If you're a parent would you think this was ridiculous if I pulled you aside after school for this?

[L4815162342]

I work in a school.

A 5/6 year old today trod on a small bug. He did this on purpose.

I'd like to say it was because he didn't know better but this was half an hour after a lesson on looking after the environment and things we could do to care for nature. Lots was mentioned about animals, etc.

I pulled the child up and spoke to him about his behaviour. He essentially received the equivalent of a bad behaviour point as a result.

If you were pulled aside after school as a parent and told about this incident would you think it was ridiculous?

I know people have different views, some would draw the line at hurting an animal the size of a cat, for example, but wouldn't bat an eyelash at killing a spider.

Maybe not a psychopath, but I'd expect a much more nuanced response from a teacher, certainly a response rooted in empathy for the child and a strong understanding of children's cognitive and emotional limitations at age 5 or 6. The lack of insight into normal children's behaviour is worrying.

It must be wonderful to have the privilege of living in a world of absolutes, where no cockroaches infest a home and contaminate food, no slugs creep into the damp kitchen of a rented flat, no mosquitos bite and give you malaria, no wasps or bees sting and cause an allergic response, and nobody has a phobia. Oh the joy of mounting your high horse every morning and cutting a broad swathe through everything that's wrong with this world.

Yes. Which is why I buy meat from local farmers so I know that the animals have been well cared for. I buy chickens or a half lamb or part pig and cut into smaller portions then freeze. We've got 3 freezers to accommodate this. I get my eggs from a garage in the next village whose daughter keeps hens.
Milk delivered. High quality locally sourced is their blurb.

I have zero intention of going vegan and I am happy with my choices. I stand firm in my view that my eating meat does not mean I am happy for animals to be tortured for entertainment and thrills

I do not believe that makes me a hypocrite because I do not believe the meat I eat was tortured for entertainment and thrills.

Agreed.

Ask him if he'd like it if someone did this to him?

My children are older now, but I'd definitely have wanted to know about this so that I could reinforce the message at home (and in turn, support the school).

Well almost definitely not a psychopath!

The OP hasn’t anywhere suggested that she thinks this child is horrible or evil or behaved in a worrying way, even if some other posters have. It is common for small children to squash bugs, but surely that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try and prevent it- which is what the OP did? Toddler DD is going through a hitting phase at the moment. I am aware that this is common in toddlers but I’m still doing my best to show her that it’s not something she should be doing. A child squashing a bug falls into the same category, to me. Perhaps the negative behaviour point was excessive. I guess, to me, it depends on the boy’s reaction when she spoke to him.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that people shouldn’t be killing or discouraging insects if they are presenting a risk to their health. I am certainly not. A child purposely stepping on a bug (presumably a beetle, so nothing offensive, stinging or poisonous) is very different to trying to prevent malaria though.

I wouldn't want you anywere near my child with those extreme views. You need to get a grip. I feel sorry for your child as presumably your house is full of ants, bed bugs and ticks that you cherish like family pets........

Yes I would think it was ridiculous for you to speak to me about this. You addressed it with the child that's enough.

Brilliant

But he is 5!!! And we have no idea why he stepped on the bug. And a sanction seems OTT to me. A conversation would have sufficed.

I agree with this

So being a meat eater or proabortionist or any other whatabout this, doesnt mean that the same people cannot feel empathy towards a bee. This kind of argumentation is really pointless and just closes off any debate.

I think the idea that anyone can actually feel empathy for a bee is, at best, highly debatable.

Bees are exceptionally different from humans with very different cognition - far different from other mammals. Any “empathy” for them is really anthropomorphism. Which isn’t to say that killing them for fun is fine (though we have no information on whether there was any fun involved in the bug killing in the OP), but the idea that we shouldn’t do it because we can have an idea of how a bee might feel about their life and the ending of it is a huge stretch. If we don’t kill insects for fun it needs to be because it’s better for us not to kill for fun, not because bees must have the same experience of life as humans and therefore their death is tragic in the same way. Because that seems highly unlikely given bees’ brain structure.

Bravo!

I have a Y1, neurodivergent child. She'd know this was wrong but I'd expect a teacher to point this out to my child if she did this.

Not sure if it would need to flagged to me though (if it was a one off and DC showed she knew it was wrong etc)

My school tend to save flagging me down for the bigger stuff - like when they lost DC 😮 [within school grounds, she misunderstood where she was meant to go as the class were moving from classroom to PE Hall whilst she went to the loo - not as bad as it sounds although it wasnt ideal]

Ah another - “I only buy grass fed animsls who have lived their best life next door to me why I can personally see the farmer giving each cow a cuddle and reading them a bed time story every night.”

I find it amazing every meat eater says this is where their meat comes from yet the vast majority of animal products aren’t produced like this!

Uou can stand firm all you like but you delusional if you think animals don’t suffer for your choices. Continue eating animal products but at least be honest with yourself. What about all the animal products in things you buy. Chocolate, cake, crisps? When you eat out. Dairy involves the killing of heffers. The separation of mother and calf.

We get slugs in our kitchen - they get evicted into the garden

I was responding to comments to the effect that the teacher is a psychopath.

The child is completely normal and squashing a bug with the foot is a normal reaction to bugs in this society and culture, which the child has clearly learned from observation, probably in his own home.

It's expecting a lot of children of 5/6 to understand the nuance involved in "one bug squashed by you = not ok" / "a gazillion mosquitos killed by other means = a statistic".

It's confusing for a child to hear such an unequivocal message from a teacher about something done frequently in summer by his parents, whom he loves, who are probably kind and loving, and millions of other adults, clearly without much impact on the overall insect population, and clearly without much of a thought.

Out there in the real world, people kill insects. They don't want them in their homes. They don't want them eating their roses or their lettuces or stinging or biting them. It's not ideal, but for a teacher to present the killing of an insect as a moral failing to a child that age, probably in direct contradiction of what the child has seen at home, is getting beyond the remit of the teacher and well into overweening territory.

It's also failing to meet the child where he is and pitching the message in a way that gets him behind it enthusiastically; shaming him is nothing short of an ego trip at his expense, and also detrimental to the message.

Another brilliant post

The day we 'shame' 5yr olds about anything they do is the day we have failed those children, far less shaming their parents

You know that both halves will grow into two earthworms?

“Earthworm Regeneration: Fun FactsLet’s take a moment to explore some fascinating and lesser-known facts about earthworm regeneration:

• Speedy Regeneration: Earthworms are remarkably efficient at regeneration. In some cases, they can completely regrow a lost segment in just a few weeks.
• Two Heads Are Better Than One: If an earthworm is injured in the middle of its body, both the anterior and posterior segments can regenerate, potentially resulting in an earthworm with two heads.
• Infinite Potential: Earthworms theoretically have the potential for infinite regeneration, as long as the conditions for survival and regeneration are optimal.
• Phenomenal Reproduction: Apart from regeneration, earthworms are also capable of asexual reproduction through a process called fragmentation, where a piece of the worm can grow into a new individual.“

https://wormsurvey.org/earthworm-regeneration/

I’d give her a pass as trains are full of bed bugs. Bed bugs are far from harmless. Not a bug you want hitchhiking home on you.

I would think it a bit odd and OTT to be pulled aside as a parent about this. I would expect the teacher to perhaps say something at the time to the child, and then move on.

House spiders are an invasive species from Italy. That’s why they can’t survive outdoors in Britain. They arrived on the boats with the Roman invasion.

I'm not saying he could be a psychopath/sociopath but it needs monitoring to make sure he doesn't turn into one before there's literally nothing you can do to change it. He could just be a normal boy-it's 90% boys that do this, which explains a lot about future male behaviour doesn't it?! Me and my friends never did anything like that, wouldn't cross our minds. But I'm sure actual psychopaths started out with bugs before they moved onto animals and then potentially humans, it's an escalation. This boy had just had a lesson on respecting nature, and honestly if they don't have the capacity to understand harming bugs purely for fun, I see no reason why their tiny brains will comprehend the lives of animals either.

Just when you think this thread can't possibly get more astonishing in all the wrong ways, along comes your post.

Quite honestly, I have never come across such utter codswallop in my entire life, not just the many years I've been on Mumsnet.