to tell my 5 year old that the much bigger child who kicked him in the stomach will be going to borstal in a few years?

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

And that he, Ds1, will be going to lovely university, and not naughty boy prison becausehe is a good boy?

The older, thank-god-I-did-not-see-him-as-I-would-have-flayed-him- boy didn't hear this. Ds1 did, and was much comforted by this idea, that horrible bullies get a comeuppance and good boys go to a lovely place where everyone has fun and learns.... was this a bad idea? In hindsight, it's a bit close to gloating, but he was sobbing and holding his tummy.

[Doobydoo]

Can see why you said what you said,but the other boy will probably end up as Prime Minister!
What a lovely little girl though

[tigermoth]

fiofio, good article and I agree with your posts throughout this thread.

Of course what the bigger boy did was nasty, even if it was (possibly)accidental, but I still feel shocked that people feel it is ok to tell a 5 year old that borstal is such an automatic future for the boy who kicked. It all sounds far too 'fire and brimstone' to me.

And what happens if the 5 year old victim happens to do something bad at some point in the future, even if it is totally out of character? Will he then fear he now is headed for borstal too?

FWIW, my ds1 was one of the naughty boys in his class. Not a bully but generally disruptive, despite lots of attention and discipline from dh and I.

He grew out of it, to a large extent - now going into year 10, he is not one of the bad boys at his secondary school. He doesn't get into fights, hang around on street corners with gangs.

A mother who knew all the boys in his primary school class very well recently told me ds1 is now the only boy she is happy to have in her home with her own son - all the so 'good' boys at the time are far less polite and well behaved.

[Blandmum]

When we were camping on the way down to conwall we stayed in a campsite with a swimming pool. My kids were in swimming, and I was sitting on the side. DD started to shout at a boy and when I investigated he had head butted ds. I asked him what his problem was and he told me it was ds's fault as he had splashed him!

He was larger and older than ds. So I loudly and pointedly asked him if he had never been splashed in a swimming pool before and he sloped off, somewhat chasened.

sadly, some kids just don't behave well.

[sitdownpleasegeorge]

VS - yep, I couldn't agree more, that boy I met on holiday may well end up in trouble but not because he is inherently bad with "borstal in his genes". He isn't being parented in a suitable manner. The parents will probably claim he is a lovely if cheeky little chap, just a bit boisterous or over exhuberant, if he gets into a bit of trouble later in life. Other parents can see there is a distinct possibility of it happening so why can't his own ? Why is a boozy holiday meal/relaxing session in the poolside jacuzzi more important to them than supervising their child and having a positive affect on the way he turns out ?

[solo]

SDPG and snowleopard, well put.
The last soft play thing my Ds went to, he was 7. He turned 10 yesterday and I've just posed a hypothetical question to him. What would you do if you accidentally kicked a smaller child in a soft play area? he told me it happened last time he went and that he kept asking the child if he was ok. He said he tried to attract the supervisors attention but they couldn't hear him. I knew nothing about this obviously, if I had, I would've made sure the little one was ok myself and taken the child to his parent. It always looks worse with my Ds as he is 5'4" tall now, so looks about 14. He is also a soft, sensitive type who cries easily and shows huge concern when someone is hurting.

It is down to parents to teach right from wrong and good from bad as well as treating other people - regardless of age with some amount of respect. Yes there are the 'ones that get away', but largely it's good parenting that sets up good behaviour in their children. For 99% of the hoodie type 'naughty' kids you see smashing bus shelters up or picking on other kids(deliberately), what do you suppose their parents are doing? Do you think they know where their kids are or what they're up to? I very much doubt it.
My Ds doesn't roam the streets or play out at home. He knows right from wrong and has a conscience, but he also thinks everyone is his friend and would be the one left to face the music or take the blame etc when other kids caused trouble. He's soft. He plays out on my parents green in front of their house and gets picked on all the time from his so called 'friends'. I'd still sooner he was the way he is than the way they are. He told me a few months ago that one of the bullies he faces was now his friend as it had been discovered that they had a lot in common(that neither of them see their fathers and that they hate them etc). I thought ok, maybe that'll help, but no, the bully child in him is back and his attitude is most definitely one that will get him put into detention - young offenders and or prison in the future. I don't think my Ds will follow because I know where he is and what he's doing. I put him straight when he needs putting straight - I'm not waiting until he gets hauled up in front of the magistrate to set him on the right path. That's too late IMO and experience.

[nametaken]

Snowleapard - now that you mention it, I also went back to my hometown last year to find the nasty little thug who so delighted in bullying me for no reason whatsoever had had her children taken into care.

A lot of people fail to grasp the fact that this sort of behaviour is "cyclical". I mean, if your parents behave thuggishly there's a high chance you will too and your children after you.

[SheSellsSeashellsByTheSeashore]

i dont think TBGP BU as the other boy didnt hear that he would end up in borstal. but the bigger boy could very easily have been my dd1, who is prone to occassional random acts of violence. i often tell the other children that she is a naughty girl and will go to prison and i tell dd1 the same thing. i.e. "if that other boy/girl tells the police what you have done they will come and take you away to prison because thats where naughty boys and girls go"

what i disagree with is the thinking that children with behavior problems come from bad families who dont care and they will end up in prison. i care very much about dd1 and she is always punished for behaving badly towards other children. i have no idea why she does it, its usually when she doesnt get her own way.

i dont think she really will end up in prison she is a very bright little girl who is very active and confident and occasionally goes too far. i believe that she will eventually grow out of this behavior.

[UniversallyChallenged]

good post sitdown - I always step in too and am always prepared for a mum who cant be bothered to get up when her child needs to be disciplined to be able to get up when some one else does the job for her and have a go at me. I find most children are very respectful when they are told their behaviour is unacceptable and as you say, they often change when they see you watching them thereafter. To me that means they inherently know they shouldnt be behaving that way.

To the op no yanbu - if it made your LO feel better then it was the right thing to do at the time.

My ragtag 4 year old can sometimes be a bit of a kicker and I have twice been told by other mums he has been naughty so have been at both ends!

[Ripeberry]

Fiofio, yes that is an interesting article.
In our pre-school there was a group of 4 friends who were obsessed with playing with guns.
The playleaders were very against it and had banned all toy guns, pictures and even toy soldiers!
But those boys were very resoursefull and just made guns out of lego!
Which i thought was good imagination, and if they did not have lego, they used anything they could find, even bits of grass!

[VictorianSqualor]

Thing is sitdownpleasegeorge, if that child never encounters another person like you but is left to push other children aroudn, then he will ultimately learn that is how you deal with things, putting him at a much higher chance of ending up in prison.

It's not judging children, but judging certain ways or 'parenting' that teach children no real life skills and the wrong way to behave that makes people think they will end up in prison. Children are pretty much a blank canvas and the difference between one child that ends up in prison and another not can often be attributed to the parents, if a child is already kicking others in the stomach (not in general game play, but nastily - which the OP had no reason to think about at that point) then it's not unreasonable to think their parents aren't teaching them right from wrong and aren't likely to suddenly decide one day that they need to deal with it.(Even if they do, turning a person's life around is much harder than teaching them the right way in the beginning)

[snowleopard]

GermanPrison, as a bullied child it meant a huge amount to me that one day I would escape those bastards and leave them behind through doing well academically. Not a bad message to give your child IMO. I've been back to my hometown and seen the people who used to beat me up, sat in the pub and been very glad I got away from them. OK, as a society we do need to help violent kids with behaviour problems, but that's not your 5yo's job. Right now he has to focus on his own needs and dealing with other kids while retaining his confidence and interest in education - so, so important especially for boys as they tend to fall back at secondary school age.

Though I suppose you might want to avoid saying things that he might repeat and get himself more aggro.

[SixSpotBurnet]

Very good post, sitdownpleasegeorge.

[sitdownpleasegeorge]

I yelled "leave him alone, anyone who wants to can go down the slide !" to a boy who was ringleading a ganging up against a crying ds1(5) when we were on holiday recently. It was in the far corner of a softplay area and the boy was trying to control access to the fun wiggly enclosed slide from the top level to the bottom. He didn't realise I was ds1's mum as I was in there with ds2 who needs a bit of help but it was pure chance that I saw what was going on.

He looked shocked and then smiled at me and blustered something about what he was doing and I just reiterated that it wasn't fair to other children who wanted to go down the slide and I was sure he didn't want other children to be crying and unhappy on their holiday. I finished off by complimenting him on his cool t-shirt and he smiled again and disappeared down the slide, I would guess he was the same age as ds1 or maye a bit older.

Half an hour later he smiled and said goodbye to me as he and his family left the restaurant area attached to the softplay and later that week we saw him at the swimming pool where he was jumping the queue for the childrens waterslide and going down before the green safety light came on until he looked round and noticed me watching and I got a wave and a smile and after that he was a bit more careful with the other children.

His parents were not watching him at either the softplay or the swimming pool and I don't think he is a "bad'un" destined for borstal but I do think that he needed more parental supervision and with it his behaviour could be modified to prevent it possibly escalating to the point where he gets into serious trouble.

Parents wouldn't have to fight their children's battles or issue potentially smug platitudes such as "he'll end up in naughty boys school and you won't" if other parents would bloody well discipline their own kids and watch them to make sure they didn't harm others instead of putting their own leisure time needs first.

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

Have realised I have turned into the threadstarter I always take the piss out of, who asks if they are being unreasonable and then insists they aren't. I'm bowing out now, feel free to hang me.

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

Er, what stereotypes? I didn't even see the child, how on earth could I have stereotyped him?
i have been unfair in presuming that all violent teenagers go to Borstal perhaps, when clearly they don't. but it's an option.

And of course I have stereotyped my own child as nice, who doesn't?

By the way, pretending that I think only 'naice' boys go to university isn't very effective when we are not a 'naice' family.

For the millionth time, I didn't know about the Kung Fuing until The Little Princess came and said it. Does anyone assume their children are lying until proven otherwise? I don't. Ds1 came and told me a very very big boy kicked him in the stomach on purpose for no reason. I believed him to the point of offering the comfort I saw as appropriate to the injury.

[MsDemeanor]

OK, not sure of the context! Mind you, I tend to assume any injuries received in the hell of softplay are accidental unless I see otherwise. And my advice to the kids is to avoid that person in future and be careful where you put your arms and legs.
Of course you can effectively comfort a child for an injury without blaming another kid or painting your kid as the victim of a horrid oik. Mind you, when ds was very little I used to tell off the pavement for banging his knees - but that's because it made him laugh! It works a treat by the way.

[OrmIrian]

Agree with dances.

Nothing like reinforcing sterotypes. Who knows where both the boys will be in 10 yrs time? Let's hope that the 'borstal boy' will be doing well and will have confounded your expectations for him. Fingers crossed eh?

Life isn't black and white. Thanks god.

What was wrong with cuddling him, rubbing his tummy better and telling him to keep away from the other boy. And btw Kung Fu does tend to involve kicking.

And I might also add that IME the world is full of lovely friendly well-meaning children. Most of them in fact.

[VictorianSqualor]

MsD, I do agree with your point but didn't the OP say she didn't know about the kicking games when she said this?

Alls he knew was her DS had been kicked in the stomach by another boy and was crying. If he had said 'Mummy we were playing kung-fu panda and I got kicked then I'm sure she would have said that if you play those games you can get hurt, but at the time it seemed like a nasty big boy (Yes, the sort that will likely end up in prison, I know too many grown adults that have been inside only to see their children behave like this and want to thwack them on the head and tell them what they are doing) who had kicked her precious little boy.

[MsDemeanor]

You give your son a cuddle, comfort him for the pain and give him a jellytot or something. Then you gently point out that in kicking games people get hurt (which is clearly not 'bleeding obvious' to a five year old otherwise they wouldn't play it and wouldn't be so shocked when they get kicked). I don't think it is necessary to teach your kid that they are just a victim, that anyone who accidentally hurts them is a bad child who should be ostracised and you certainly don't have to teach them to be a snob who at the age of 5 divides the word into naice children who go to university and ghastly oiks who go to borstal. That's really a bad lesson, and will not serve him well in future. If he ends up everytime he gets hurt in a boisterous game saying 'Waaah, my mum says I'm going to university and you are going to go to borstal' will not make him the most popular kid in school, you know.

[VictorianSqualor]

I always tell my children that they have two paths in life, success/happiness or prison.

People that hit others once grown go to prison, its a fact. I suppose I could get them to sit with DP and read his police and criminal law books so they know exactly what you have to do to go to jail but at the moment, fighting and stealing is enough.

YANBU.

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

Well, I don't really think that balled in pain from a kick to the abdomen is an ideal position for a small child to be learning life lessons - although he has certainly learned to stay away from bigger boys, which considering he goes into the big playground this year is not a bad lesson to learn.

He knows Kung Fu Panda is a bad idea, I've had words about it before. But it's very very hard to be the child to stand up and say "My Mum doesn't like me playing Kung Fu Panda, lets play Tag" when you're only 5 and showing off to bigger boys.

[FabioFridgeFluffFrenzy]

(last post to MsDemeanor)

[FabioFridgeFluffFrenzy]

How does that comfort a five year old though?

I agree that kicking games = someone getting kicked, but getting kicked is how you learn that lesson, not by Mummy pointing out the bleeding obvious when you want to hear that you're a nice boy and horrid kicking boy is a poo poo head who probably likes girls.