My child slapped a friend

[Notmykid]

My nine year old daughter( year 4) slapped a friend at school today in the face The mother called me after school to tell me. Playground disagreement among a group of girls. I am so mortified and ashamed and worried. My daughter did not tell me spontaneously but was sullen at pick up. She admits it but insists it was more of a tap than a slap. Still. She has obviously had serious consequences and will apologise to the friend again tomorrow and has made her a card. When the mother called I was full of concern and apology. She has just texted me again to say her child is so upset and still has red finger marks. The incident was lunchtime. What can I do? I feel awful about all of it.

"She'll learn to keep her temper under control."

This might not be true, it took me till I was at least 25 years old to get a handle of my temper, it would be good to give her tools to learn to deal with it, rather than deal with the aftermath of it

I think you should try to find out if there's more to it. I'm not a violent person, I can't even deal with raised voices but I punched another child at that age. Why? She had been bullying me for years and I finally lost it. The teacher never contacted my parents, she made me apologise and that was it, i'd like to think she knew it was so out of character for me that there must have been a reason i'd lashed out.

Thankyou all so much for your advice. (Possibly with the exception of the poster who proposed slapping me would be an appropriate next step. ???? ) I will buy the explosive child book that looks great. Spoke to the teacher this morning together with the other child. My child apologised and gave her sorry note. Teacher did helpful “do you understand how X feels etc”. I apologised again to child and mother. Mother sad and worried, obviously. I asked what else I can do? She was reasonable but says father insists on taking it further with formal complaint. Their other child has a similar situation in another school and he has had enough. What does taking it further mean? What can be done ?

I suppose he can complain to the school that the children aren’t supervised properly at playtime, or that the school aren’t tackling bullying (not that the incident sounds like bullying), but he can’t make a formal complaint against a specific child

I spend enough time in primary schools to know that these things happen fairly often. Children don’t have the same boundaries and levels of self-control as adults; they’re still learning. Hopefully the school will help your daughter and the other child move on.

We had this recently. It turned out that the girl DD had slapped had swiped both her legs from under her immediately beforehand so DD ended up on the floor ... so, although violence should never be condoned (blah blah etc.), I ultimately didn't blame DD for reacting in such a way!

I also found out from the livid parent via Facebook messenger, I apologised profusely and asked whether his DD was OK, his accusatory messages continued, whilst I contacted the school to discuss the event (and consequences), he changed his tune when I responded telling him to deal with the school directly and what his daughter had done to elicit such a response from DD.

Definitely go via the school.

@JudgeRindersMinder

A child of 9 has the strength to hit with force enough that hand marks are still visible hours later? Methinks there may be some exaggeration going on

Me too!!!