Tiger parenting

[McCoysCheese]

I see a kid each week for tutoring. Chinese family, kid is Y8.

He's told me his parents love him and only hit him if he has been very bad. I've asked him to talk to his school counsellor but he said no, he's ok. I told him it's not allowed in this country for parents to hit kids. And that he can call Childline or NSPCC. But he doesn't want his parents to get in trouble.

If I report then I will never see him again and the situation doesn't change. Any advice?

how have you not reported this to the school and safeguarding lead??? Seriously this is safeguarding 101! It’s in all the training!

Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and you need to report it. How would you feel if the next time they hit him he ended up in hospital, or worse? You can report anonymously via NSPCC yourself. You really should not be working with children if you don't understand the importance of reporting abuse or think you shou

Because if you read the actual words in the actual thread you will see that it's not simple and easy to fix this by reporting it to school who will talk to him so he denies it.

What rubbish. The easiest thing is to do nothing to help this child, which seems to be what you are are trying to find an excuse for.

You have to act to help this child, even if it is difficult. To fail to do so would be utterly despicable.

Think like this - what message will the child internalise if he tells an adult and they take no action to help him? That abuse is acceptable and he cannot trust adults around him to help him.

The NSPCC online form isn't working

The kid himself does not want to report it though, does he have a right to be heard about that?

Thank you for explaining this. I didn't mean to give poor advice and clearly a lot of people on here have proper safeguarding training and know better how OP should respond.

You are the adult, and he's 12 or 13 years old at most. What level of abuse would you actually report? As a PP said, think about the message you're giving him by staying quiet.

I suppose I am listening to him saying that his situation is ok but not perfect

No, a child cannot consent to being abused.

You should not have promised to keep it confidential, bit even if you did, you still have to report it.

If he asks for help, he will feel like he is betraying his parents. But he chose to tell an adult outside the family, very likely because he knew you would not think it is ok. He is at least partly asking for help. It is just a complex situation. He needs to to be the bloody adult and take this decision out of his hands.

Honestly, I am shocked that you don't know this. It is basic, basic safeguarding.

OP, you seem very sure of the action the school would take - why? Are you privy to the school's safeguarding systems?

It's not your judgement call to make.

You are breaking the law by not passing this on.

OP, what advice were you hoping to get from this thread?

This poor child needs you to take the decision away from him …report Asap! Am not sure why you are on MN tbh .

Yes, mums and dad's can continue to discipline their children how they see fit in England and Ireland.

There's smacking and then there's beating.

When I think of The amount of adults that knew I was being abused as a kid who did nothing.

Yet here we are 40 years later and still the adult in the room dithers about and then does fuck all.

O P get a fucking grip. Do you're job and report.

FFS

This is so unclear as far as the law is concerned. Smacking children with the purpose of disciplining isn’t illegal in England or N.I. When does smacking become abuse? Who decides?

It becomes abuse when a child feels compelled to spill their guts to their tutor.

But it's abuse the first time you hit that child stuff what the law may say.

Oh, I agree completely, but the whole ‘smacking ok for discipline’ line is a huge get-out clause for potential abuse. I’m wondering which criteria are used to determine discipline/abuse? The leaving of a red mark, a bruise? What about the mental scars?

Sorry to hear this op. I guess you do have to report, but it will be for your professional integrity, and likely of little help to the child as you have rightly deduced. DS had an Indian friend and similar reports were raised. She was disappeared back to India straight away. The parents remained in the UK. No one said good bye no one heard from her for seven years until she turned up on social media, now a uni student still in India. Some people had even raised with the police that they wondered if she might have been murdered. But thank God she is okay but had brought great disgrace on her parents and bore the consequences.

@watcherintherye good question. One that probably haven't a straight forward answer. It's really time the law on this was sorted out. An adult hitting an adult is seen as abuse so i don't see how when the power differential between parent and child it's so much greater than between two adults that it is still legal to smack children.

But the OP doesn't need to make that decision on the thresholds. A child has disclosed abuse, she has to report.

You seem very unclear about appropriate boundaries so I do not think you should be tutoring at all.

This is a safeguarding issue so you need to immediately forward it to the relevant safeguarding officer at school. What happens after that is frankly none of your business. You are not the safeguarding officer so your opinion about what is best is irrelevant. Yes you may well lose him as a student and as a source of future revenue. In future you might wish to keep your exchanges professional and on topic so as to avoid unwanted disclosures. This would be in your students best interests as you are a tutor not a counsellor, you are not qualified to interfere in their personal life.

In my experience growing up in immigrant communities, the child will deny, his parents will deny and his home life will likely be worse because of it. Easy to say report from a British cultural perspective but it would be a cold day in hell before a typical second generation immigrant child cooperated with authorities to get their parents in trouble. He’s probably already kicking himself about telling you.

It's emphatically not your place to talk to his parents or other authority figures in his life - if they are indeed abusive and you explicitly or inadvertently reveal his disclosure to them you could be putting him at great risk. You should have informed the student at the point of disclosure know that you would have no choice but to report safeguarding issues

To my knowledge it's not against the law to hit a child in England.

Only to leave a mark.

He says he's only hit when he's really bad - might only be a smack on the bum twice in his life.

The police wouldn't count that as abuse, would they?

@McCoysCheese I think your instincts are correct here. Unless there's obvious evidence of trauma which there doesn't seem to be, then continue to be their confidant and trusted teacher.