Child assaulted at a party. Do I tell school?

[User17865]

My primary age DC has been assaulted at a classmates birthday party today. The child who assaulted him has bullied him at school in the past. He’s a very angry child and was also being aggressive to other children at the party.
His Mum never seems to intervene. I wasn’t at the party, his Dad was, he was out of the room when it happened though.
I’m not sure if I should let school know. I don’t expect them to do anything about today directly. I just wonder if I should make them aware so they can make sure they keep a close eye on things in school and don’t put them in groups together etc when they’re splitting the class.
My DC is Autistic if that makes any difference to peoples opinions. So he is more vulnerable to bullying than some other children. He is very young for his age emotionally and has social difficulties.
He’s got raised red bruising to his arm and both shoulders. I only noticed in the bath. He probably wouldn’t have told me if I hadn’t seen his injuries. He finds it hard to talk about his feelings.

The biggest issue we've been finding with child in son's class, isn't the school, it's the parents.

They have been in complete denial about issues and think their son is just 'a rascal' rather than some sort of issue.

We've deliberately avoided engaging with them directly and made a point of saying we'd do things through school until things calmed down with our son, rather than pinning anything on them.

The thing with talking to other parents directly is you just don't know how they will react. In the worst cases they could become aggressive and spark an incident with you. In a lesser scenario they might go massively on the defensive and cause problems for you or your child in other ways. It's just not worth it, because a direct intervention - unless you know someone really well - is likely to be taken as an insult, criticism or other form of personal attack on their parental skills even if what you say is well intentioned.

Going through the school and letting them know of incidents is better as they will have a fuller picture and be able to take the emotional side of things better because the focus is on helping their child do better rather than saying in someway 'your child is causing issues'. The former is a positive framing and the latter is a negative framing.

If the other parents are in denial, it's a slog and an uphill battle however it goes. Having the support of school is useful. ATM we are feeling frustrated and quite powerless as it's only edging forward slowly - even if that's to get further interventions for the other child - but we also understand going through due process is the best option to facilitate and that involves closely working with school.

Honestly I wish the system wasn't so overstretched and imputant but we are conscious that there are ways which it could explode in our faces even worse if we start being confrontational.

Definitely tell the school and ask them to keep those specific children separate. This will be the tip of the iceberg.

I would also start making a plan to change schools. Bullies don’t just get bored and stop, or become nicer.

Personally I’d also take a photo of the injuries and send it to the mum of the bully.

The man's in the wrong instantly even though OP clearly says in the OP that the child told her while he was in the bath that night.

He's also in the wrong for going to the toilet, further up the thread. Don't men know that they're supposed to wet themselves rather than leave their kids playing in a supervised setting for two minutes? No woman would dream of going to the toilet at a kids' party.

Jesus I missed that nugget

This forum is terrible.

I’d say having a group of children at that age all bouncing together on a bouncy castle will almost guarantee that all the children will come away with marks, bruises and scratches. Unless an adult corroborates that your DS was actually attacked purposely by another child, then I’d assume it was just regular over excited children at a party.

This very much resonates. The boys Mum had a slight black eye at school this morning. So maybe he’s seeing violence at home. She could’ve just had an accident of course, but maybe me telling school will have added to an emerging picture for them. I hope school can support the family but obviously my priority is to ensure my son doesn’t get injured again.