Violent child (year 2)

[MrsSnape]

Since year one my son has come home saying that "david" has punched, kicked, pushed and lashed out at him.

He often comes home with bruises on his legs.

During year 1 I went in to complain and the teacher said "oh yes, David does have issues with his temper, you only have to look at him the wrong way and you get a smack but to be fair we have warned Daniel (my ds) to stay away from him" .

Anyway it continued, he didn't only attack my ds, he attacked other children as well as teachers and could often be seen attacking his mum in the playground.

DS continued to complain.

Anyway it's started up again this year (year 2) "david kicked me", "david screamed in my ear", "david punched me" and I'm getting a bit sick of it.

I've complained twice now but the difficult issue is, my son is far from an angel and the teachers are constantly going on about his behaviour to me (waiting for assessment) so when I go in about "david" they just assume that DS has provoked him in some way of use DS's history of bad behaviour to excuse "david's" violence.

Last week he came home and said "David strangled me" so out of frustration I said "hit him them, that way he'll learn that he can't go around attacking people". So the next day he said "david" had punched him, ds punched him back then this kid went loopy, started screaming, strangled DS again...ds tried to "strangle him back" and then DS got into a heap of trouble as the hand marks around "david's" neck were worse than the marks around DS's neck!!!

any advice welcome.

How old is your DS? It's not really the best outcome, but maybe David will leave him alone now? As he seems to have got the worse end of the stick in the end!

The only thing I can think of is switching it around, and rather than telling the school that David is a pain in the backside (which incidentally he sounds like he is), why not make an appointment and make out that you are asking their advice in how they seem fit to handle the issue. I realise you probably don't want to do this, but this way they are forced to think about the consequences. Explain that you are worried that they could both really hurt each other and telling your DS to stay away has not helped. Tell them that you have run out of advice, without the support of the school, and that is why ur DS could see no other way to sort the issue other than giving vile David a taste of his own medicine. So what would they suggest you tell your DS to prevent David from provoking him and one of them ending up in hospital? Hopefully this will freak them out a bit and will make them take it a little more seriously.

Wishy washy advice, but without the support of the school your hands are a bit tied as you can't be there all day to see what is actually happening. I'm sure David is very annoying, but it could be Daniel who starts it by winding him up in some way?

A good school would sorting this issue out, by having a proper scheme for children (and their friends) to report any incident instantly to a teacher or a dinner lady, for any incident to be dealt with immediately and effectively (e.g. any child who hits another child loses playtime) and for parents to be kept informed.
In my son's school, all children know they have a responsibility to report fighting (including hitting, strangling, pushing somebody over) and help anyone who's been hurt to medical room. The message is that noone has the right to hurt anyone else however annoying and everybody knows there is a retribution system in place. The fact that everybody is trained in what to do cuts out a lot of the strong feelings: my son was recently in a situation where one of his best mates was getting too boisterous and the school were able to deal with it very efficiently, as a matter of school discipline, without having to get the other parents involved.
Ask the school to see their anti-bullying plan.
Naturally, this may affect your son as well as the other boy- but is this such a bad thing? Surely you would want him punished too if he ever did something like this?
Also, can your son ask his mates to report any instances? Sounds better if it's coming from somebody else.

The school need to work with you, your son, "David" and his parents, to come up with behavioural support strategies that work.

Clearly the two boys wind each other up, but they need help in dealing with spending time with each other without physical contact.

Telling them to keep away from each other is not enough.

Write a letter to the Headteacher, detailing the situation, and asking for a meeting to formulate an action plan to help the children.