This scared me, and made me think....

[deegward]

I am going through a "trying" time with ds1, tantrum city (he's 4) doing all the ignoring etc, but can't help when sometime it gets to me I and yell back, or have on occasion dragged to room, or had to really stopped myself from really hitting him (have smacked but never hit - and don't really want to get into debate about rights or wrongs).

However today I think I have had a wake up call. Talking to my neighbour who was telling about a mummy at her son's school. Son (8) was being particularly rude and bad to mum, and in frustration she slapped him on the face. The son then went into the front room and called the police. Police came round, and the size of it is the boy has been put on an "at risk" register, ss have been contacted etc, etc. The mum helps out at school as a classroom assistant, and may loose her job.

Don't even know why am telling this story, apart from the fact that I think, God scary!

I would like to add in relation to deegward's story that many of us are thinking "there's more to that story than meets the eye" but if the child/family was known to the SS what was she doing working in a school?

As far as I am aware they only do criminal record checks in schools, so unless she had been actually prosecuted and had a record she wouldn't have been picked up anyway. I agree with you in that there's definitely something else going on in this instance. Smacking a bottom IMO is very different from a face.

Wow, how much I wish there were schools about how to be a parent... so people won't allow the children to get out of control and become little brats and then loose it because they are soo out of hand.

I have seen a woman been beaten by a nine year old, serious beating with fists, then pushed against a corner and finally hit several times with a luggage trolley (woman was terrified, in tears and just shrunk in the corner trying to avoid the hits), all in a public place in front of we all who were waiting for the luggage at this airport. My only thought was that in two years more the boy would be big enough to kill his own mother. If she had smacked him back for that I don't think anybody who witnessed the incident would have blamed her. It's easy to condemn a parent when we can not even imagine that a child like this could exist...

By the way, smacking at the bottom was the rule in many latinoamerican countries, trouser down... well not so common but still seen when I was a child. I don't aprove of that though, but I don't think I have got any psychological problems out of the ocassional smacking of the bottom either...

I know the social work system in Scotland is a bit different to the English one. My mum was a Social Worker, under 5's specialist, acting senior and often used as an expert witness in court. From what I can gather, there is usually more to someone being put on the at risk register than just a smack. Schools also aren't always great at doing checks on they're staff. As has been said, incidents like this often turn into urban legends.

I didn't mean it to sound like a smack isn't much.

my mum has acted as a "smug dogooder" when the regular screams of a 3 year old being locked in her cupboard and hit with a carpet beater by her pissed and stoned mother became too much. As it hapens the family were known to SS but had moved and "got lost". The mother in question was incredibly abusive to my mother as a result, apparently she was being victimized because her child had a sleep disorder!

My 9 year old brother has some behavioural issues and even though i have (for now) a normal DD I make sure i mention any crying jags to the neighbours so they know what's going on. similarly they let me know when they have their grandsons staying. I have no problem with being open with my neighbours, if you have a child (like my bro) who screams blue murder on a regular basis i think it's polite to let them know what's going on.

Chandra, yes the episode you describe is shocking but TBH I would assume that the boy had some sort of problem. There is plenty of information around on how to get well-behaved kids without hitting them/humiliating them. A whole series on BBC1 at the moment. Similarly just because it was once considered ok to pull kids' pants down in public doesn't mean it should still be! Times change.

any thoughts on the Scottish teacher that got kids to hit other puils with a ruler?

here's the story of the father in the dentist waiting room

Although there are variations in local practice, in England and Wales, a child is only placed on the "at risk" register if it is considered that their welfare is at 'significant' risk. Decisions to place a child on the register are normally made jointly by social services, police, health, education etc. I find it very hard to believe that a child would be placed on the register as a result of an isolated incident at school and like others, think there's more to the story. And how humiliating for the other child to have been smacked in that way at the dentist! Makes me so mad. Grrr!

MAria Luisa, Why on earth everybody think that all mothers have equal access to information? I take advantage of programas on TV but many of my friends (some of them with PhDs) have decided not to have a TV at home, And I know people who can even aford a TV license. If I have a problem, I could get a book, log in to Mumsnet, pay for therapy or whatever that may help, unfortunately there are many mothers who for a circumstance or another do NOT have access to these resources. I will be stoned for saying this but in ocasions, parents are also victims.

I would be worried at how some people have percieved me, then, coping with some of the excesses of my NT kids! My dd had a middle ear infection which needed treatment while we were on holiday. It was very important that the treatment get started as we had to fly home at the end of the holiday and I didn't want to risk her ending up with a punctured ear drum. I had to pin her down for the doctor to examine her ear. She was 4 ears old and we had discussed the whole procedure but when we went into the consulting room she went wild, lashing out and screaming at the top of her voice. I tried to calm her, but in the end I had to pin her down so her ear could be examined. (And by wild I mean wild! You should hear her scream when she has pins and needles in her foot , it sounds like she is being electrocuted!) Ds is much the same.

None of this is to excuse child abuse, but I do wonder what people must think of me in these circumstances.

Dinosaur, what does braying mean??!!

HMB, I think we can all totally sympathise with situations like that. I have a very similar situation every week, when I wash my children's hair - both hate it so much that they scream as if I'm battering them. I just have to produce the shampoo bottle (even the teletubbies one!) for the screams of anguish to start. I often think the neighbours must think I'm murdering them. But I really don?t like the idea of having to explain to them, in case they call social services! Maria Luisa, you may have very nice neighbours, I may have too, but the fact is, I don?t know mine, they are total and complete strangers. If I knew them personally, I wouldn't object at all to being open with them, but not knowing them, it would feel very odd to volunteer information about my private life with them and I would feel very uneasy about feeling that I ought to. I guess that's just a regrettable sign of the times, the breakdown of community etc. - but that's another story!

Yes i think it is MeanBean and TBH even if we were only on nodding terms I would still have absolutely no problem with saying to them "sorry if DD is disturbing you at the moment she's got an ear infection/we're trying to sort her sleeping out". I'm actually quite surprised as I think of myself as a very private person but clearly I'm a lot more open than many. I think most people also only comment/worry when screaming is at night/accompanied by screeching parents.

Chandra, sorry but I completely disagree with you about access to this info. Everyone in this country has access to public libraries, health visitors etc. People in the most deprived areas have access to Surestart programmes and other help (I volunteer on something along these lines). And so what about having a PhD? I have such academic qualifications, as does DH, doesn't mean we're particularly clever or automatically well-informed. In fact some of the really useless parents/most ignorant people i know are academics! you just have to take the time to seek it out.

chandra

I must also disagree, it's not a question of information, it's a question of sensibility, I hate smacking dd (on those rare occasions when I've been unable to control myself), and it's not because tv or books say I shouldn't, but because it just feels very wrong.

My mum was smacked reguralrly as a child, came from a poor uneducated family, and stopped school when she was 10. She had no access to parenting books or health visitors or anything like that, but she instictively knew that the way she had been brought up was wrong (smacked, never trusted, never appreciated) and she is a wonderful mother. Better than me I believe. And its something she had in her heart. All she did was to treat us kids with the love and respect she never had, and in return we always respected (and still do) respected her.