Other people's violent kids...

[rumtumtigger]

My dd is 6 and there are 3 boys in her class who physically hurt the other children every day.

Is this typical? And how do others deal with it? My dd is refusing to go to parties when these boys are invited along, which seems a shame. The parents of the violent boys don't stay at the parties so other kids normally get hurt. One of the parents doesn't even stop her child hurting others when she is there. All the parents concerned are educated and comfortably off and don't neglect their kids in other ways.

Anyone else have experience of this - is it the same for all of us?

From the mother of a violent child who has just turned seven, I can give a different view. I don't let my child go to the few parties he is invited to unless it's in a play facility like the wacky warehouse. Disco lights and loud music are one of his many triggers and I learned the hard way. I always leave contact details and stay close but don't stay because behaviour is often worse if your child feels there's no trust. Which of course there isn't, but you have to at least pretend there is.

One of the biggest coping strategies that I was taught on a parenting course was ignore bad behaviour. Negative attention is an awful trap to fall into and after four years I haven't truly escaped it. But I ignore ds1's behaviour unless it is very severe. Pushing and shoving and calling names is something that all kids do. Let them sort it out. If it's much worse then I step in and believe me when I say that I take the violence. At the last party he attended, I was head butted, kicked, punched, bitten and verbally abused with so much venom that I just wanted to burst into tears. But you don't, you get on with it. You cry later.

I'm embarassed by my child but I have to show a strong front even if I don't feel it. Quite frequently at school in the yard whilst waiting for ds1 other mums avoid me. I've learned to live with it. No one wants to be associated with a mother who can't control their child. I don't want to be stood there trying to stop my child running while he's shouting and swearing making everyone look over and tut. But he's my child and I have no choice.

It's nice of you to post Flip and I do sympathise.

From my angle however, the badly behaved child ruins things for other children who behave well - my child chooses to avoid social occaisions when the violent children will go. So she either misses out on parties or is physically and mentally attacked if she goes. I believe parents should supervise and watch their children very closely if they are aggressive with other children and should intervene immediately there is trouble and I am suprised to hear that you have a different technique.

We are not talking the general hurly burly of the playground in my opinion if a child is consistently aggressive and hurts others.

I went to a number of get-togethers with ds where another child always targetted mine for a continual series of blows. It felt really horrible and whilst his mum did come down on him like a ton of bricks each time, she chose to go back to the sofas and carry on talking after each occasion - trusting him to behave. Of course he kept on hitting out and I spent my time glued to ds's side to protect him (he'd just turned 2). Really upset me because it meant I missed out on my coffee and chat time. Don't go any more - I found it too depressing. I feel she should have been the glued one not me.

Interesting thread rumtumtigger.

How brave of you to post flip. It's enlightening to hear the views of a parent and to learn that it's also tough for the parents of the violent child.

My dd went through a phase of not wanting to go to school because of a particular group of boys. It has got better, but I've seen those boys and they're contantly irritating the others. I sat through a yoga class of dds which one of them absolutely ruined for the other 29. My dd has stopped going to yoga because of this. She used to love it. One little shit spoiling it for 29 kids. How fair is that.

I get angry and find myself thinking how lovely it would be if these trouble makers could just be isloated from the group, Who gives a shit what their needs are - they're infringing the needs of all the others so surely, in the interests of democracy, they should be isolated until they, their parents or a counsellor can help sort out their behaviour. If this is not possible, they should be educated at home, away from the others.

I know this sounds extreme, and Flip it must make hard reading for you, but perhaps not surprising. It really isn't fair on anyone else. If I were the mum of a violent kid, I would take him out of groups and parties like a shot. There's no way I'd let his behaviour impact on an entire group of people.

However, I also suspect that there is always at least one naughty boy (because it does tend to be boys) in every large group. Perhaps if that boy were removed from the group, another would fill in the space.

I have to agree that sometimes ignoring bad behaviour is NOT a good technique especially when the misbahaving kids is hurting other children.

The other day, at a climbing frame in a park, DS (3yrs old) was pushed by another child. DS was in the ladder and the other one in the platform, when the other child failed to push DS away from the ladder, he continued by kicking DS at the back, the head, the face and finally took him from the hair and pushed him down the floor. It took 3 adults to stop and remove the bloody child from DS's hair, and what does the mother do? say "All children push each other" before saying "I'm sorry darling" to her misbehaving kid .

I'm sure sooner or later, if the bad behaviour of these children continue, party invitations will dry up. Now, about your DD, if she really don't want to go, don't go, or go and keep her at a safe distance from the other kids. Now, if not even that works, well... I would tell off the kids the same way I would my own if he was acting that way. I wouldn't make my child pay for other families' parenting problems.

but chandra - if Flip has received professional advice to ignore, then should she disregard this?

of course it's distressing to see one's child hurt and instinctively you are going to feel protective of your own child, and feel some hostility to the other child, but equally I do feel a bit comfortable at the condemnation of young children, whose behaviour may well be due to undiagnosed special needs of some description.

It is very difficult when you have a challenging child. I allow my child to take a fall so that he learns. He's had kids in his class stand upto him and stand up for one another. That is working better than me excluding him from any social events. I constantly get reports on his behaviour and there are action plans in place for dealing with him during lessons.

My child has been excluded twice from school so I am well and truly aware of what is boys will be boys and what is very unacceptable. And don't think that he was allowed to sit and watch TV all day when he was at home excluded because that wasn't the case at all. Each time at great personal expense I called in a tutor.

I know that some parents feel that taking their child away from a difficult situation is the answer, but IME it's confrontation that works better. I have no problem with other children comfronting my ds1 about his behaviour towards them. I'm quite happy for parents to confront him. They learn a whole lot more about differences in people by being in contact with difficult situations that being protected.

I think that spidermama's views are very narrow minded. To put all disruptive children together would serve no purpose. They would learn from one another and their behaviour would continue. In a class of thirty, if you have two difficult children, then the other twenty eight behaving and being rewarded will impact on the two disruptive ones.

I am very lucky that I have the support of at least two mums at the school my child attends. Having me position beside ds1 is not him learning and thinking for himself about what his acceptable and what isn't. But having three of us in vantage points to keep an eye on him covertly is much better.

I know what my child is and what he's capable of. I hope you never feel a fraction of the guilt and embarassment I feel and I never sit down when he's out in public!

aaaaaaaargh! Meant I felt "uncomfortable" not "comfortable" at the condemnation.

I'm not having a go at Flip, maybe to the mother of the rotten child who was so violent to DS recently.

As for special needs, sorry to disagree, we have a child with special needs in the family and that doesn't mean he's free to lash at other children, that only means we need to pay more attention to what he is doing/where we are going to prevent him from "misbehaving " or hurting another child.

I think there's a huge difference between age 3 and 6 though.

If those boys are physically hurting the children every day, are the school not doing something about it?

Dd (yr1) has some very boisterous boys in her class but this year they (as a class) have had several chats about appropriate playground behaviour and now the boisterous boys play together (and are quite happy!) and leave all the others alone.

I'm not sure what you can do about the party situation (I would probably just encourage your dd to let the boys get on with it and play with other children) but I would definitely have a word with the school about school time.

Appologies, Should have removed the word "rotten" from my previous post, because it's not the child's fault but her mother who, unlike Flip, openly allows her child to hurt others.

It's very hard Flip. We too are great friends with a mum and dad of a boy who has problems with physical and verbal outbursts at school. I personally think the school have been brilliant with them and they've worked very hard to get him to try and learn how to manage his behaviour and it seems to be working but it's a hard slog for everyone involved.

I still think that violent children spoil things for the well behaved ones - inviting them to parties and letting them ruin it for other children doesn't seem very fair to me. And I don't expect my child to be able to deal with violent behaviour that as an adult I couldn't cope with.

The aggressive boys aren't often invited the following year to the same party TBH. It is my opinion that we should not expect school children to have to tolerate violence which adults wouldn't be expected to tolerate. And I think age 6 is quite old enough to understand if you are hurting someone.

Why should other children come home with bruises every day? Because it is better for the violent children not to be excluded? But what about what is better for the majority, well-behaved children?

that's why you should speak to the school - if children are getting hurt, then they are not managing the situation

The school do take action about violent behaviour when it happens, but they don't seem able to stop it.

And in the playground there are not enough staff to watch all the kids all the time.

These 3 boys don't have any friends, and don't like each other either.

And unfortunately it isn't a case of dd "leaving the boys to it" - these boys will hurt children who are leaving them to it because all the children leave them to it.

Thank for the words of support. It is a difficult situation and luckily ds1 goes to a school where they have a lot of special needs children. Whether the children have physical difficulties, emotional or learning. It's a large school with a lot of support staff and the behaviour plans and constant contact with class teacher and headmaster help a lot.

I understand totally how protective people are of their children. It is hard not to react. Ds2 is two years old and he is learning a lot of ds1's behaviour. He already has firm boundaries in place and has been in time out a few times for poor choice of language. But he doesn't hit out and if a child takes a toy from him, he'll go and find another.

I know how scary it is to see your child in danger from another child. On Wednesday I was at a toddler play at wacky warehouse. Ds2 was at the top of the slide waiting for me to catch up and another child grabbed him and tried to shove him down the slide. Luckily I grabbed ds2 before he fell and I told the other child off. The mother was reading the paper and not taking any notice. I told the boy that it wasn't acceptable behaviour and he just looked at me. So I went on to explain how dangerous it could be for some small children to go down the slide on their own. That they could bang their head or get burns and he listened to me. Of course I've had a lot of practise at trying to reason with kids. For the next hour, the little boy never left my side. We all went on the slide together and played on the rope swings. Obviously he just wanted someone to play with and that was his way of being involved. I was angry that the child could have hurt mine but I didn't take it out on the child. He was a lovely kid and not a bit of trouble once he had someone to play with.

What kind of "hurting" are you talking about, rumtumtiger? Hitting, kicking, biting? Shoving, pushing? Is it deliberate or a result of boisterous rushing around?

I think it is important to stress that I am talking about 6 year olds, not toddlers - a world of difference IMO

Scummy - these kids use physical violence to get what they want, whenever they can.

They also hurt others through boisterousness because they don't care if others are hurt - they are without remorse.

RTT, if you are saying that the school doesn't have behavioural plans for these boys then they are failing in their duty of care. You can ask to see an action plan on how the school plans to tackle certain issues. If you get no joy, you go to a third party. There are a lot of charitable organisations that deal with mediation between parents of bullied children and do work in school with the children individually and as a class. Schools usually close their eyes when someone says the word bully.

What area are you in? I'll ask my sister for a recommendation. She runs bullyfreezone in Bolton near Manchester and has been a lot of help to plenty of parents.

This is so tough both for parents who have violent children and for parents of children hurt by others.

It is not acceptable at anytime for a child to hurt another, whether they have special needs or not. But different children need different ways of learning this and what works for one will not always work for another.

Flip I can see why you ignore mild bad behaviour and I have a friend who's son is quite volatile and is also ignored if the behaviour is mild but anthing that is going to leave marks or bruises on another child is IMO not ignorable behavior and must be dealt with each and every time. To ignore bad bahavior is going to be far more damaging to the child being hurt than the child doing the hurting and this is really unfair and unnacceptable.

well if it is happening all the time (regularly) and it's more than the normal playground shoving, then you need to go back to the school. You say the school seem unable to stop it - well there are several things they can do (like separating the boys, excluding them, referring them for special help etc.)

That sounded like the last bit was directed at you flip, it wasn't just the bit about understanding was

RTT - what you said about the boys being without remorse if they hurt someone is very interesting.

That is why the school should be acting now. Ds1 had a 'circle of friends' put into place while in reception. Some playtimes this group were supervised in the class playing a board game and doing work together on feelings. His behaviour is better and there is hope for the boys you talk about. But not if they are thrown out of school. Not if the school are blind to it. You need to confront the head master and make him listen. Ask to speak to the SENCO for the school.

Flip that is very helpful and interesting. Perhaps I should go back to the school for more information. I don't think any individual child is the particular target of bullying as the boys in question are fairly undescriminating in who they are violent towards. The worst of the 3 has a passionate vendetta towards all girls though.