My 5 year old injured a child

[Soworriedtoday]

Posting for traffic. Name changed. Feeling sick.

My 5 year has injured another child at school. Other child has required urgent hospital treatment and is requiring ongoing treatment.

I don't know who the other child is and I imagine that the last thing the parents want is anything to do with us.

I don't know what to do. What am I supposed to do? My child "lashed out". We are a caring family, lots of opportunities, not exposed to anything like violence or substance, travel around the world.

What do I do? Will anything happen to my child?

You are over-dramatising at this stage. The school will investigate but it sounds like rough play that got out of hand and someone got hurt accidentally. Nothing intentional. Your DC is not going to become a violent offender who assaults people.
DS2 (aged 4) waved his metal truck around and whacked me in the face causing a black eye- I had to go to the eye hospital twice because I saw flashing lights. It was an accident. He's not a psychopath in the making.

OP I think you're in a panic, you really do need to wait until you've found out a bit more about the situation.
Children do play rough and tumble and sometimes get hurt doing so.

I think there's every possibility by the wording in your posts that you son isn't normally one for this kind of play and that's why you're worried and upset.

You'll soon know more and can then work out what needs to be done, but not many children/parents go through schooling without some type of scrape or other it's part and parcel of childhood that we could well do without.

I don’t think I’d be apologising before finding out exactly what happened.

OP, in the kindest possible way, you are catastrophising (very normal by the way).

You have been given very little information about something that has happened and you're fixating on the worst possible scenario.

You keep using the word "violent" but honestly until you speak to the school and get more perspective you've no idea.

They could have been playing football and a push/tackle left the other child with broken bones, or maybe your son has dared a much older child to do something dangerous that (at 5) he didn't really know was dangerous and the older child did it.

My point is, wait until you have more info, take a deep breath, worry when you have to and until then try not to panic.

Seriously. You need to calm down.

The school will investigate and deal with this the way they see fit, and based on the information they have. As long as you cooperate with the school and remain open, not defensive, there is not much more you can do at this point. A premature apology will not be helpful.

Being worried about your child being 'violent' is pointless, as you don't have the facts of what exactly happened. As others have said, there are loads of more likely scenarios of accidental injury during play. Or, as it was an older child, it's possible your child was provoked.

Just sit tight for now and follow the school's need.

It doesn't sound like your kid even did anything wrong. A much older child was playing with them and got hurt. I don't see how that's your 5yos fault unless he stabbed him with a pair of scissors or something.

I would hold off on catastrophising until you know the facts. Kids get hurt easily. Kids can fall off stuff in the playground and break something, which would require multiple hospital trips. Could easily have been an accident. Doesn't mean OPs kid is violent or a bully.

I got hurt badly at school. 2 kids started playing tug of war and really got into it and started spinning themselves around etc. I was walking to the bathroom, one slipped and let go and flew into me. They fell on top of me, took me down and I hit my head off a door knob and the floor with the combined weight of us both. Nice double head smack, blood everywhere, A&E it is. Did either set out to hurt me? No. Eachother? No. They got carried away at an age they didn't know better. Was bad luck also that they fell in such a way it was me they hit.

Another kid lost their tooth. They were being a twat, did provoke another kid into chasing them, fell flat on their face and knocked out a tooth. Wasn't other kids fault. I also broke another persons fingers in a game of basketball because they caught the ball stupidly trying not to break a nail. I wasn't punished for that, no reason to. Hadn't done it on purpose.

@Soworriedtoday

I think you need to know exactly what happened, and I think if your child had been violent the school would have spoken to you/your DS straight away - or the day it happened.

It sounds like they did something together and the boy got hurt. It could have been climbing on something, misuse of a piece of equipment. If your child had intentionally caused harm - I think you’d have been contacted immediately.
The school has a duty of care to ensure children are supervised, equipment is safe - so I think this is the bigger issue.

Try to find out what happened ASAP because it’s causing you distress and I think you maybe jumping to conclusions before knowing the full picture.

Until you know what happened, there's really nothing anyone can say.

I don't like the speculation around this - it could be as simple as they were playing and the other child fell awkwardly and broke their arm. I suspect something like that over your son making a targeted attack because I'd hope the school would be a little more proactive in talking to you about it?!

At this stage I think you can only assume it was an accident and talk to your son about writing an apology card or something; when you know more, you can respond more appropriately.

When my autistic child was four he pushed a child off the play equipment and the child was badly hurt. I was mortified. The child’s parents approached me in the playground and I apologised to them. The said they were going to sue me and the school. Lunatics. Nothing happened.

I pushed my cousin through a plate glass door, after he stuffed my Teddy Ruxspin down the toilet. Neither of us grew up to be serial killers.

Agree with everything that Swg said.

I was a HoD in a secondary school. Our boys were playing something called 'snips'. One stood with his hand together as in prayer and the other would slap his hands as hard as he could.

Boys were coming in from break unable to hold pencils.

Another time, they were stomping on one another's hands...

I am probably get flamed for saying this, but the children of gentle parents who only do positove reinforcement (and think they are better because their little cherub travels the world) are always the roughest/badest behaved to all the playgroups I have been (and I have been to a lot in the last 12 years) and at school.

But you don't make much sense tbh, did he play, violently played, lashed out or attacked the other kid? Because you have said all of those things...

I was a HoD in a secondary school. Our boys were playing something called 'snips'. One stood with his hand together as in prayer and the other would slap his hands as hard as he could.

Oh gosh, we used to play that along with red rover/British bulldog, and a game where you'd gather on the end of a line of playmates and all 'fling' the last one off as fast/far as you could...

Was talking to someone recently about things we did growing up/in the work place, nothing violent or vandalism and how we got to this age (60's) we all decide it was pure luck.

But you don't make much sense tbh, did he play, violently played, lashed out or attacked the other kid? Because you have said all of those things...

TBF it sounds like the OP has been told very little of what happened in the incident themselves and is just thinking all types of scenarios.

I once broke a classmates wrist. He was calling me names, I pushed him, he fell backwards and broke his wrist. I was twice your sons age and still didn’t get punished for it, it was an accident. Your son is so young, it is okay for children to lash out, I assume he didn’t mean to seriously hurt this child, even if he did he is too young to really be able to understand the consequences of his actions.

Do you know what the injury is? The way the school have described it as needing urgent and ongoing treatment sounds bad, but a broken bone would require urgent hospital treatment and some ongoing treatment in terms of having the cast removed etc. It doesn’t mean it is a catastrophic injury!

I wouldn’t be panicking or feeling awful about it until you know the actual facts around the incident.

Their response very clearly indicates they have seen it as an accident.

I too think you're catastrophising. This is very understandable and it must be very upsetting for you, but it's likely that this was a bad accident. I broke someone's nose once when I was about 10 by spinning round and catching her in the face with my elbow. I was heedless and careless but not deliberately violent. You've had some extremely unhelpful responses on here, which will be making you feel worse as well, I expect.

That is such an over reaction?

Sure enough the first thing you do is ask to see the HT when you are told or call during the day to find out what happened.

My first reaction would be "it was an accident while playing", not "why did he violently lash out, I took him on holidays?".

I'm confused.

Sounds like an accident then?
logically from what you’ve described that has to be what’s happened??
presumably if it was severe and intentional they’d have to put something in place at least in the short term incase it happened again to another child??

We were at a kids soft play area in the toddler section at Cheltenham racecourse.
A group of us all stood right next to it but talking (not eyes directly on little ones)

I go to the toilet, when I got back everyone looked really stressed. My 3 yo ds had bitten a boy on the knee I was mortified! This was the first (and only) time he’s bitten someone.
I took him out of the soft play (husband was like a rabbit in headlights) and told him that was not ok we don’t bite he’s really hurt someone and he was no longer aloud to play in the soft play we’d go and do something else.
I picked up ds and found the family of the boy who had been bitten. The boy looked about 10 years old. The Family went mental at us swearing just going wild said they didn’t want apology that we should leave because his mum would give me a good hiding! This was the boys grandad shouting as us whilst I’d got ds in my arms.

Once things calmed down the family moved on, another lady came over and explained what had happened.
The older boy had been pushing my ds by his head under the balls in the ball pit. As soon as my ds popped back up he pushed and held him down. The lady thought they were brothers. I was in the loo husband chatting had no idea this was happening. The lady said my son bit the boy whilst being held under the balls.
I feel like that was self defence (or just blind rage!) however we still reinforced With our ds not to bite but we understood he must of been scared. We should of been watching we were at fault.
You need to find out the full story. The fact the other boy is much older is fishy to me why was an older boy playing rough with a little boy??

My ds age 10 snapped after years of bullying and punched a kid back in the face (after being kicked and punched and verbally abused on the floor), but even that wasn't enough to warrant extended medical check ups for the other kid. This is crazy that a 5 year old could do THAT kind of damage that warrants that?

It doesn't matter what life your child has they will still know how to hurt someone.

if it were my child they'd be consequences.

the school will deal with it as a school and as a parent you should to.

Hard to say not given a lot of details. How badly injured is the child. Who's your kid rambo!

’Much older’ does sound like the other child may be 8, 9, 10? I would expect (hope) that if it took place during play time, that there was adequate supervision outside. It could be that the older child was instigating something which provoked some sort of knee jerk, defensive action from your dc. Don’t automatically think your child is 100% to blame for the older child’s injury. It all depends on the context of what the altercation was about. Try not to worry, and wait for the discussion with the head teacher etc before reaching out to the parents of the other child. I wouldn’t be making any judgement on the situation yet, until you’re in receipt of all the facts.

If your child was not punished and they aren't giving you more information besides your child being involved, it is most certain that whatever violence was occurring was on the side of the other child and their actions led to their injury.
I can see no reason for them not to explain how your child was involved beyond protecting the other family from your ire if you find out what really happened or protecting the school from your ire when you find out they weren't watching or that the older child has a history of bullying or something.
And multiple visits could just mean getting stitches put in and then later removed.
Schools are pretty low tolerance for violence and have been known to suspend or expel the victims who never even raised their hands in defense. And they didn't even punish your son at all.
I get concern, but I don't think that your son exhibited any untoward violence based on the information given.
frankly, the kid could have been coming up behind your son to kick him in the ass, missed, fell backwards, hit his or her head and since your son was the potential victim, but never touched, they don't want to say more.
They would have to give you details if your son touched someone or someone touched him.