathic abuser’ and he had a right to an education, but he couldn’t control his temper sometimes, through no fault of his own. You can’t just exclude those with SEN and say ‘we need to stop being so inclusive’ ffs. NO other children should not suffer, and there needs to be measures in place to keep them safe, but meltdowns and threats do happen, but the school needs to have a response for it. There’s not a lot schools can do if an autistic child has a meltdown in class, except keep other children safe; and have measures for that child in place although this can not always prevent things happening. If you’re not comforable with that, I would change schools.
But yes, first step. Speak to the school immediately.

Everyone is so convinced that the solution is more inclusion and being kinder, but some abusive people start very young, and kindness and "meeting in the middle" fail when abusers are involved, whatever their age and whatever their reasons. SEN adult men aren't allowed a pass on beating their wives, we shouldn't be giving SEN boys a pass on hurting their classmates

That certainly isn’t the solution, but the solution is likely to be early support and intervention that isn’t happening. I don’t disagree with what you say, but you can’t write off a 5 year old as a potential psychopathic murderer without having tried to help him. Sadly inclusion and kindness are probably cheaper than actually putting proper intervention and support in place :(

If this child doesn't have an EHPC, then the school won't have a member of staff to remove him. Schools are working on skeleton staff, with no surplus adults to take these disruptive pupils out of class. Inclusion of these children is all very well in theory, but with no additional support, it is very detrimental, not to mention frightening, for the rest of the class.

I would explain very clearly to Bob's mum that you are very concerned that Bob's behaviour stems from inappropriate things happening for him at home and, that if it is not addressed, you will call social services so they deal with it by X date.

I don't think posters are saying 'oh what can school do?'

Posters are saying the school isn't doing anything and, from experience, if you have a school that isn't addressing bullying and that isn't putting in the necessary support for additional needs DCs, then the school isn't going to change. There are schools for DCs who can't be in mainstream schooling but there are processes to be followed for a DC to be moved to them. OP wouldn't know if the school has started down that path.

So, as a parent like the OP, you're left with a choice of leaving your child in a place where their safety is compromised or accepting they're not being safeguarded there, and moving them elsewhere.

My daughter is like Bob, she has been known to punch children (diagnosed with autism) however i don't tolerate the behaviour and i even asked school to exclude her but they wouldn't, i am the first to admit she isn't perfect and it drives me mad when people think their kids can do no wrong

You need to verify what happened and complain when your child is affected.
Do not speak to the other parent about it.
Follow the complaints policy.

Surely a 5 year old threatening to kill anyone is not normal, it sounds as if he has something wrong with him. I would have a word with the school nurse.

That is outside the teams of normal man do would escalate as far as possible. P1 - are you in Scotland / NI? Not sure of the structure but can you escape to the governors? Dt2 had an issue with a complete idiot in school last week, I escalated and it was resolved within in a day.

I think they need to be involving safeguarding with that language at P1.

Is he targeting your girl specifically OP or is it more general than that? If he has general problems and is lashing out many times at different kids, then you need to talk to other parents and each and everyone of you lodge your own separate complaint/ask for a head teacher meeting, pile on the pressure. He is only 5(?) and he probably wasn't born this angry; so if you want to approach the parents again, I would throw in a threat for social services to get involved because his behaviour is not normal.

That might see a change as they know why they won't want social services calling around. But if you feel you can't do that, tell the school, you will be doing that and that you feel they are failing in a duty of care, seeing as they have already acknowledged a problem.

They key here is getting other affected parents on your side and who are prepared to do the same. Never lose sight though, he is 5, he has problems and maybe the best thing for him is some form of intervention, he is only a kid.

The child sounds like a sociopath or has some kind of SEN that is not being taken seriously or managed by the school. I would speak to the Head teacher, demand a class change, and if that doesn't happen, move your child out of that school. The school also really needs to look into why this child is behaving in this way rather than just ignoring it.

It's not acceptable for children to be terrorised by other children regardless of whether there is an SEN or not. Threatening to kill the other children's parents is neither normal nor acceptable behaviour.

Do not talk to the parents, that rarely goes well.

Log every incident with the school. Look at the school policies, follow them and quote them where necessary.

If the school do nothing, and I don’t know whether Scottish schools are as strapped for cash as English ones, so they may struggle to afford to have a TA or similar to look after Bob, I might look at changing schools. Although there may be another Bob at the new school.

Inclusion is great when it works but some children do not and will never cope in mainstream school, and it is failing them and their classmates when they are forced to stay in a certain school when it impacts on all their wellbeing so much.

Doesn’t the school have a behaviour policy? My sons school has and by now, after the third time at least, he’d have been chucked out of the school!
Demand a meeting with the head on Monday - all of these incidents will have been recorded in Bob’s file - this needs to be sorted out, no more ignoring OP.
It’s the school’s job to do this, not yours.

Yet another feed where everyone with autism is a sociopath!

However OP, I would Seriously get SS involved as he is clearly at risk of having Worse issues when he’s older if this isn’t niped in the bud now. Also, I am sorry but I would probably be looking at a school transfer. As this is clearly not going to be healthy for your DD and at five she is young enough to start afresh at a different school

Yet another feed where everyone with autism is a sociopath!

Why do you assume the child has autism rather than sociopathy? OP doesn't mention autism at all. I've worked with a lot of autistic children, and none of them behaved like this.

As the mother of a 'bob' I take extreme exception to the comment by awombofonesown that all children struggling to regulate their behaviour are going to grow up to be psychopathic abusers. My DS has ASD, had suddenly lost his father and was in a toxic school . His behaviour was never acceptable but was quite clearly caused by elements outside his control.
Unlike Bob's parents though I fought for a diagnosis (many years it took and thank you thank you Great Ormond Street) ,got him some therapy and moved him to a unit designed for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. However, his brain will never be a NT brain and he is far more likely to become a victim of violence than an instigated as he grows up.
So to womb fuck off with your disableist generalisations. It's parents like you that make our lives so much harder.

Op, in writing, ask the school for a meeting with Head to discuss lack of safeguarding for your child. Take notes in the meeting and ask if you can record it. Ask them whAt they are going to do to keep your child safe. Follow up the meeting with an email detailing all of the points raised in the meeting, including what action, if any, the school are planning to take.
If you need to escalate to the LEA or whatever it's called where you are, do so.

Most importantly write everything down. Every incident and the effect it has had on your DD, evefytimr you have spoken to school , who and what was said etc. Log everything.
If nothing changes I would be inclined to change schools, if at all possible. A school with a culture where violence and chaos are accepted is not a school I would be happy to support.

I feel for you and your DD. There's nothing quite like the feeling of dropping a child off and not knowing if they will be safe or not.

ceridwen if you have worked with autistic children then you surely know the phrase "If you've met one person with autism then you've met one person with autism". Perhaps you aren't aware that all autistic children are different and I can assure you that some children with an ASD can most certainly lash out physically when they cannot express themselves in other ways. I'm surprised you don't know that, having worked with autistic children.

Do not talk to the parents, that rarely goes well that's personal projection personified. The more people who are experiencing the same issue, the more chance of getting it solved.

I am a teacher. Remove your child. Take her to another school. This violent child’s right to an education is seen as more important by the system than your daughter’s right to be safe from harm. Believe me when I say that the school will be just as frustrated by the system as you are. Writing letters, having meetings, logging it all...... your child will still be in harms way while you do this. If you have another school as an option then seize it.

Sorry guys I was being sarcastic

What I meant is, as a person WITH autism, I feel that we are always painted to be completely batshit and psychotic ( especially at childhood). But I just feel a lot of people misunderstand us, because we don’t have NT Minds and we don’t always know how to express our feelings. Sorry if I have offended anyone.

Ultimately, you get some good people and bad people ( not always thought choice however) and that applies regardless of whether you’ve got send or are NT.