I'm so angry I'm shaking but don't know what to do

[muffinflop]

I had a phone call from school this morning asking if I could pop in when I had time because DD had had a 'little accident'. They said it wasn't anything to worry about but DD was crying and wanted to come home so could I go down and then decide if she should come home or not.

So, obviously, I went straight down. I found DD in the office shaking, pale and sobbing so much she was heaving and the TA was holding a sick bucket just in case It turns out she was attacked by a boy in her class. He pulled her chair backwards making her fall off, she hit her head on the floor and then he got on top of her and was pulling her hair, shouting in her face and kicking her legs. And all because the teacher said she'd drawn a lovely picture. I was told of this away from DD but could hear her in the next room crying for me the whole time so I said I couldn't deal with it now and there was no way I was leaving DD there today.

I don't know how the boy has been dealt with but I did pass his mum on the way out and she kind of looked at DD crying and said 'oh dear is she not well' but I was so f*cking angry I just walked away from her (I know I would have cried if I'd stopped to say anything).

I've just phoned them back to tell them I want a meeting with the teacher and the HT this afternoon and they were very understanding and said they'd see me after school pick up. But what do I say? I'm so angry I'm shaking. I don't deal with confrontation well but there's no way I'm letting this go seeing the state of DD

I have only just seen this. I was and for DD at first but it does sound like this mum and the school will try and rectify things.

I hope it all gets sorted and your DD is feeling a little better tomorrow.

i second martial arts type course - my niece started at this age and it has really helped her confidence.

That does sound like a positive update but I do still feel for your little girl. Hope she regains her bounce tomorrow and that you have a great weekend

The hand holding buddy thing sounds like a good idea. I'll mention that to the teacher. DD is usually a very confident (bordering on bossy!) girl but I think it happened so fast she didn't have a chance to do anything about it. She's small for her age too and he's quite a large lad so she couldn't push him off. I will look in to martial arts though if its going to help rebuild her confidence.

I've had quite a few other parents texting/phoning this afternoon with stories of what happened but I haven't been dragged in to the mud slinging after seeing the boy's mum in tears earlier.

How hideous for your DD,

I do think there is something else you can do though.
Please make a formal complaint in writing to the school about the childs behaviour. Copy it to the govenors.

When my DS1 was in reception a little boy attacked him (sitting on his face and tried to scratch his eyes out) when I arrived his eyes and face were all bleeding with scratch marks. The point of me telling you this is that after a number of complaints the child was assessed for special needs and it really helped his mum and the school to get help because there were complaints in writing about the attacks.

I am sorry for all of you involved, it must be really upsetting to find out that your daughter has been on the recieving end of this attack, but also it must be hard to find out that your child is capable of attacking in this way.

I hope the school continue to be supportive.

AICM, I did not see that.

I don't actually think it's appropriate for us to discuss this on this thread anymore; I still have a lot to say, but this is a thread about a little girl who was attacked today, and I think it best if we discuss this another time on another thread, what do you reckon?

OP, I am sure your DD will get back from this- unfortunately it may take you as a parent a bit longer, but I am glad to hear the school are handling it well. Good luck to both of you

Muffin I am a great believer in making sure children express their feelings. In a couple of days (or sooner if she seemsready) I would see if she would like to talk about what happened and do a drawing about her feelings or use toys to act out her feelings.
A form of therapy I suppose.

This is really sad thing to happen, but I really feel that you shouldn't make this into a big deal in front of your DD. (even though I know it is.) You really don't want this to turn in to a big issue which ultimately stops her from learning and enjoying school.

I think the present idea from the boy is a lovely on, to build bridges and help both children move on. The other little boy clearly has anger issues and the school will no doubt help him deal with this.

Hope your DD is ok.

It seems encouraging that the mother and the school seem to want to get to the bottom of what happened and why. Best of luck to your DD.

orchidskeepdying I've made an effort not to make it into a big thing in front of DD. Obviously given her lots of cuddles and sympathy but not brought it up in conversation. I had to stop my dad coming around though because he was desperate to see her and I know he would have got nuts in front of her

DS wasn't impressed that she gets the day off school tomorrow but I said it was because she's bumped her head and I need to keep an eye on her so he was happy with that.

I just wish I could have helped her when she needed me

What a terrible thing to happen to your poor little girl.

Sounds like the mum of the little boy is in a state too. Well done for not joining in with the mud slinging parents- considering how you must feel about what has happened, you are being very magnanamous.

Hope she has a lovely day tomorrow and starts to feel better over the weekend.

Just seen this thread

Muffin, I'm so sorry. Much has already been said, and I'm not sure any of us can help with that awful, heartbreaking feeling of powerlessness we all get when our children are hurt and we can't stop it or make it better. You have every right to feel furious and sad, and so does your dd - you are probably both going to need to let yourselves feel that for some time, as part of the healing process.

FWIW, my dd1 was slapped in the face, very hard, by a (smiling) 4 yr old boy in a playground once. She was 2 at the time, so not all that articulate about it, but was clearly utterly baffled and distraught that someone who looked friendly could want to hurt her. I wasn't with her - she was with her nanny - and it was awful. When she went to bed that night, and we had our quiet time, I simply told her that I felt very angry that someone had hurt my girl, and very sorry it had happened, and that I hadn't been there. I didn't blame the boy, I said I didn't know why he'd behaved like that, that there were probably reasons in his life that had nothing to do with her, but that is was absolutely not ok. She didn't say a word, but she looked at me through the bars of her cot and visibly relaxed, then said she loved me. I think she felt safer, or something.

I know in your dd's situation, she will need the school to make her feel safe again too - and that is what they need to be working to do, absolutely. But in the meantime, knowing how you feel (if she doesn't already) might actually help her.

I suppose what I'm thinking is that, although we none of us can protect our DC from bad things happening at times, we aren't as powerless as we feel - you are making a huge difference to your dd right now, in the way you are comforting and responding to her in a horrible situation.

I really hope she sleeps well, and is able to start talking to you about it when she's ready.

I think it's right not to make it into a big deal and not to discuss in front of her, even if you think she isn't listening, but do make it clear to her that if she wants to talk about it (to anybody) or draw a picture about her feelings or whatever else that that is okay and she is definitely allowed to even if she thinks it might upset you or someone else. Sometimes children can pick up that we are trying to minimise things and it makes them bottle it up even though actually they do want to talk about it and debrief.

And please don't feel awful about not being there and able to prevent it. From the sounds of it nobody could have done. It's a horrible way to learn, but she is learning something hugely important from this - that she can rely on people she loves to stick up for her and be there for her and try to make it right even if something terrible happens.

muffin, I hope you and your DD managed to get some sleep last night and hope she is feeling a bit better this morning. I also commend you for not getting dragged into mudslinging. I can't imagine how the boys mum feels but I'd be completely devestated if my child had done that.

I hope you and your DD have a lovely day today and a lovely weekend and she is able to go back to school on Monday

Please don't feel bad you weren't there. You can't be in school with her all the time. It isn't like you left her at home alone and something happened. It is an awful feeling picking up your child from school and realising they have been hurt. We have had it many times at school .

I hope you have a lovely cuddly day today and my advice woul dbe to just go to school on Monday as normal. Kids are pretty resiliant and will probably forget it long before you do.

One thing that has been nice to read about this is that the school have been very proactive in dealing with the situation and happy to talk to both parents.

I imagine they will be keeping an eye of the other child and will put measures in place to monitor him, whether it was a one off or something else building up.

It is good to see a school taking action because many dont and leave the parents and child distressed because they feel nothing has been done.

They are within their rights not to tell you what punishment the boy will get, if any, so I would just be seeking assurances that your child is safe at school

Hope she recovers over the weekend. Get her to draw pictures to describe what happened so that she isnt bottling it all up

I'm so sorry to hear about your DD and I hope you are both feel better today. It does sound like an awful experience. I know there are a lot of people coming forward with children that have had things happen to them at school. My lo's have never gone through this sort of thing (thankfully) in reception but I would say that I was aware that some children did do things that was totally out of character which left the mums totally shocked and upset like you explained. Not all the kids were repeat offenders and did it again but obviously the school needs to take steps to ensure all the children's safety. I hope they give you and your child the support needed and they give the other child the correct support to. Take care

Aw Muffin, hope you & DD feel better today. It really does sounds as though the school have done their best & that the Mum of the boy was genuinely shocked. Really, really well done for not joining in the mud-slinging too. I think that is so very wise - otherwise it turns into a really horrible judgy mum thing in the playground & mums tend to hold on to these things alot longer than kids do. Hopefully the school will help get everything back to normal as soon as possible.

Hoping your DD feels better today.

Elibean what a positive response.

OP,

I think the school are responding well, in that they take it seriously.

By comparison, in our lovely village school, a 10 year old boy beat up a little girl(5) for no reason, just a random attack. He threw her to the ground and kicked her in the stomach until she screamed and cried.

It was shocking to witness (I was a parent helper that day, and a teacher and I ran to them but all happened so quickly). He just stood there and laughed and said "you can't touch me" and sauntered off.

Then, the next day, this same boy attacked a little boy during lunch time, he actually went up to much smaller boy who was having his lunch and started punching him in the face, repeatedly. Children started screaming and staff came to separate them. The boy who was beaten up, was not crying. he was like frozen, unable to speak, bright red and frozen to the spot.

That little boy is my son.

The school did NOTHING, they asked me to understand that this big boy is from a troubled background and we (school, parents and other children) have to learn now to stay out of his way, and try to be patient.

I had a shivering wreck at home to deal with, all confidence knocked out him. he could and would not talk about it though. He started biting his nails and chewing his jumper and was nervous about school.

now THAT in my opinion was a shoddy way of dealing with it by the HT. I told her, when I moved my children to a different school, that if only she would have said that she takes this kind of incident seriously, and that they would TRY to improve supervision during play time of the "troubled" children I would have been happy. I never asked for the impossible, I just asked for them to acknowledge there was a problem, and to put some measure into place to help prevent this sort of thing happening again.

By comparison, your school seem to take it seriously, so that is a good start!

You must be really upset - your poor DD, I hope she's ok.

re the "little accident" - I know that health professionals do say things like that too instead of giving bad news over the phone; the explanation is that it's so you don't drive there in a panic and end up injured yourself, or in case you're alone and become too upset to be safe.

Don't know if that helps at all, but maybe that's why they didn't tell you exactly what happened on the phone?

That's what I was going to say, donteatyourtea.

Muffin - I hope your dd is feeling better today, and that you are too. Fwiw, by acting so decisively about seeing the head teacher, and by all you are doing to help her now, I think you are being there for her when she needs you. You've immediately come to her defence - I just wish my mum had done that the first (and only) time I told her about being bullied at school, instead of leaving me with the impression that it was my fault because my being upset encouraged them.

Just thought I'd do a quick update. I did keep DD home today. I had to take her down to school to drop DS off and she didn't leave my side and wouldn't speak to anyone. She's been very clingy and tearful again today but did perk up a bit this evening when DS came home and was telling her all about the harvest festival they've been rehearsing for. He told her her teacher had told him to pass a message on that they really needed her on Monday to practise because she's the best 'seed' they have and it wasn't the same without her so that made her smile. She did keep asking me if she has to go to school next week and I've told her that yes she does but that if she feels at all upset then she's to tell a grown up. I also spoke to the deputy head about the buddy system someone else suggested and she said she would have a word with the 2 reception teachers and ask them to choose a few 'responsible' children to help settle her back in.

I also saw the boy's mother again at pick up time and she was still very apologetic and asking after DD. She said things have been 'sorted' with her DS but didn't really say much more and I didn't ask anything except whether he will be back in next week and she said he will. If I'm honest my stomach did a backflip when she said he would be in Monday because I was hoping DD would get a chance to settle back in before he reappeared but we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for all the advice. It was very appreciated.