To send DS to school with a stab pack?

[PolkaDotMankini]

DS is in year 8 (ages 12-13) at senior school. It's a great school but DS has been caught up in a couple of fights this half term and I'm doing the classic mum worrying. After the first one I bought a couple of Israeli bandages. They're the type used for serious bleeding.

WIBU to send him on a first aid course and pack one of these bandages in his bag, just in case? DS thinks I'm being way OTT.

Assume op lives in London where gang and knife culture is an issue in many schools

Sorry not sure if that's clear - he was exonerated in that they found he was not at all responsible for causing or starting the first fight, then obviously also for the second fight where he did not respond to the other child and as a result didn't fight at all.

If hes in a school/area bad enough to get stabbed then move otherwise your being way OTT.

I went to a REALLY rough area/school and got beaten up so badly I was put in hospital twice (no bleeding really just LOTS of swelling and bruising especially round the head/face) but even I was not remotely scared of being stabbed.

The worst injury in out school was a girl who lost an eye after getting hit by a flying rock someone threw and that was more a kid being really stupid rather than deliberately trying to blind her.

There was two famous 'bloody' legends that everyone even the teacher told, 1 of a kid than ran arms first through a glass door (everything is safety glass now a days) and 1 of a kid that tried to jump the spiked fence and got impaled through the thigh but once again both accidents.

Yes but your post was very much that this was life now.
and it sure as heck isn’t for my children Thank goodness

I'm glad it's not for you. I'm glad it's not for me. But it's desperately sad that it IS life for some.

Not sure why the replies are so assy, perhaps they live in nice areas and imagine the whole world is like where they live? I don't think you're being unreasonable it's good to know what to do in a bad situation

This is something I have discussed with the school. He hasn't been in any trouble as he's been trying to stop a fight, but they have talked to him (as have I) about appropriate responses.

Thanks all. I think I got scared when the school called me yesterday to pick him up "in case of reprisals". They called gain this morning to say they'd completed their investigation, that they consider these incidents isolated and that DS isn't in any danger.

I've made enquiries with a local provider about a first aid course for the whole family. The special bandages will go in the car. And I will take a chill pill.

Do some people really think that others have options as far as schooling is concerned?

Lots of reasons why simply moving schools won't be possible for some people.

Knife crime is on the rise even in my backwater town during the holiday reports from the police about kids carry knifes small children being threatened in the local park its ridiculous you can't even take a child to the park without being threatened

A year five student threatened to scalp me where would he get the idea this is ok? Not from his school the policecsaid he is your basic "good kid" from a "broken home" and not to worry two years later they want him for threatening to stab a little kid why was I the only one not shocked

@BusgyMalone clearly you don't watch or read the news much or live in this reality. Must be nice 😂

I live in London and have absolutely no fear of being stabbed

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/children-stab-murder-homicide-knife-crime-dispatches-a8806136.html

This is from 2019. So numbers are probably even worse now.

26 under-18s committed homicides using a knife or sharp instrument in 2016 – rising to 46 in 2018.
During this period, the number of under-18s committing rape and sexual assault with a knife rose from 24 to 33. Robbery with a knife increased from 656 to 999.

Well, yes

Not that I want to argue with a trauma surgeon because your probably like the modern equivalent of a walking god 🤣

But my friend did actually save someone’s life with a chitosam trauma patch. He’s a tradie and was waiting at a pub for his friends to have a full English. Quaint little English pub midday. Next thing he knows the manageress is chasing the young part time waitress round the pub with a kitchen knife having stabbed her multiple times in the stomach and lower back. Gone psychotic. Thankfully he had the equipment and basic training. 999 talked him through the rest. Paramedics said she 100% wouldn’t have made it and would have gone into shock if he hasn’t been there with those patches to stem the blood loss.

We have them for work as use cutting equipment. I always keep one in the personal car too. And in the house. Do I think I am going to get stabbed - no. But you never plan on getting you impaled or cut badly by something so worth having around IMO.

Moving to a different area isn't the prerogative of the middle classes, you know?

@BusgyMalone

FFS. If you live in London then surely you know what a big fucking city it is and that some areas are nice and leafy and others are dangerous. Jesus

What does DOI mean?

Love all the high and mighty, I’d be pulling him out, move areas posts. Some people do not have that option.

I think it’s a very good idea op, first aid is a very good skill to have and very sensible having the right first aid kit on him. knife crime is horrendous in many areas right now. My friend works at a school and lost several of her pupils to stabbings. They don’t happen in school but the kids still bring knifes in. It’s all we are big gangsters outside of school, they openly talk about it.

And it’s not always the ones causing the fights and trouble who are victims, look at that little girl, Ava White, 12 yo and stabbed watching a Christmas lights show with her friends. And the 9yo girl Lilia stabbed outside her mums workplace while playing in the street with her sister. These are just 2 I remember, I’m sure there are many more.

If you are living in an are where knife crime is very known and your sons ending up in fights, even just to try and pull his friends out, then I think it’s a very sensible idea Op, I don’t see it as any different to keeping a first aid kit in your car.

Well exactly, which is why it’s such nonsense from that poster who said “In some places, I'm guessing London, it seems like stabbings are almost an inevitable part of life” because it certainly is NOT an inevitable part of life in London to get stabbed

Try www.bark.com/en/gb/in/bodyguards/?campaign=bing-290036545-1276533071920911-bodyguards-general-c&popup=true&trk_ad_id=79783408502052&trk_kw_id=kwd-79783453993880:loc-4076&trk_msloc_phs=4926&trk_msloc_int=188&trk_src=b&trk_msclid=d83c048486301a79407a67fbedd41384&msclkid=d83c048486301a79407a67fbedd41384&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Security%20Guard%20Services%20-%20tROAS&utm_term=bodyguard%20uk&utm_content=bodyguards-general

😜

Does your area / kids school have a lot of stabbings?

No one is likely to get stabbed in school but it's fairly common for kids to be robbed at knifepoint unfortunately.

I think first aid is important & my dc will do it.

Martial arts are a good skill to have. Much of it is how to avoid blows and defence.

If your son is a good kid. Isn’t involved with gangs of drugs, his chances of getting stabbed are very slim.

This narrative is really dangerous. Please don't assume all victims are involved because many aren't.

I get you op. 2 children in local schools near me have been stabbed recently. One just walking home on their own, the other during break time.

Posters who disbelieve this happens to kids who aren't in gangs etc are very lucky to have not encountered this.

One of the schools has a PC attached to it too. They and safeguarding are beyond useless.

I think I’d be careful with regards to martial arts, unless it’s Mr Miyagi’s first rule - no be there!

He’s been ‘caught up’ in fights more than once. Now his mother says it’s not his fault/he can’t help it/just dragging friends out of trouble etc. But that’s a dangerous narrative. The best thing this boy could do is stop getting ‘caught up’ in fights to behind with. Distance himself from these friends who repeatedly need pulling out of fights, walk away when they happen etc. In my experience the boys who get ‘caught up’ are involved in it just like their friends. Not necessarily that they’re horrible boys or anything, but they aren’t innocent and just randomly getting caught up at no fault of their own.