To not want my daughter near a little boy at school after what I saw this morning?

[Editormedi]

Am I being silly or is this worrying?

So at drop off this morning I saw something that really unsettled me. There’s a little boy in dd’s class (year 1) and when his parents brought him in he completely lost it. I mean properly lashing out. He was kicking his dad hard in the shins, screaming at his mum to “shut up” over and over, trying to smack her face. It went on for a good few minutes and everyone in the playground was watching. The parents looked mortified but also a bit helpless, like this wasn’t the first time.

I know kids can have meltdowns and off days, I’m not judging that. But I have to admit it really worried me. If he’s like that with his parents what’s he like with the other dc? Dd is quite quiet and gentle and I don’t want her to end up on the receiving end.

Part of me thinks I should just leave it, it’s none of my business. Another part of me feels like I should say something to the teacher, or at least try to make sure dd keeps her distance. But I don’t want to be unfair on a 6 year old either, maybe he has SEN or something going on at home.

I just can’t shake the image of him hitting out and the thought of him doing the same to my dd makes me feel protective.

AIBU? Should I just ignore and stop overthinking, or would you mention it to the teacher? Handhold please. Flame me if I’m being PFB/OTT, but I came away really unsettled.

Yet I've seen people on threads complain about expensive specialist SEN provision for children who clearly can't cope in mainstream school.

I can't see those people agreeing that there should be more provisions like that yet they don't want those children in mainstream either.

Some people seem to want it both ways.

It isn’t natural.

Seeing a meltdown between a child & his parents has absolutely nothing to do with another child.

I see this all the time and it wouldn’t even occur to me to think how could this possibly impact me & my child.

I think you are overthinking and possibly overreacting. I wouldn't be unsettled but would probably feel sorry for the parents who have to deal with this.

OP, what do you want the outcome to be. You aren't going to talk to the school and you aren't going to move schools. So then what?

I have seen this at both private and state schools - some kids just react in ways that we aren't used to or are comfortable with. Very normal and not a rarity. I can almost guarantee he won't be the only kid in the whole school who acts like this.

If the school handle every outburst and it doesn't affect your kid I think you just have to move on.

dc2 used to be like this at that age.
Except he was calm, quiet etc… in class. It was just home agd some going into school5(@5 caused problems.

Thanksfully no one ever listened to ideas like yours. Dc2 is now at Uni doing engineering. And he hasn’t been violent to anyone fir years.

A child being autistic and having a meltdown at the school gates doesn’t mean they should be excluded from school!!

Yeah. Both my kids have at least one “fizzy” child in their class. Once he (always he) kicks off, the class is evacuated so no one is injured by a flying chair.

It happens so often now, it is so normalised for them, that they barely even mention it at home any more.

It’s sad all round. Sad for the kids who can’t cope with the environment. Sad for the other kids who have their learning disrupted and risk getting thumped with a chair. Sad for the parents who (in most cases but not all) are doing their best under very difficult circumstances and, I have no doubt, are dreading the next call from the school.

Thank you for sharing this. We are currently going through the AuDHD diagnosis process for my little one - he sounds very much like your child. I'm a former teacher and thought I knew almost everything there is to know about AuDHD, but living it is an entirely different ballgame. My little one has only just started school, and after an incredibly difficult day for him today, reading this post, and the replies, actually made me cry. My heart brakes for my son, and I share all the fears you do, especially for his future.
Just sending some solidarity to a fellow Mam! X

I dont think it matters whats going on with him personally or at home. I dont want my child around behaviour like this. Its not fair on well behaved kids to be around the disruption or upsetting scenes.

I would be very mindful and if your daughter mentions anything, contact the school and follow up with a written email confirming what youve discussed so you can start a paper trail in case you need it in the future.

Or you can just start one now and say that your daughter has been upset by witnessing her classmate acting violently at drop off, can teacher keep an eye on her please etc. That way they know that you know and its a light touch.

Seems a bit ott, you don't know the circumstances behind his behaviours, boy could be poorly, bullied at school and terrified about going in or autistic. He may only behave this way in front of his parents.

If dd has not mentioned anything about his behaviour in school he might be well behaved or quiet in class.

You don't know.

What you saw was probably a fear and anxiety response from that boy taking it out on his parents. That doesn't mean he's like that with teachers or the other kids.

As others have said you don’t know what’s going on.

i would also add maybe one day you will be hoping people aren’t judging you- also you don’t know actually know what your child is like in school.

i think a little boy (of that age)has a lot of things going on, without parents starting to say they don’t want their child near him.

This is a really measured and thoughtful post. And I - mostly - agree. What's also happening is that the children who really are neuro-divergent are questioned, as if the parent has just TikTok-diagnosed their child and is using autism/ADHD/other as an excuse for bad behaviour. I don't think people are being intentionally dishonest, I just think it's become a somewhat easy answer for (perceived!) "bad" behaviour. It minimises the seriousness of additional needs, and the devastating impact those needs can have on every aspect of a child's life.

I do hope your child is always perfect OP. It’s quite something that this thread is all about how this little boy’s distress affects you. He hasn’t hurt your child and there is no reason to think he would. His parent’s lives are almost certainly hard enough it it is their hands that deserve a hold, not yours.

100% poor little sausage. The ammount of parents of SEN children who will be made to feel like absolute shit from this thread. Thinking that their 5 year old already has their card marked to be ostracised. 😔

I'm sorry, but you cannot possibly go to your child's teacher and say 'My child is much too gentle to be allowed near a child I once saw kicking off at his parents'. If he shows any aggressive behaviour towards your child, then you can speak to the teacher. But he hasn't. You are not going to be able to segregate your child from other children just because you've seen them behave badly.

Your child will have to encounter children throughout her schooling who will behave in ways you don't like. That might because they have SEN, or have experienced something awful at home, or have incompetent parents, or are simply obnoxious - kids might behave in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons and your daughter will witness it and will need to acquire a degree of resilience and/or understanding about it.

Of course if your child is hurt or bullied you can address that but you can't ask for them to be removed from the vicinity of another child preemptively.

I understand that it can be upsetting to see a child behaving in the way you witnessed and also that it's hard to watch your own child go off to school and have to navigate all this social stuff for the first time on her own - but you do need to calm down about this.

Many children with SN only act out like this with their parents. It isn’t because the parents are permissive. It is because the parents are the only people where the child feels safe. Everywhere else the child bottles up all that fear and anxiety and holds it in.

That is very likely why the child is resisting entering the school building. It is time to mask and pretend they aren’t in an extremely uncomfortable place. When they get home, the parents will deal with the fallout of a child who held it together during the day.

or the child will act at at school. It definitely happens. But if he is freaking out at the gate, I would suspect a child who masks and behaves at his own expense.

It would worry me too, but there isn't a huge amount you can do. I would suggest just keeping an eye on things. Don't question your DD about anything, but ask her how her day is, how she's getting on with the class, what made her feel happy today, did anything make her feel sad? etc. so you have an open dialogue. If she is used to talking to you about her day and you not having a big reaction hopefully she'll feel empowered to let you know if something bothers her.

It's tempting to just tell yourself not to care but it's human nature not to want your child in harm's way especially if she's spending all day each day with a child that is violent, even though you've only witnessed it in one circumstance.

This is a really thoughtful and insightful post tbh. It just goes to show the massive lack of ignorance around neurodivergence and disabilities if people immediately jump to assuming a child behaving violently must be ND or have a LD. I know OP mostly is getting a handhold from the thread (which is fine!) but it's led to some interesting posts.

First few weeks of the school year? In a year group that's nothing like reception and sort of sucks? A child losing it you say? Unheard of!

Hopefully this kid won’t turn out like that. But a proportion of every year group do - that is a fact. OP’s daughter will unfortunately witness all kinds of behaviour throughout her school career. This might scare her, she might get hurt, be it intentionally or unintentionally. She might hear terrible language and disrespectful behaviour. That behaviour may or may not be linked to that child’s neurodivergence. Sad for them - super sad for other kids to have to deal with. My point was, this is her reality for the rest of her school career. No point complaining.

What? She can't even come for a bit of support or chat?

Whi gave you the sheriff's badge?

Sen parent here and you would have seen that regularly when I tried to drop off.

It was hell.

The fact parents stood aorund watching is bloody awful.

My kids never hit other children. They just couldnt transition and had little speech at that age

You got a snap shot

Agree.

What on earth do you want from the teacher? Because as a teacher I certainly wouldn't be discussing another child's behaviour with you.
Do you want reassurance that distressed child will always be kept away from your DD? I wouldn't give you that either.

This child's circumstances have nothing to do with you, and you just have to trust the school to do their job looking after ALL of their pupils.

If you witnessed someone who shares a classroom with your child kicking and punching and screaming at the school gates it wouldn't cross your mind that your own child could potentially be hurt in school? Pull the other one.

I would have concerns too, but would keep them to myself unless something happened to my child OP. There's a whole lot of speculation on this thread about this child, and nobody knows the real situation. Perhaps he has SEN and is only violent towards his parents. Perhaps he's just a horrible little bully.

There are many, many children with ASD who can and should be in mainstream school. I was one of them, my daughter is one of them. We mask in school. We also get distressed and have meltdowns in school. As we grow older, because we're high functioning, we learn to mask better, and to keep the insane physical and emotional distress we feel on the inside.

When we are little, and first getting to grips with a level of emotional distress that a neurotypical person could never, ever understand - well, sometimes we get it wrong and it all comes pouring out. That's what a meltdown is. And, when they're over, we experience extreme shame.

To then say to us: oh, you shouldn't be around 'normal' people in a 'normal' school... yeah, that's not OK.

I now understand that many people really don't have empathy or lack the intellectual capacity to imagine a lived reality different to their own. Ironically, those are traits autistic people are often accused of. Double ironically, ASD people like me and my DD do have loads of empathy for others, and so I'm taking your post not as mean-spirited, but as simply unaware of what autism is actually like in real life.

We're not monsters to be locked away.

OP, this kid sounds awfully like my intelligent, gentle, beautiful DD. Please don't judge. Please try to find out more. I know it's shocking to see, if you've never experienced it, but view it as what it is: someone externalising their extreme distress, and who doesn't want to hurt anyone, and is probably at the beginning of a lifetime of learning how to adjust to a world that's not very kind or sympathetic towards them.

And it's a shame that there's no point complaining.

If the DD witnessed this kind of behaviour in the home, it would be classed as she was seeing domestic violence.
But at school, that seems to be ok?