DS was hit in the face by a child at school

[Lifestooshort1542]

AIBU to be feeling quite upset about this? 😢
There was an incident at school where DS (7) and some other children followed a year 6 child to an area of the school field where the year 6 child had gone ‘to cool down’ due to feeling overwhelmed and over stimulated.
DS and others have gone over to see if he’s ok, and this boy has lashed out at DS who was in the firing line and hit him twice across the face.
School rang me and informed me of the incident and said he was ok but quite upset so sat with a teacher. The head was aware and the boy in question is being ‘dealt with’.

Im quite upset by this, Do I just accept this happened and let it go?
WWYD?

Bit confused here. Of course children should be taught to keep an eye out & to be kind to others in difficulty - I absolutely agree with this.

Also - ND children who experience overwhelm need to be taught the importance of being able to walk away & seek solace in order to regulate themselves. This is an invaluable tool for them & clearly this is what the older boy tried to do.

However if you've an ND child who is given to violence (even against a much smaller & younger child) if they are interrupted during this process then they need a place to go - not just almost out of reach of triggers (in this case, well-meaning 7yos).

Neither child is necessarily wrong, to me this is a school failure IF IT IS KNOWN the older child will lash out. The older child needs a quiet space away from the other children if the consequence is violence. If they are aware enough they need to remove themselves they should be able to ask a teacher to access that safe space - that's down to the school.

All this assuming the ND child is genuinely ND & not just a little shit. I'm so sorry for your DS, it would have been doubly shocking to be attacked in response to his attempt to be kind.

@Caerulea we don't know whether the place the Y6 pupil went to wasn't the designated quiet safe space. I doubt the older child would have been allowed in the school building without an adult with them. There are very few spare adults in school to help with this or there might not have been time to get an adult before the child has a meltdown. We also don't know whether that child did ask the 7yo to leave him be, before lashing out.

Yes the older child should not have hit out, and hopefully if there are ways to avoid that in the future then they need to be actioned. So reinforce that if a child is in the quiet area then best to leave them be and if you are worried find an adult supervising in the playground.

She did not say that. If you read the post it clearly says they don't tolerate it.

Why does everyone make this assumption? I've never seen anyone say he has ND it's fine. What they do manage to do with an understanding of ND is actually give a decent, useful suggestion, not try to derail the thread into some weird, tangential, dualistic arguement where sweeping assumptions are made about a posters opinion and words are put in their mouth.

As usual we have a ton of people projecting rather than reading on this thread.

Cracking work blaming the 7 year old. 👍🏻 it needn’t be either of the children’s ‘fault’, just a shortcoming of a teacher/TA who should have been overseeing a child who had risen themselves off to ‘cool down’.

You do realise schools don't have the supervising numbers at lunchtime anymore due to budget cuts. We're lucky if we have 3 or 4 grown ups outside for 240 or so KS2 children at times... there's no chance in hell they can pick one just to monitor with that ratio

so an 11 year old shouldn’t understand that he cannot violently assault a much younger and smaller child because he ‘needs space?’

It sounds like he needs space away from other children on a long term basis for their protection frankly.

@ForgottenPasswordNewAccount violent little boys (ND or otherwise) who aren’t taken in hand and taught not to assault others regardless of their ‘needs’ grow up to be thugs who abuse women and children and/or are the monsters who kill other young men with one punch kills- but I’m sure you’ll disagree and say that’s hyperbole.

A seven year old asking a much larger and older child if he was okay is not ‘provoking’ the violent bully to physically assault him. I’m sure if your son had been punched in the face by another older child you’d have something to say about it and how he certainly couldn’t have possibly ‘provoked it.’ Gross. Do better.

I’m sorry your son was violently assaulted in this way.

Unfortunately ND seems to override the rights of other children and their expectation of being kept safe at school. It’s truly abhorrent that a 7 year old is being blamed when he was attacked by an older, larger child who needed to ‘cool down’ when in fact he should have been separated from the other children until he was able to regulate himself.

Excuse you. My child has never hit anyone. He has been hit, he hasn't need a day of school to deal with it.

We teach him to respect everyone but are also teaching him about his reactions to others, personal space and boundaries.

You have the day you deserve

You said that your child would ‘probably react in the same way’ which was an unprovoked violent assault.

I hope you sleep well. Goodnight