Woman has just punched my son

[Hollowhead]

My son came in with tears in his eyes a few minutes ago and a red mark on his face. Turns out he had a run in with a neighbours son (same age, 10) and threatened to punch him next time he saw him going to shop on his own the kid then went running in to his mum and told her what DS had said and she came out giving DS loads and saying he was the kind of kid that would end up in prison by the time he was 18 and she also said he and his friends were the reason another neighbour moved recently.

DS then retaliated and called her a fat ugly cow and said he was going to set their cat on fire she told him she was coming around to tell me what he'd said and would be reporting him to the police and ds said "go on then, I'll put your fucking windows through" so she said to him "come here and shout your mouth off, you think you're so big and clever" and so DS did and she grabbed hold of him and smacked him across the face (he said she punched him, she admits she slapped him, not punched). DS then tried to kick her and her husband came out and starting saying to his wife "keep him there, I'll knock his cocky fucking head off" and she then pushed DS over full force so he actually fell into the road and told him to "fuck off".

Obviously I went around to see what the hell has been happening and she said she pushed him away because if her husband had got a hold of him he would've killed him!

I KNOW ds is not innocent in this but to actually punch someone elses kid? Would I be over-reacting to report this to the police?

the op is a troll pamela,your advice will fall on troll like ears.as she talketh out her arse

I'm probably being naive but is there any way you can move out of that area and live somewhere where this sort of behaviour is not normal? It is not normal in most of the country, only in rough areas.

I can't see how your DS can be blamed and almost 'hated' by people on here and your neighbours because he is only 10 and he is copying the way he sees other people behaving. How is he to know that this behaviour is not normal and not acceptable if that is how everyone around him acts and he hasn't been told that this behaviour is unacceptable. It is not the boy's fault, we, the adults, are responsible for teaching our children how to behave.

How would you like your DS to behave? Maybe to care about other people, to talk to people nicely and respectfully, to be someone people want to make friends with, to be someone who sees the good things in life rather than focussing on aggression etc. You have to teach him how to be like this, by being role models of this positive behaviour and by talking to him in a positive way about it eg say "if you are somebody who hurts people and threatens them then people won't want to be friends with you, would you like to have no friends? If you talk nicely to people and do nice things for them you will get some good friends". Or what about "Just because the others behave like this doesn't mean it is good and it doesn't make them nice people. The way we would like you to behave is...".

Talk to him about what happened and explain that what he said was wrong because you shouldn't threaten to hurt people and that the neighbours' behaviour towards him was also wrong because it is wrong to hit and push and verbally abuse etc. Say this is the sort of reaction you can get though when you go around talking the way he was talking so he should be more careful what he says for his own sake as well as because it is wrong. Talk to him about how what he said would have made those people feel and why that made them react the way they did, even though it was wrong.

Don't swear and talk aggressively round him if you don't want him to copy you.

The things I've said are really obvious but I am not patronising you because I know myself that when you are in the middle of a situation it is hard to see these obvious things and you sometimes need someone to say these simple things that make you feel clearer about the situation.