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.

Yeah, I’m ridiculous.

Take the better option and fanny about reading bullying policies and having meetings with a teacher while her kid is targeted again. Perfect. She can come back in a couple of years looking for help with her 8YOs anxiety at that point.

Couldn't care less what you or anyone of similar opinion thinks - hit the little shits back, harder. Every time until they learn.

I appreciate all the replies, whilst I understand many don’t think it’s serious. I as his mother do, his safety is my main concern. I’m really not bothered about how the other child feels. Whilst I know there are SEND children who walk in all different shapes, I understand the struggles that come with that.

I don’t appreciate people questioning my child, the seriousness of it and saying I must know what I want to happen. I don’t know as he is my eldest and I have never had to deal with an incident like this before. I came for advice, not arsey comments from people.

Yep.

Honestly I’d rather be called in and have to say that I told the child to hit back than be called in to collect an anxious, socially isolated, snivelling, timid, crying, shell of a child who wets the bed and has anxiety before they’re ten because “we never hit back”, “tell an adult”, “use your words, not your hands”, “Johnny maybe has some behavioural issues that we need to be sensitive towards” and “violence is never the answer” was the line I took.

The usual “one punch can kill” mob will disagree, but sometimes you need to stand up for yourself. Many, many people say that the minute they did, the person targeting them backed right off.

Honestly I think the possibility of some ?SEN issue is irrelevant. Not your business, concern or care. He could have any diagnosis, your loyalty and priority will always be your own child.

She was attacked and has a right to defend herself. And I fully back her for that.

And I'm not attacking children with SEN.

But I know a number of parents who use it as an excuse even though their kid has no SEN. It means kids with actual SEN get painted with the same label and isn't fair to them.

The kid in the Op isn't known to have any SEN or obvious issues at home.

If he continues to attack other kids I don't see anything wrong with it if he gets a smack back by one of the other kids who is stonger and more confident than him.

Even OP wouldn't be privvy to information about whether the other child has SEN or an awful home life, so his the hell can you say it's not known? None of us know, it's just a possible example (because kids generally don't act like that for no reason).

There are many ways you can teach your daughter to defend herself without resorting to violence. Violence can never ever be condoned. It's a terrible example to set to your child. You are against violence towards your child (understandably), so you tell them to be violent back... ummm?

Why wasnt there an adult in the room?

Let's use other language then, this child is a danger to the other children in the class and that's unacceptable. It doesn't matter why they are a danger because the level of danger represented by hitting and suffocating is not acceptable. The school needs to deal with this properly because it's not okay to expect people to be hurt by someone because they have issues. We wouldn't accept it in an adult workplace so I have no idea why anyone thinks it's okay in a school.

If someone is attacking her I'm happy for her to defend herself. I don't think I need to defend this stance. I think that's completely justified. And I'm not going to defend that viewpoint any more. I don't think there's anything more to say on that.

If anyone attacks my kids I'm not going to make imaginary excuses for that kid. So no I won't be telling my kids they should feel sorry for the person attacking them, and then excuse their behaviour.

Where has anyone said it's ok? Clearly the school are dealing with it, if the child's parent receives a daily handover.

Some parents are so quick to blame the school when often their hands are completely tied.

Yes you are free to defend your stance. I am free to wholeheartedly disagree with it.

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

Our of curiosity, what would you want your child to do in a situation where they’re being hurt at school? Say if they were age 6 like the OPs child. But also, what if they were 15?

You'd be banned for go in peson to the school and expecting a face 2 face meeting with a headteacher to discuss the fact someone tried to suffocate your child???

My oldest isn't in school yet but I'd expect a face to face meeting for something this serious

I would want any child in that situation to stand up for themselves with words, or walk away. Then report the problem. I would never ever condone violence and, in my school, we teach the children that it doesn't matter who hit first, if anyone hits anyone there are consequences for both parties. The problem is, we're dealing with so many parents who are a law to themselves. This is terrible advice to give to a young child, who school are desperately trying to teach that violence is wrong.

We are teaching children to learn how to conduct themselves as adults in society one day. As I said to someone else earlier, "sorry Officer, but he hit me first" isn't going to wash if they're arrested for violence in the future. The police aren't going to care who started the fight. We need to teach them early that violence is never the answer. It's such a mixed message to give to a child if you're teaching them on one hand not to use unkind hands, but on the other hand saying "if someone hits you first you hit them back twice as hard". How can people not see that it's a very confusing message to give a young child? Not to mention that it's highly hypocritical, saying nobody can hit my child but if they do he can lamp them back. No, just no.

Bullying is targeted.

Bullying is repeated.

A single episode of dangerous behaviour is not bullying, but it is serious.

Your question to the school must be ‘how are you making sure that my child is safe?’

This could be physical eg removal of items that can be used dangerously, or moving the book corner so that it is open and visible to the class staff.

It could be about supervision eg the book corner or other ‘free time’ areas are always directly supervised by a specific adult. Or your child or other children should be supervised directly by an adult at all times.

Or it could be by separation of the children concerned, monitored by adults.

If this teacher is very new to the class, they may not have known which combination of kids to quietly keep an eye on, so a formal plan for how to do so now is a sensible thing to ask.

They obviously aren't dealing with it. A daily resort which says "your child has once again hurt other children" isn't dealing with it. If the hurting is continuing then nothing is being done.

I am sorry that happened to your son and of course it isn’t acceptable and should warrant something stronger than a telling off - missed playtimes at the very least etc.
I am a primary school teacher. I have come to a realisation that most people can’t comprehend how impossible the job of a teacher has now become. I’ve been having this discussion with my family tonight. Basically, in almost all the schools I have been in recently it has been just me, no TA due to funding and 75-80% of the children are rude, entitled and poorly behaved. That’s putting it mildly by the way, I have heard children being openly racist today and in a class last week! Something needs to change, I think parents that aren’t teachers need to believe us, respect us, stand with us by demanding change and be more angry about the state of education because I fear that soon we will have teachers leaving the profession so quickly that there aren’t enough school places for every child. It also isn’t something that the school alone can tackle, it is almost impossible to exclude a child and runs the risk of being taken to court for discrimination etc. This is relevant to you because if either of those children have an identified need then it is even more difficult to reprimand them without fear of reprisal. In the last month, I have had children physically fighting in the classroom, children throwing things and children openly refusing to stop talking, listen, sit down or do any work (they literally have said ‘no’ to each of these demands and these children are as young as 5) I am not telling you this for any other reason than to hopefully open peoples eyes to what we are dealing with and for you to see that even a complaint will likely result in little change because of how broken the system is. For a moment, just imagine trying to teach the other poor kids whilst there is talking, shouting out, throwing, arguing etc. There is literally nothing you can do when these things happen if the aggressive / disruptive child(ren) refuse to leave the classroom or stop. You can radio for support or send another child for help but by then of course the damage is done, someone is hurt, the lesson is disrupted and nothing has been learnt. It is impossible to see all the incidents that happen and even if you do see it then you don’t have the power to physically intervene. Shouting ‘stop’ would once have been enough but it no longer is, children have no respect for teachers and a lot of that is because parents tell their children that teachers are in the wrong all the time when we are actually, mainly trying our best (I see comments on here or social media all the time that undermine our authority).

It is so sad that our schools have become like this, every time my children’s school make a decision that I don’t like, I remind myself of how bad some classes are and how lucky I am that it’s a reasonable school. I have been in classes recently where I suspect if parents could sneak a peak they would de-register their children altogether if they could afford to stay home with them.

The situation is very, very bad and I don’t think it is going to improve until people start appreciating how hard the job is, tell their kids that they should do as the teacher tells them otherwise there will be consequences and start pressuring the government to properly fund schools. If there had been a TA in this class who wasn’t being pulled out for other things all the time then that is two pairs of eyes intervening if necessary.

Of course I know there are some poor teachers but generally speaking they are trying very hard and any ‘bad’ decisions they make are due to pressure from management or fear of parental retribution. Example: I’ve had lots of parental complaints about children missing playtime for incidents like this. Missing playtime works for most small children because it’s high value to them. But most parents (in my experience) upon hearing their child has been given this punishment will contact school to complain about the teacher, ‘the other child started it’, ‘it’s against their rights.’ Etc.

Other parents will have no idea how this child is dealt with in private, because it's not their child. The fact these daily updates are deemed necessary and have been clocked by other parents, like the OP, suggests to me that school are indeed being proactive in dealing with this child.

What you do propose they do? (Which they realistically can do, rather than a pie in the sky idea that is out of the school's hands - such as exclusion).

Exclusing a child is not as simple as this. I agree that this is something that should happen, inconveniencing the parent by having their child at home would hopefully make them take their child’s behaviour more seriously! However, even an internal exclusion is lots of paperwork, red tape so to speak, approvals by the trust, LA etc. The system is broken!

i really don’t want to argue with you and that’s a promise. However, imagine your child doesn’t understand how to do a maths problem. You would expect the teacher to demonstrate how to do it, lay it out, form the numbers with them etc right? In order to do this, the teacher has to look at your child and their equipment at that moment right? So the reading corner is behind them, how do they see this happening? The toilet is around the corner, how do they see what’s happening in there? Pretty please realise that virtually no teachers would be happy to have a child hurt in their classroom but we don’t have 360 degree vision. There could be 30 plus children in this classroom with lots of different areas obscured by cupboards etc. I promise you it is impossible to see everything that happens! The answer is for the government to properly fund schools and have TA’s in every class that aren’t pulled out to manage staff absence elsewhere or set up for the school fayre etc and for schools to have the power to sanction children without fear of a local newspaper article or social media annihilation.

It's not that it's not "complaint level" but it's realistically what can the school do? I mean yes of course, if you are right that the children knew what they were doing might kill your child, then they need to be sent to some kind of school for children with serve emotional/behavioural needs where they will have one-to-one supervision the whole time. However it's more likely they didn't know. Realistically there is no way nurseries and schools can have one-to-one ratios all the time just in case the kids try something they don't know is dangerous.

Special schools don’t have 1:1 ratio either but the teachers do have fewer in the class and they are behaviour trained. We do need more special schools for EBD dc. However this child is 6. Very few get moved at 6 without lots of input first that hasn’t worked. First incident is not immediately going to get dc out of the classroom. Several violent incidents might.

Daily reports to parents could be 90% good and one lapse in a fortnight. We don’t know. They are clearly reporting on strategies that are being tried. We don’t know if an EP has seen the child. We don’t know what has been recommended. Of course msny classroom teachers cannot cope with this behaviour. Schools do have delegated sen budgets though and often the money isn’t targeted at these dc. It’s the noisy parents whose dc get the money because their dc are less trouble and often have more articulate parents.

Primary schools can and do exclude 6 year olds but the strategies employed must have failed. Most excluded dc have sen. I cannot understand why posters don’t see that this child has needs. Not attending to them will not help his future or ours.

Did anyone come when he cried? I think I would be concerned that a child could cry out in distress and not be heard or attended to.

Report the problem? To who? Are you seriously suggesting that a kid at secondary school should be running to teachers to report someone bullying/hurting them? That’s so far out of touch. Imagine for a second what happens to the little grass who runs to the teacher the next day, or on the way home. Absolutely embarrassing for any teenager to be doing that, in the real world.

I do get what you’re saying but I think your view is idyllic with all this use of words and walking away. No amount of “kind hands” and “remember, if you hit someone when you’re an adult you’ll get a criminal record” works with the feral kids. There’s also a huge difference between defending yourself and being a little shit who hits others without provocation.

And I too understand what you're saying about older kids, and not wanting to be a grass, but there are still other means of dealing with issues. Words can actually be incredibly powerful, if used correctly. Words can embarrass someone who is acting 'hard' or 'the big man'. Walking away, apparently unfazed or unbothered (no matter how you're feeling inside) can be embarrassing for the one looking for a reaction. Yes it probably does sound idyllic, and is unlikely to always work, but nor is violence. I've known so many occasions where a child has retaliated and made the problem far worse for themselves in the future. No doubt their parents told them if they fight back it will make the bully unlikely to pick on them in the future. When you think about it, that's quite an idyllic viewpoint too isn't it? It's certainly not always the case, it can go one of two ways (and nobody wants to risk making things worse).

I could counteract that argument by asking what you would do if, God forbid, someone was harassing you in the street as an adult? If you're violent, the police are likely to come knocking. Kids need to grow up knowing that violence is never the answer, otherwise the same age old thuggery problems just keep cycling round in society.

I'm all for self-defense if used appropriately, as in martial arts moves. Telling people to punch the bully/go for the eyes/draw blood/hurt the little etc is just encouraging more violence and is inevitably going to have a knock on effect (with the original victim now feeling powerful through their violent outburst, and more likely to act like a thug in the future, the exact behaviour their parents were apparently fighting against when they advised them to act in such a way. It's such contradictory advice. It's basically saying "to avoid getting bullied, you need to be a bully". No, this approach is most definitely not condonable for me.