to be upset that some of DSs classmates mums have told their DCs not to play with him....

[CrappyMammy]

DS (age7) is a real handful and have always been a real PITAchallenging. Since he started school he has been involved in pushing and hitting other kids (not the only one I might add). Anyway he did not want to give out some of his birthday invites and when I asked him why, he said because a few of his 'friends' have told him that their mums have said that they should stay away from him because he hurts them. I have not been aware of this although his teacher has told me on a few occasions that he has been involved in fighting (he does come home sometimes with bruises and scratchmarks so it's not all one sided).

IMO if he is attacking other kids, I would prefer the parents to tell me (or the teacher)so he is not ostracised . None of the other parents speak to me at the school and I am sure it is because of his 'bad rep'. It is very hard trying to deal with his behaviour. He says he is 'just playing' and does crazy things to make the other kids laugh and his rough and tumble is interpreted as nastiness. Am really at a loss of what to do!!

not complaining. i never ever complain to school. i always approach them and ask for their professional advice.

but squonk, you did the right thing!
are parents not allowed to discuss things that happen in the school amongst themselves?

where does it stop? am I allowed to talk to oother parents if we think the teacher is doing something wrong, or are we only allowed, individually, to approach the school?

from where I am standing, the lack of community is blindingly obvious.

but nighbynight, I wasn't discussing something that had happened at school as much as I was trying to sort out what happened at school.

I didn't start a friendly chat with "what about that fight our kids got into yesterday, eh? fnar fnar whaddalaff" I went up to her, asked if I could have a private word and told her that her child was bullying my kid and would she have a word with him to make him stop.

That could have been the end of it, and perhaps should have, but she was upset that her boy was bullying someone, went to the school to find out exactly what was going on and they knew nothing about it.

So I was portrayed as a control freaky mother who doesn't trust the school to deal with a simple bullying issue and the school was seen as totally oblivious to what was going on.

Had I gone to dd1's teacher and explained my concerns, they could have kept an eye on the situation and dealt with it without any of the parents becoming involved with each other at all.

And maybe I could have then stayed friends with the boy's mother.

i think that's a totally separate issue tbh. and one teacher at our school got sacked after a bereavement last year because of the mother's mafia. plenty of community spirit there.

the problem is that you can't assume that you know what is going for 6 hours of the day when you are not there. of course you have to speak to the school about issues that take place at school (i'm only talking about long-standing issues like the op's, of course, not every playground argument). to assume that you know better and can deal more appropriately with issues that you hear of second hand is misguided at best (although quite obviously for the right reasons) and actually not helpful.

speaking to the other parents can be enormously helpful, but not in isolation.

x-post

I've not got school aged kids so I don't know if this is relevent but my dd1 (who is 4.3) is friends with mine and dh's friends ds1 who is 3.9. For the past 2 years he's been getting increasingly vicious towards both my dd's to the point that just over a year ago I felt I had to mention something. I bought it up as something that we could work on together. Not accusatory at all imo. But the mum (my friend) got a serious hump on with me about it and its affected our friendship. Now we barely see them because its escalated to the point that one of my dd's is going to get seriously hurt (e.g of behaviour - pushing off dangerous surfaces such as climbing frame. Headbutting. Throwing from great distance very heavy objects).

So my thought is if you can't talk to your friends about this sort of thing what makes you think that relative strangers are going to approach you to talk about it? I'm afraid I never would. If my dd's told me someone is hurting them I would tell them to stay away from that child. I might have a word with the teacher too but at the end of the day the responsibility lies with the parent not the teacher.

I understand it must be very upsetting for you to have your ds telling you other children don't want to be his friends and thats probably not what he needs but I think this should flag up a huge alert sign to you to get on and try to sort this out before it affects the rest of his school time and friendships. It sounds like you don't want him to be like this and I truly believe that parents can sort this sort of thing out with some guidance and help so please ask for some help if you think you need it.

I have to say its very upsetting to be a parent of a child on the receiving end of this type of behaviour too so try to see it from their pov too.

I really hope you get it sorted out soon.

squonk, well I wouldnt have accepted that portrayal of me from a school who hadnt even picked up on the problem themselves. Sounds as though they were trying to cover themselves.

madwoman, the teachers are only dealing with issues they hear about second hand as well. If they had seen the bullying for themselves, then presumably they would have picked up on it already (in which case presumably they would have contacted you - or is contact only a 1 way street?), or they dont care, in which case you have to sort it out yourself anyway.

yes, but then they can keep an eye out and observe first hand lol. which you can't, unless you are hiding in the bushes at the end of the school field.

I went to meet dd at school after she told me what was happening, so I did observe it myself.

and no, you don't 'sort it our yourself anyway', you approach the other parent as at my earlier post, and ask them to speak to the school to underline your position.
that way the schild with the inappppropriate behaviour can be given the support he needs during school hours to modify.
i'm astounded that you think that two mummies talking are going to help a child with this sort of issue. he needs proper support from the school, as well as from home. he is obviously getting this support at thome, and now the school need to provide it.
an awful lot of schools require evidence from the 'victims' parents before they can put approipriate support in place. it's not rocket science lol.

I don;t thinkt he reluctance of the parents to speak to other parents has anything to do with the lack of community - it is to do with the fact that there are so many parents who would back up their children first and make you feel as though you shouldn;t have said anything.

You see it on here all the time - poor Johnny couldn't possibly have done that, this awful mother acosted me at the school gates - GASP!

I would tell DD to keep away from someone who was hurting her - because I want to protect my child and that is the reaction of any normal parent.

You need to tackle this with the school - not blame other parents for not speaking to you about it.

2 minutes as opposed to 6 hours day in day out, well that's ok then. fill your boots.

nbn - i think you are lucky in that the child causing problems in your instance was easily deterred by her mother speaking to her. in the op's case, she has spoken to her ds a lot, and it hasn't helped. i fail to see where speaking to the other parents in isolation and not the school will solve the problem.
'please be nice to johnny - he doesn't mean to hurt you'. the op's ds needs some good intervention during school hours, and no mummy is going to be able to provide that.

To be honest, when my DD was in Yr1 she had problems with a particular child in her class who also displays 'challenging behaviour' ie attempted to strangle her with his hands and further unacceptable physical behaviour. I told DD to stay away from him, in conjunction with discussing it at length with the teacher who, in turn, discussed it with the other childs parents.

I don't really know what else to suggest as the parent of a child who was been attacked by a peer. Obviously retaliation is wrong and should be avoided therefore the safest thing for her is to stay away.

I agree with Cory about not confronting the parents at the gate. Earlier this term one of DD's friends had an episode of challenging behaviour. I think something was going on at home and she was trying to deal with it in her own way. Prior to this she was the sweetest, girliest little girl you have ever met, wouldn't say boo to a goose, then one day she comes into school and starts kicking people, hitting them, excluding them games, basically tranformed into another child completely over night. Anyway, I discussed with the school after DD (6) came home in bits with bruises. I also approached this little girls mum, who I know quite well (only through our DD's and going round to each others houses to play etc), I was diplomatic and asked her if her DD had mentioned anything about her and my DD falling out, she said no so I explained what had happened. Next thing I know, the mum is in tears and having a go at me. Obviously she was under some considerable stress with whatever was going on at the time but speaking to her about it solved nothing and just made our relationship very strained. Thankfully things with the girl in question have levelled off a bit now and they now only have the odd 50/50 sided squabble which is entirely normal for girls of that age, ime.

Madwoman has made a lot of excellent suggestions. Basically, the school have the day-to-day job of dealing with the situation, they have to provide the minute by minute supervision, to keep all children safe and happy, including the OPs ds. If he has problems with impulsive behaviour, it is unlikely that just a talking to at home will solve his problems.

So the school has to be involved and given all possible information. I thought madwoman's suggestions for doing this in a positive way were brilliant. And if school does not deliver then asking the other parent to complain to the school in order to back you up is another very good suggestion: it shows both the parents and the school that you are serious about wanting the problem resolved.

I would not speak to the parents. they cannot control what their children do at school anymore than you can controll yours.
speak to the teacher.

if it was my kid being hit - i would tell him to stay away too.

no actually i would tell him to hit back and make sure he doesn't hit you again.

because i;m that kind of person

so have words with your 7 yo son before someone gets a bit tired of their kid coming home with bruises and marks and knocks his little 7 yo block off.

Very interesting thread, it is such a tricky subject to handle as it is sometimes hard to know how deep the problem is and who to turn to to "fix" it.

Thinking back to events that happenend in DS2 class, there was a boy who was rugh with quite a few of the other children and I told DS that maybe he should avoid this boy in the futuret(advice, not firm " do not ever play with X!")to which Ds answered " but he is nice most of the time!" he decided he wold just tell him that friends do not do mean things to eachother and it was the last I heard of it (not meaning that nothing hapened after that but if there has been, ds did not complain about it).If the situation was to happen again, I would advise him to tell a teacher straight when the situation arrise and then tell me so I could have a word with the mum. I think it is better when all parties involved work together to deal with the situation, not just the school or just the parents. Does that makes any sense?

madwoman, what does "fill your boots" mean?
you seem to have a problem with someone disagreeing with you.

there are many ways for parents to sort things out between themselves. I dont rule out going to the school if the problem can't be solved informally.

YANBU to be upset but I would be one of those mothers who advised their DC's to steer clear of such a child. I would express my concerns to the school rather than the parent unless we were friends because some parents can't rationally discuss their little darling's inability to behave and I wouldn't want a school-gate-scuffle tbh

Crappymammy - What are the school doing about it?

I have to say, I do agree a little with custy.

OP has to accept that he DS' behaviour is not accepteble.

She posts herself...

'is a real handful and have always been a real PITAchallenging. Since he started school he has been involved in pushing and hitting other kids (not the only one I might add).'

He may not be the only one but that doesn't make it right.

I have not been aware of this although his teacher has told me on a few occasions that he has been involved in fighting (he does come home sometimes with bruises and scratchmarks so it's not all one sided).

IMO if he is attacking other kids, I would prefer the parents to tell me (or the teacher)so he is not ostracised.

The teacher has told you, you posted that yourself. What were the consequences of those previous incidents? How were they dealt with?

You need to give the school your backing to deal with this effectively.

It is sad that your DS' behaviour has caused other children to be wary of him, it is sad for them. It is also sad for him that he is upset by them not wanting to play with him, but he is old enough at 7 to understand consequences.

I was reading some of the posts again and was wondering about *2shoes""I would not speak to the parents. they cannot control what their children do at school anymore than you can controll yours.
speak to the teacher. ""

I agree that we are not in school all day but as parents we can also help at home by trying to find ways to show our DCs that if everybody is complaining there is a problem. One can then try to find what the problem is and help one's child finding solutions on how to modifie is behaviour. It is not IMO only about "contolling" what our children are doing in school but making sure that the good basis are there at home to work together on the situation that hapened in school.

fill your boots - go ahead then; do what you're going to do

his behaviour, not is behaviour sorry!