A member of school staff told my 4 year olds teacher he was spiteful today

[FabIsDoingPrettyWell]

DS2 is very very affectionate, cuddly and loving with me and likes to cuddle and pat his friends. Sometimes he is too full on and they don't want to play with him. I remind him most days to be gentle, be nice and ask before cuddles. When I went to pick him up today she said she had bad news. My face fell as I had no idea what she was going to say. He had poked a child in the eye and a dinner lady said he had been pushing in the line and had been "spiteful."

I spoke to him there and then and told him it wasn't on and he did look upset. He has two bits of blood on his face and he said someone scratched him but he didn't know their names. I just said to tell the teacher if anyone did anything to him as I can't do anything without a name.

I will talk to him again and he is not allowed to play out tomorrow to have time to think about what he has done but I am worried he will be labelled a bad one when he is only 4.

I just would not have expected this from him at all.

Any advice?

Could you clarify, Fab; is it the school who are keeping him in tomorrow so he can think about his actions, or you? Because I think it's been dealt with today and tomorrow he should be allowed to start afresh.

The school are keeping him in and I agree with you that it shouldn't be carried over but the teacher said she didn't know what else to do. If it only happened towards the end of the day then there would be no playtime left to withdraw. I really like his teacher and will back her up but I will be keeping a close eye on things.

'spiteful' is a harsh word to use, should only be used to describe the behaviour not the child and it's hard to see how observing something briefly in the queue can lead to that comment.
However, dinner supervisors receive no behaviour management training and are in no way the same as a teacher.
Could you have a calm word with the teacher about being concerned about his injuries and the way he's been described as it's so out of character-indeed you're usually concerned about the opposite! Could you suggest they keep an eye on him?
Do they run nurture groups at the school? They can help with social skills.
Sorry he's had a bad day.

I think spiteful is a horrible word too and I will be talking to the teacher tomorrow about his scratches. I wasn't going to but I have changed my mind as I am not having him marked down as the bad one.

spiteful is not nice word, but its pretty accurate to describe some typical 4 yr old behaviour.
I've seen my child hit hard and twice and craftily behind the walloping 4 yr old mums back in a pretty calculated bit of "paying you back coz I got into trouble about pushing you " behaviour recently. Looked spiteful to me.

The school playground seems to be were some of the craft and guile of older children rubs off on 4 yr olds.

I suspect it takes more than one incident for a child to be "marked as a bad um" this is school who have multiple 4 yr olds learning the laws of the playground every year.

i think that is a horrible way to describe a child. i agree, the behaviour may have ben spiteful (retalliation for his scratches?) but your son should not be labelled as such and i would make it clear to his teacher that this sort of labelling is unacceptable and detrimental to developing your ds' social skills.

It is so hard not to go ott but he is 4 fgs he has only been in full time school for 2 months and he is still learning. I will be taking him in to class this morning as he has drawn a picture for the boy he poked to say sorry and I will say about the scratches and that I don't want him labelled as spiteful as it is not how he is. I am not in denial, one of my children has acted spitefully before.

I am worried the TA doesn't like my son any more. I told him to hold my hand and she said Oh dear, not a good start to the day. He then refused to go in the classroom so I let go and said I was going in and he appeared near me soon after so he did go in. I just don't want them not to like him as they always have up to now.

I am so upset today as all 3 of them have upset me for different reasons.

Well, the teacher said he hadn't been too bad today. The child said mine pushed him once today but no one else said anything. She reminded him lots. And she said his work was really good but I feel .

I think you need to be careful not to blow this out of proportion tbh.

Four year olds can be spiteful little sods, that's a fact unfortunately. But saying that he had been spiteful doesn't mean he's being given a permanent label.

And teachers/TA's do comment. "not a good start to the day," when son refusing to do as he's told at the beginning of the day is just a comment, it doesn't mean that she no longer likes your son. She has 30 children to be responsible for, I imagine she has probably said something about all of them in her time which has indicated their behavior at the time.

I am sure you are right. It is very hard as my other 2 are angels at school. I have had a tough day and this hasn't helped and I need to try and not to be too ott with it.

The TA said they had had a better day though he did tell a child they were a baby . Later DD told me he had bitten her at lunch time.. This is just not him.

sorry confused!! Have you got twins?

No. I lost ds2's twin.

So before I have even picked up the 4 year old, dd is telling me she was playing with 2 children from his class today and he poked her in the eye with a stick and the other 2 girls on their body. The teacher said he was playing some game which I know he has got from school, and taking off the girls shoes and I get the feeling being a pain.

He said he took 1 shoe off a girl and he poked his sister in the eye because he was being a monster.