Child’s bully gone to far

[Tjb1923]

Hello,

looking for some advice really…

my son (6) came home from school yesterday. He said he had been crying so obviously asked why?

he told me that two boys in his class had been in the reading corner, one wrapped a blanket around my son and the other then took a teddy and pushed it down into my sons face so he couldn’t breathe.

as he couldn’t breathe he’s panicked and cried, as anybody would do.

I rang the school as soon as he told me this and they assured they’d speak to the children in the morning and find out what’s happened.

they rang me back today and said both boys had admitted to doing so (they denied it at first) and that they have been sternly told off.

The more I’ve thought tonight, I’m not happy with just a stern telling off. I know they are kids and can be silly, but this seems like more than silliness.

if I did this as an adult I would be in a police station?! With charges being held against me! Surely there is more that can be done than a “stern” telling off.

I just don’t know what else can be done? Can anyone help?

thanks.

It's not formal complaint level, no. What have the school done wrong in their dealings so far? You can't formally complain about another child, it doesn't work like that. So your complaint would be about how the school staff have dealt with the incident.

A better option is to ask how the class teacher (or supply teacher) is going to safeguard your child from the bullies?

Honestly I'd leave it at that. As much as you say your child understands not to do it, they are mentally incapable of fully understanding the consequences of such actions, as are these other children. All children at that age are. They need a stern talking to, which it sounds like they've had. Who would you be complaining against?

My child was "stabbed" in the neck recently, resulting in a small scratch due to the "weapon" of choice and the accuracy of a six year old, and the child was sent home for the day. I have accepted that as they are six and such events can happen within 10 seconds and teachers can't watch every corner of the room at all times with 30 kids.
Continue to monitor the situation and work WITH the school. Complaining is a waste of resources.

I’m going to be honest and get blasted for it but here goes. We are animals, dominace displays are still a part of how we behave, as we get older they evolve to suit our “civilisation” but when we are talking about children they are basically the equivalent of puppies. Your son needs to punch one of them to nip this in the bud. I’ve told DD (also does martial arts) that if anyone physically harms her she’s to give them a firm kick and I’ll back her up.

I’m a very boring slightly overweight middle age, middle class mum. BUT this is the only way to resolve it once and for all. The nonsense about resolving through negotiations just doesn’t work, they have to be worried about picking on him full stop not worried about being seen to pick on him.

Your boy does boxing?

You need to make it clear that he has your full backing to punch one of these kids if they do anything like that again. Draw blood, make them cry, and do it in front of other kids. Nobody’ll pick on him again.

I know it’s not ideal etc, but it’s better than your kid being the victim.

Personally, I'd leave it. The boys have been told off.

I would ask for a meeting with the Head and also what they are doing to safeguard your child from these 2 bullies who could have suffocated him. You then ask the Head to clarify what the schools process is if this were to happen again (exclusion etc).

Then you need to teach your son that if these boys approach him he needs to defend himself and use some of the skills he has learnt.

A boy in my dd9's class was hitting her on the leg with a ruler. The teacher spoke to him but it continued. I told her the next time he does she needs to hit him back with her ruler - next time he did it, she snatched the ruler from him and slapped him across the face with it. I wouldn't normally advocate this but I was very proud that she stuck up for herself.

I got called into the school and very calmly asked how else they expected her to deal with a boy assaulting her daily when the teacher seems to ignore it. There in different classes now

Exactly, Dd doesn’t get picked on physically because she’s tall. But I’m trying to explain that sometimes at school you need to look like you will kick off even if you don’t . I grew up in a rough place and you needed to be prepared to throw a punch if you were a boy, even if you lost the fight you just reduced your chance of getting picked on substantially. You have to be a risky prospect to pick on. With girls you just had to square up to get them to leave you alone because girls generally don’t actually want a physical confrontation. It’s just a shitty fact of life. We’ve been teaching our children the wrong things. They should be kind, considerate and forgiving, but some people will harm you if they can and we don’t prepare our children well when we aren’t honest about this, we debilitate them.

I hope your child is okay. I'd be seriously worried about children who would do this to another child. Even at 6 doing this to another child is vile. Before anyone criticises me for this, I was already being attacked at school at this age. The same kids didn't become nicer people, as they got older, as noone really addressed their behaviour. Don't let the school shrug this incident off.

Agree that we (as a society) teach kids the wrong things. All this “violence is never the answer” is just not true. Maybe in an ideal world, but there will always be some little arsehole who needs to be dealt with and I’d much prefer that my kid knows how to handle it, then not.

Likewise with “tell an adult”, teachers are too stretched and once you hit a certain age (certainly before secondary school), the idea of someone running to the teacher is cringeworthy.

You’ll see the posters on MN talking about “what if the other child has SEN? What if they have a chaotic home life?” but I don’t see why the parent of the hurt child should care. The bully isn’t their business.

I strongly believe that you need to face the little animals head on. My boy is younger than the OPs but I’ll absolutely be telling him to hit back, hit harder and hit more than once.

I’ll fight the other mother in the car park too, if she fancies it. 😂

@Tjb1923 Please do not get him to fight back! He will be in trouble as well.

What I would suggest is that you read your school’s Anti Bullying policy so you know the expectation you can place on the school and how such bullying will be dealt with. It will define bullying.

Please also read your Behaviour Policy and the sanctions when behaviour falls below expectations. Then you should ask for a meeting with the class teacher to put your point of view across armed with the knowledge contained in the policies. You will find schools try and actively promote good behaviour but they have sanctions too. It’s often a reasonable step for a head to speak to dc about their behaviour.

The school will not punish just because you want them to. They must follow their policy but they won’t tell you if these dcs parents are involved or not. You can only advocate for your dc.

Should you not be satisfied with the teachers response, then you can lodge an official complaint and this is spelt out in the school’s complaints policy. Read that too. Information and knowledge is key here. The school must be aware these dc are not behaving properly and must keep your dc safe. How they punish is down to the policy though, not you. Hope you get it resolved.

That’s because they restrained your son and tried to suffocate him. That is alarming behaviour and a ‘stern’ telling off isn’t sufficient. Have their parents been spoken to? Where are they picking that up from? Also is this a one off ? And for those of you saying how can a teacher notice everything … how did they not noticed one child wrapping another child in a blanket and another pushing a teddy in his face till he cried??? Had it ended seriously injured or worse we’d all be blaming the teachers for not safeguarding.

A 6 year old momentarily pushing a teddy in your kids face, is a million miles from suffocating him. Stop encouraging your child to overdramatise

But two of them thinking that they can behave like this in class with a teacher present is troubling. I'd be fuming if the children in question did that to another one of my pupils. The school usnt sorry enough and the kids sound awful. OP you say its a good school? It isn't.

Also, at 6, no they're not just playing, they know full well when they're being unpleasant to each other.

Over dramatise??? HE COULD NOT BREATHE. HES far from a dramatic child. Would you be okay with someone doing that to your child? Wrapping them up and then a teddy pushed down into their face, making them scared because they COULD NOT breathe?

i just don’t think people are understanding how serious it could have been had he not got upset to the point he’s scared and crying!

I agree they 100% know what they are doing. The boy who was pushing it into his face is already having daily reports back to his parents…

My DS1 was the same age when another six year old picked him up and threw him across the room. The school didn’t even bother to tell us. (Yes they did know the incident had occurred - they sent the other child home for the afternoon.) In due course the other child started to be given 1:1 support, but I’m sure there must have been far more evidence to put this in place than just one incident.

The school let both my boys down on so many occasions, in so many different ways, that eventually we moved. This was Ofsted ‘outstanding’.

I hope things get resolved to your satisfaction, OP. And that your son isn’t too troubled by the incident.

Who did you speak to? A stern telling off could be a number of things, and if they took other action, due to confidentiality then you won’t be told. However this doesn’t sound like an isolated incident and you’ve got a new teacher, so I would go back and ask for some reassurance about how they’re going to keep your son safe.

If they can't spot 2 children wrapping a blanket round another child's head then they absolutely are not safely supervising. If they don't notice that how would they notice a child who was seriously ill? Would they notice if a child collapsed in class? I think it's a pretty low bar to expect teachers to notice physical violence in class.

@Tjb1923They are clearly trying to deal with the dc who has daily reports to parents (info you should not know anyway!) and would you prefer your DS is kept away from this child? I think that’s what I would ask for. They will probably have to isolate the troubled child and not have him in the reading corner with other dc and get a TA to follow him around. They need to build up a picture of his behaviour and obviously try to get him help. However they need to be vigilant. Ultimately they could exclude the child but that’s not up to you.

Many dc seem to be faced with violent dc in class these days and there’s no easy answer except more specialist behaviour schools because he’s got special needs - just ones no one likes. As we know from crimes committed by dc when they are older, these dc have needs and they need help. Society would be safer if they got it.

I don't understand. Maybe I'm not visualising it properly. Why did your DS just sit there whilst the first boy wrapped him up? Why didn't he turn his head away when the second boyput the teddy in his face? How did he cry if he couldn't breathe?

Because he’s led there on the floor reading a book. He probably didn’t know what was happening. I haven’t asked him why he didn’t turn his head, I’m not going question him about why he’s not done this or that.

he’s cried once it’s been moved from his face.

I suspect that there is a difference between the OP's language and what happened.

It is likely that the blanket was thrown over the OP's DC and then held whilst the other held the toy against his face.

The whole thing probably lasted seconds (although would have felt longer for the OP's DC)

The teacher/School needs to move from saying to the children stay apart, to actually keeping them apart at all times, which is difficult at breaks but needs to be done.

Where did the blanket come from? My DC never had access to a blanket in Y1. I’d also be asking why there was a teddy too. This isn’t YR. The teacher could remove such items as dc are not playing in y1.

First things first, this child is not your son's bully. The incident itself is unacceptable, but this is one incident. Bullying is repeated targeted behaviour. It sounds from your description that the other child struggles in general to regulate and behave. It's not helpful to label them as a your child's bully, when they clearly have general difficulties. If they had just targeted your child, and were repeatedly targeting them that would be different.

It's a bit strange to expect the school to do more, but not actually be able to say what you'd like to see happen. Whilst the nature of the incident sounds serious, given their age it's important to establish that that is dangerous and unacceptable behaviour, and explain why. If God forbid it happened again I would expect more serious action, but as a first offence you can't automatically expect a 6 year old understand the dangers of covering someone else's face, just because you believe your own child would know that is wrong/dangerous.

School have dealt with it and that should be the end of it, unless anything else happens.

You sound fun. Why on Earth would a blanket and teddy be seen as unusual items in a Year 1 book corner? These areas are meant to be cosy and inviting.