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?

I'm always amused by these sort of vague dire warnings and passive aggressive statements.

But it's okay @Claraclouds a few people hvae offered a few ideas of how this could be the case. You can keep your vague pronouncements of doom. Do you also say things like, "you can never be too safe" or similar on a regular basis?

It’s hard to advise when your posts are so evasive. There are no helpful or directive details around the circumstances of the “play” or resulting injury type so what is it you want from this thread? How can one consider potential causes/consequences/outcomes with such little detail.

I don’t think OP knows yet?
Sounds like school won’t give details

Oh please! PP…
OP is not coming across as anything except worried that she hasn’t picked up anything from school comments or child’s previous behaviour that they could commit any violence.
As a child I closed a patio door behind me during a game of hide-and-seek: the child who was the seeker ran into it and broke both her front teeth (adult teeth😱)
I was made to apologise to the injured child and my DP’s explained that closing a glass door was a bad idea if playing games because others might not realise it had been closed. They gave me a cuddle and said to be aware in future (we didn’t have a patio door at home, and it was the first house I had ever seen one in)
OP I think you have this covered - it’s not your fault and your child will learn an important lesson from this incident.

I had a text message from a mum asking me to ask DD not to hit her son because apparently he didn't like. Clearly.

Obviously, I totally horrified. But even before I asked DD I had a little inkling that all might not be as it seems as I'd seen the other woman's DH playing "hitting" games with both his child and mine and just a few weeks before had, without thinking, barked, "stop that right now" at all three of them.

Anyway, I asked DD. She looked at me completely surprised and said, "but it's his favourite game - he always asks to play it. I hate it." I don't think 7 year old DD is a good enough actress to have faked that level of genuine confusion ad hoc!

@Claraclouds

We are a caring family, lots of opportunities, not exposed to anything like violence or substance, travel around the world.

I pushed a cousin off a climbing frame when I was 5ish. They broke their arm and have never let me forget it. As far as I can tell I haven’t turned into a psychopath.
Children injure each other all the time and will occasionally land awkwardly.
Ive seen countless injuries in ED caused by children injuring each other.
Unless they’ve set out to injure someone and there’s patterns of behaviour I don’t think it’s anything to be worried about.

The violent play probably comes from school tbh. Assuming what your DC did was in the realms of usual play.
You can't control all their influences when they're at school with other DCs, many of whom will have older siblings and parents with different boundaries. My DC ended up terrified of werewolves at 5 because one of his classmates knew all about them from an older brother.
My other DC ended up with a minor eye injury as a teen because of an incident in school. The other pupil had been irresponsible but the injury had been completely accidental. I wasn't annoyed about it. Accidents happen.

Given you have namechanged, i do not understand why you are being so cagey about the injury and how it was csused.It is very difficult to comment without knowing this

A child may ‘show’ empathy at 5, but it’s very questionable whether this show relates to behaviour they know is expected in a certain situation or is a token of genuine cognition and feeling. Honestly empathy doesn’t really come into its own until about 7. This is upsetting for a lot of parents… but really this whole situation… a five yr old is a baby! They have a baby brain. They shouldn’t be help to the high level of responsibility we put on their shoulders at times. We are just teaching the to pretend to empathise.

They're so literal at this age too. DD had a very nasty bump to the head at her after school club, we were asked to collect her and told they were playing chasing and she'd tripped but not gotten her hands down in time to break the fall. Just one of those things, no big deal except that she looked like she'd been in the ring with Mike Tyson.

Asked DD what happened and she said "<friend> was trying to kill us!", because that's what was happening in the game .

Eh that's all well and good DD, but please don't explain it that way to your teacher or <friend's> poor parents will be getting a phonecall.

So violent people don't travel? What exactly did your son do?

I want help to understand where the violent play came from.

Im assuming in the playground? Could have been boisterous, rough play rather than violent.
You need to listen to your child calmly, allow him/ her to explain what happened. The playground supervisor/s also should be writing what happened in an incident report.
Older kids trying to engage the little ones in their play often ends badly— not hospital trips but tears often.

Seriously? My child was on the PE equipment with a friend, they jostled each other, he fell off, broke his arm (open fracture), complications ensued which resulted in extensive time in hospital and ongoing treatment.

It's not hard to imagine a situation between young children that results in serious injury - there doesn't need to be any history of violence.

When I was five, my friend and I were holding onto the railings swinging back and forth and we started jokingly swinging and bumping into each other, which we started doing harder and getting annoyed and then i swung and bashed her so hard she fell off and cracked her head open. I still remember the bandage on her head.

I am not writing this from prison.

I also broke a kids nose at primary playing kiss chase. I also did not go to jail.

you've escaped!

During rough play, most likely its shoving/pushing/kicking that has resulted in a soft tissue injury to eyes or broken bones, or something being thrown that has done the same thing.

It's terrible, and i've been that parent called by the school to say something awful had happened. (my son was choked to the point of neck bruises during an altercation)

I didn't expect any contact from the other parents, or even an apology, these things happen, school can be rough, things go wrong during play (my dd broke her own nose tripping on the playground) and sometimes its because play got rough and one or the other of them lashed out in retaliation to something.

It doesn't make your child awful, bad, or violent. However, it is worth addressing the circumstances with the school, what led up to it, and if anything can be done differently in future, and some work with your son about appropriate responses during those moments.

Why are you being so vague?

My son was 5 and playing with a group of boys the same age. One boy fell and broke his arm. There was no suggestion of violence or blame. Boy had arm in a cast, mum and dad accept it's an accident - end of story.

We can't advise without some hint of what kind of injury was sustained and if it was one boy pushing other boy off apparatus or one boy stumbling and hurting themself sort of injury. If the other boy charged at your son and he stepped out the way and the other boy hurt himself then that's not your son being violent.

Unlike Reception, the supervision in the y1-6 playground is often like 2 or 3 adults and the rest of the school so easily becomes wild. Even if your child has never watched superhero sort of content others will have and it doesn't take your son much to pick it up.

Playfighting is a normal and natural stage of development. You haven’t given many details but if the other child was older and they were playing together then it’s unlikely it was deliberate or violent. Probably just one of those freak things where he’s come down awkwardly causing injury and it could have just easily been the other way around. So definitely caution about rough play as it sounds like you’ve done but otherwise go easy on your son.

Also, I’d want to speak to the school. A hard playground surface is not a good place to play fight, young kids aren’t exactly known for their impulse control and this happened on their watch- I think they need to be far more proactive in shutting down that style of play to prevent future injuries. If your DS has brothers, cousins or friends he play fights with then that’s your job to step in before it gets out of hand (and make sure you do this so he learns) but you can’t police what you’re not present for. It’s on the school. Plus also just some bad luck.

I am not being evasive. I have not had any more information from school.

My child has not been punished.

I know that the 2 children were playing, that's all.

I am shocked that my child was playing violently. I don't want this to happen again clearly, it could have been worse.

You need to find out exactly what happened and how old the other child was and what they were doing with your child. It’s up to the school to safe gaurd all children and accidents happen. Context is everything here.