Would you expel your own child?

[learnandsay]

I've been asked to explain why I'd propose that my own daughter be expelled from school for hypothetically throwing scissors across a classroom.

My daughter knows that scissors are dangerous and is careful at home with them because she knows that they could potentially harm her one year old sister. So, if she threw them at school, she would only be doing it out of calculated malice and if she was acting out of calculated malice at school (a thing she doesn't do at home) I would conclude that school was the wrong place for her.

Would I home educate her? Yes.
For how long?

Firstly I would talk to the school and find out if they could explain her behaviour. And, depending on how necessary it was I would have her assessed by a psychologist. For my daughter this would be extremely out of character.

But I think the topic arose in regard to one boy with behavioural problems who had thrown a pair of scissors across a classroom. Since this is not my child I can not comment on the circumstances. But I would not be happy to have my child educated alongside such a child. And unless they were segregated I would remove my daughter.

You can't insist on another child being segregated.

If he is known to thrown scissors he shouldn't be allowed to have them unsupervised (or at all if he can bypass supervision). :problem solved:

Inclusion? Dontcha just love it.

Then I would remove my daughter. The next time an object was thrown it would not be scissors, if access to scissors had been restricted. The next thrown object could be anything.

Well that would be your choice. Anyone can home ed for whatever reason they like. As long as you weren't all martyrish about it I can't see a problem.

Although this seems rather an odd hypothetical discussion to be having.

Thanks, saintly. Someone on another thread asked me to start it. I'm sure she wants to express her opinion on the subject. And it's not fair to have, what may well turn out to be a heated debate, in somebody else's thread.

Oh okay :completely lost:

FWIW DS1 has spent the last 8 years sharing classrooms and respite space with children who throw things (he doesn't, I don't think he can throw - whenever we've tried to teach him to throw a ball it just drops gently to the floor a foot away). He hasn't been hit by anything yet.

I would not ask for my child to be expelled (don't think this could happen - but it's all hypothetical anyway) but I would expect my child to be removed from the classroom (my DC school have a sanction room)...

I would question how or why a child is throwing scissors in the first place. If they are age 6 or7 plus, then they have been at school long enough to have been taught no throwing of scissors (if they have not been taught at home) and if they are in reception then they should not be left unsupervised with scissors in the first place...

I hear you, simpson. But my concern would go further than a removal from the classroom. Something major would have gone wrong. And I think if the school had presided over this major mess up then it could not be trusted to fix it. (Maybe if we're talking about a child with problems in the first place then it's a different story. But my daughter doesn't have problems. So she must have inherited them from the school.)

saintly, here is the page of another thread where yellowsubmarine wants me to start up this discussion.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1633454-my-child-reads-and-write-at-top-level-but-her-Phonics-group-is-not?pg=14

(I haven't read the other thread)

It's easy to say 'Oh I'd react like this if my child did x, y or z'. But until/unless you're ever actually in that situation I don't think you can second guess your reaction to it.

I can think of one reason why some parents would be prepared to ask the school to exclude their child and that would be in desperation. I have known this happen where the parent wanted the child to get an SEN statement to get extra resources and the LA were proving resistant.

numbum, the other thread is not relevant. There is no discussion of the issue. It's just that saintly was saying that she was confused about how this thread got started. So I linked the old thread.

landS - I have noticed it on that thread already so knew why you have started this one....

I just think it unlikely that a child who knows that throwing scissors is wrong would suddenly do it iyswim (in your daughters case).

There is a boy in my DS's class who is a handful and regularly plots how to escape from the building (impossible) and refuses to sit down when asked, has thrown chairs in the past and for the first 6 weeks of yr2 beat my child every play and lunch time (DS did not tell me ) and I still would not want that child excluded in any way as tbh I think that school is probably the only stable part of his life iyswim....

I don't think I could countenance any harm to my girls (and they are girls not boys) regardless of the other child's needs.

If it was a case of boys fighting, if it was adequately supervised, broken up and followed through, maybe, just maybe I could trust the school to deal with it. But if somebody, (boy or girl) was hitting my daughter, no! And if my daughter was hitting somebody else (boy or girl) no!

OK well ignore the bits in brackets, I still stand by the rest though. If your child, who knows it's wrong to throw scissors, suddenly throws them in class I'd want to get to the bottom of what made them do it rather than exclude them. But that reaction is hypothetical, who knows what we'd do if it actually happened

you cant exclude a child because of one incident - thats a ridiculous suggestion.

numbum, I think there's a bit of rough and tumble that is natural in boys which one wouldn't normally expect to find in most girls. Some girls might enjoy fisticuffs. But I suspect most don't. My own view is that ordinary boys sometimes require explanations as to what level of rough and tumble is acceptable. I think that's perfectly normal. How would they learn otherwise? I don't think the same thing is usually required for girls. Hence the brackets.

learnandsay, you are not understanding that each child is not in a vacuum. It is quite possible that a child will behave completely differently in one environment than another, just because of the stimulus, especially if they have SN. So, a child may just be happening to be holding scissors when something tips them over the edge. They aren't maliciously throwing scissors...at that point, they don't even realise they are holding scissors, and certainly not aware of the damage they would cause.

Besides, all children do things that are out of character from time to time. What a lot of pressure to be expected to be perfect all the time

(Disclaimer: Scissor-throwing is not acceptable under any circumstances)

My child (year one, exceptionally small for her age, weedy, not given to violence, very 'talky', bright, a bit shy, peaceful by inclination but a bit nervous) shares a class with just such a child. He obviously has some kind of behavioural difficulties and although he hasn't thrown any scissors at anyone as far as I know (actually, he is a nice kid in many ways and I doubt very much he would hurt someone on purpose) he does kick/hit/shout/tantrum a fair bit. He is totally, totally incapable of seeing that others may have opinions that conflict with his and that those opinions are completely valid. He can't cope with someone naming a favourite pudding that happens to be different from his.

Interestingly, although I was quite worried about how DD would react to this child, she rather likes him and just accepts his quirks. So far, none of his problems seem to impact particularly on her life or on the class. He is well-managed by TAs and the very experienced teacher. He is in education, takes part in his class activities, has friends, is part of the group. I think this is really positive for both the rest of the class and for him. I think the negatives, were he not to be in education, would be long term and far worse for society than keeping him in school and learning.

Throwings sissors across the room is extreme behaviour.

A child who throws sissors across the classroom should be suspended for a couple of days. The parents and the child should be invited to a back to school meeting where they talk about strageries about preventing such behaviour in future. Prehaps an IEP would be drawn up and possibly external involvement from an Ed pych. Maybe the child would have TA support at difficult transistions, prehaps a referal to the child development centre to rule out special needs.

If a child really cannot cope with a mainstream enviroment with support (after multiple incidents) the ideal would be a managed transition to a special school rather than being expelled.

But it does really depend on the situation...

There is a big difference between a child throwing scissors and a child deliberately wanting to harm another child by throwing scissors at them. I do believe that every child deserves an education (a chance) so it does depend on how many incidences happen iyswim....

I don't think it's as black and white as you imply learnandsay. We are all creatures of our environment. I guess it comes down to "is your trust in the school irreversibly damaged?" Do you no longer trust the school to keep your child safe?
Generally children, SN or not, do not throw scissors, thankfully. There is a behaviour policy in most schools which deals with bad behaviour from the minor to the major, including causing harm to another child. Ours is on our school website .

I don't think so. It would depend on general behaviour, etc.

When dd was at primary school there was a boy who in yr4 stabbed a girls hand with a fork/knife at lunch time. Now stabbing someone sounds awful. The girl had teased him and the boy totally lost it, but generally he was an ok, normal kid. He wasn't expelled or even suspended. The school got an anger mamangement type counsellor to talk to him and he didn't do anything similar again.

I think that Really Tired's view is way over the top. Also the OP's.
We don't even know what the situation is. If it is a calm class of 16 year olds, and one of them picks up a serious pair of scissors and deliberately throws it at someone's head - that's extreme. If it's a class of 6 year olds doing craft activities with kids' scissors, and one of them gets overexcited and throws whatever's to hand, I would say that that's no big deal.
Your child may have been told not to throw scissors. If she then does so in a moment of silliness, that doesn't mean she's being malicious.
I would think carefully before wanting schools to take such drastic action against children - don't assume that the child to suffer from that drastic actin won't be yours.

from what I've seen of 6 and 7 yr olds in year 2.... its not just the boys who are capable of thoughtless hurting of other children. Girls do it too, not necessarily with fists, skipping ropes, hoods, hair pulling,feet, all hurt if they are used inappropriately.

I say thoughtless, because that's often what it is, they simply haven?t thought about how it will feel to be on the other end of the "game" . If incidents are repeated or the child escalates minor incidents into major you get the idea that it might not be thoughtlessness, but a symptom of an underlying problem that child does not have the developmental skills to deal with in a more socially acceptable way.

OP - for what its worth a child in DS's class has been excluded for violence. DS never seemed to be on the receiving end and the incidents largely went over his head. But their classroom is a calmer place now.

Agree with Vivat, Dromedary and UniS et al.; it would have to depend on the situation, the child in general etc.

My best friend was one of the gentlest and most stable children you could imagine: certainly not somebody who struggled with transition or social situations in any way. But once in play she got carried away and threw her clog: it hit me in the head and gave me a black eye. She was full of remorse- and very careful not to get carried away in the future. She didn't need anger management or any other kind of support.

Otoh one of ds' friends was going through bereavement and let out his feelings by regularly knocking other children down: he did need support and got it. With appropriate support from the school, he managed to work through his feelings and the behaviour stopped. He needed support but not exclusion.

And finally, I knew another child who really was not able to function in mainstream and did need a special set-up.