Violent 8 year old- advice

[Julesnobrain]

My ds just threatened to hit the AP with a cricket bat and kicked her. He is 8. Basically they had an argument over homework, she did not handle it very well, it escalated and when he refused to go to his room she tried to force him there physically and he went into melt down. I have asked her not to ever do that again but I am v shocked by his extreme response

We have had issues with him and his lack of fear /respect to adults eg chat back to teachers etc but I am very concerned about this. How would you handle this?
Have you ever experienced this with your DC ? Is aggression like this normal for boys? Advice gratefully received thanks

How physical was the AP - did you see what happened?

No I was a work. My husband was at home but on a conference call upstairs so he heard the commotion but did not see anything. Our AP is a nice girl, quite sensible and she says she just tried to lift him up the stairs. DS was very upset sobbing when I arrived home and I was unable to get much sense out of him so I calmed him down and then later asked her what happened and was able to point out confrontation that gets physical does not work.

She should not have done what she did but i am shocked he kicked and then threatened her.

Not sure if the average child would respond that way?

I would have felt quite ok about manhandling ds at that age if he really refused to obey: he might well have tried to kick or hit, but I was stronger than him and quite experienced enough to do it without hurting him. Dd was more aggressive and did occasionally need restraining, but she had emotional problems, so not entirely normal.

So from that pov I suppose I don't find the APs actions particularly shocking. Though having said that, I would never have tried to manhandle somebody else's child; I would just have to make sure the situation didn't escalate.

And I feel round about 9/10 you get to a cut-off point where you have to stop being physical. But for younger children, I think confrontation that gets physical can work perfectly well, as long as you are not hitting or otherwise deliberately hurting the child. I'd certainly carry a recalcitrant 4yo up the stairs without a second thought. Though my own 4yo, for choice...