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?

Please report this concern to the safe-guarding officer at the child's school. They will take it from there.

You have to report. What happens thereafter and if it meets thresholds or not is not for you to decide.

You sound far too wound up in the drama of it as have a hero complex or are scared of losing income, else why have you not done the right thing already.

Get over yourself!

You are not a saviour here who is the only one who has cultural sensitivity.

You will speak to the parents! How is that any different to the school speaking to them.

You don't know all the information here. You are making massive assumptions. He could be being smacked, not illegal but frowned upon, or he could be beaten with a belt. Both are covered by 'hit'. You have no way of finding out.

I wonder if this is your first disclosure and you feel flattered he has chosen you. And this is clouding your judgement.

As a fellow tutor, it worries me that there are tutors out there who are not up to date on their safe-guarding training - it's clear on the procedure for dealing with a disclosure.

What you need to remember is that you can get advice from professionals anonymously.
I wouldn’t be reporting a case of “serious child abuse” in this instance, as you don’t have enough information to base that accusation on. But I would be ringing the NSPCC or going into the school to speak to the safe guarding officer. They ARE professionals, who will not be sending the police around to demand answers or tearing children from their homes.
They will be more aware of the cultural implications than the vast majority of the white British public, and will approach the situation very carefully. What they will not do, is “spook” the family and risk the child being sent abroad to relatives, because it’s a known risk. What do you have to lose by ringing them anonymously and asking for advice?

Is there a reason for not wanting to follow clear safeguarding instructions for this child in particular, or would you ignore them for all children in the same situation?

Are you serious? I can't believe you are asking this. You shouldn't be working with children.

When I have had a disclosure, my responsibility is to pass it on. I am not responsible for what happens beyond that point. My legal and moral duty is to pass it on.
The safeguarding leads and people/ agencies are the better trained professionals. They may already have parts of a jigsaw.

Anything the parents do beyond that is their responsibility.

If anything horrific happened, my piece in the jigsaw is to have passed it on, not to have fretted through multiple scenarios.

I grew up in a Chinese household and was probably smacked twice in my whole childhood (this is the 70s!) Never for academic reasons. Just putting it out there.

You should not be working with children.

It is not your job to decide the threshold for action, your job is to report.
Some parents you could talk to, and they get that the child need a supportive an positive environment to get through life, not just school. Some might have a phd in idiocy. Rule of the thumb : it's not written on their forehead, leave it to professionals.

And also this is not tiger parenting. I don't know why you want to dress it up as that. Those who know better do better.

The NSPCC anonymous form isn't working unfortunately. I suppose I can call his school.

It's not important to me that it's this particular kid, no, I'd have concerns about any kid being helped correctly in this situation. The cultural background is not meaningless. Some posters get this but most of you are rudely parroting the one size fits all solution.

I’m a bit lost OP. You keep talking about reporting to school, but as a ‘Professional’ ( I assume you are a teacher) you have duties and procedures to follow around safeguarding. Reporting to school or NSPCC - whilst they are routes to go down - are really those for non professionals who don’t know the procedures.
Use your local authority reporting systems/Mash/LADO.
I know it’s hard, but the best for this child.

You need to report this asap. He is testing the waters by telling you. If you ignore it, you condone it.

One size fits all?
what exactly are you talking about?!
so basically Chinese kids should have different safeguarding help to black kids to white kids????
thats just racist.
get over yourself and report. It’s really serious.

I’m a bit lost OP. You keep talking about reporting to school, but as a ‘Professional’ ( I assume you are a teacher) you have duties and procedures to follow around safeguarding. Reporting to school or NSPCC - whilst they are routes to go down - are really those for non professionals who don’t know the procedures.
Use your local authority reporting systems/Mash/LADO.
I know it’s hard, but the best for this child

You have to listen to this OP. You are a professional and need to follow the correct procedure. If you're not prepared to do this you need to stop working with children.

I grew up in a household where if I was properly naughty I'd get a slap. I generally had a happy childhood and a good relationship with my parents. I'd be utterly devastated if social services had got involved, and put me in care. It's a different culture and personally I think you'd be creating more problems than solving if you reported it.

Someone reporting a safeguarding concern doesn't equate to 'being put in care'

There is a chance that other children may not feel the same as you- should they put up with it just because you're fine or should someone look into it to make sure they're ok?

‘I think you’d be creating more problems than solving…’
thats similar to attitude taken by the hairdresser who saw Arthur Labinjo-Hughes.
not trying to be hyperbolic - hopefully this isn’t the same scale - but abuse happens in the dark.
I repeat OP
THIS BOY HAS TOLD YOU AND WANTS YOUR HELP. DO NOT LET HIM DOWN.

Responding differently to violence or neglect or abuse to a child because of ethnicity was a huge issue in the awful Victoria Climbie case. At the time I worked with a lot of refugees and we were very aware of a level of violence in some cultures not acceptable in others (the UK in the 1970s and before were horrific too-I have friends who were caned in primary school). Victoria's death was meant to led to a change in reporting irrespective of cultural differences.
Always, always, always report. Why has this child told you? Is it because he just wants to talk? Unlikely.

Any which way it's not your judgement to make you pass on the information always. This could be the tip of the iceberg.

I have had children disclose information in front of their parents and I've told them I'm going to have to pass on to social services. It's fucking shit to do but so so necessary. There might be lots of snippets of information that school have and this be the tipping point. I have worked on several serious case reviews where children have been murdered by their parents and everybody always thinks that the bit of information they have wasn't that relevant but when you pile it all together it is.
I also works near Rochdale when the poor girls were being multiply raped. Because the girls were poor and working-class and because of fear of being accused of racism the outcomes were terrible.

I can't believe this is still even being considered.

Some people seem to be interpreting the situation differently from me. Apologies if I'm wrong but I understand the OP to be a private freelance tutor NOT a schoolteacher. If the OP was a teacher in school, their safeguarding training has been woeful and needs addressing urgently. However, as a private tutor, I am not sure if there is any mandatory requirement for up to date training, and this is where I assume the OP is. So to lambast them for asking, is a bit unfair, although I think that anyone working with children should have level 2 training in safeguarding at least bi-annually.

Having made those assumptions, OP, I think you should contact the DSL at the child's school as a matter of urgency. As others have stated, it is the small pieces of the jigsaw that help them see the overall picture. The threshold for help is sadly really high, but it may be that the school can help support this student without making it obvious where the information has come from. I have raised concerns about a child in the past in a similar situation when I was contacted by an external tutor that I knew from a different setting. I had a conversation with our then DSL who took it very seriously and said he would add it to his evidence.

That is a very tricky dilemma because if you have a duty to report and dont there could be repercussions for you later. However, I think it could be worse for him if you report it given there doesnt seem to be a sufficient reason to remove him from the family from what has been revealed. The repercussions for him could be worse (eg being sent abroad to other family members where there are no laws against hitting for discipline and or being beaten or punished in other ways for telling so he gets the message to say nothing in future). Given there have been some high profile examples of failings in social services in far more severe cases than this and where there were multiple warnings I think he wont be protected but more likely exposed to repercussions from reporting this. He probably wants a confidante and he may open up to you over time about worse abuses or tell you if things escalate but there is a risk he may clam up if its reported. I dont see a good solution to be honest.

It might be normalised in his culture but that doesn’t make it right.
The child is in the UK, has disclosed abuse to you and I am sure you are obliged to report it.
I would call local SS and report to duty social worker.

I’ve spoken to the headteacher and safeguarding officer at my local school on several occasions about concerns I’ve had regarding a couple of pupils. Obviously they won’t tell you anything, and that’s always been my starting point - “I’m not asking for information but I am concerned about x,y,z and need this to be flagged up by someone who can help if there needs to be any intervention”
And that intervention isn’t always direct. It may be through a PHSE lesson, opening a discussion in a group about how the students would react if a friend told them about a similar situation. Believe that the professionals actually ARE professionals, and not ham fisted amateurs who use a sledge hammer to crack a nut.