Have committed the cardinal sin of telling little sh*t off

[WineAndChocolate]

So DS (year 6) came home from school crying three times last week because of little sh*t in his class who has been picking on him. On the last day he came out crying I saw red and confronted the other boy in the playground. He went home and told his mum and dad who phoned the school and made a complaint against me. The thing is this boy has been nasty to a lot of the other children in the class and has been getting away with it for years. It was a knee jerk reaction and I know it is a big no no but as I say I had a bit of red mist come over me.

Would you of been happy for your ds to be shouted at by another parent when he was alone?

Why didn't you deal with it through the school

Frankly it's out of order for a grown up to confront a child in an aggressive manner regardless of whether you've seen a bloody red mist or not.

You should be able to show more control over your emotions that that, what with being an adult.

You are wrong and should apologise.

well you're probably going to get a huge bollocking from the HT now

I guess the little boy was lucky your ''red mist'' stopped at a touch of the verbals and didn't progress to a bunch of fives eh.

revolted at description of child as ''little shit'', ugh.

Little shit? Grow up and get a hold of yourself.

If your child has an issue at school you go to the school in the first instance.

I think you deserve the complaint and you should apologize. I also think you should make an appointment with the class teacher and start behaving like an adult and sort this out properly.

I didn't shout at him. I told him that if he carried on upsetting my son I would go and speak to his parents and actually yes if my son was behaving like that towards other kids I would be more than happy for another parent to tell him off.

Where do you live? Is it an episode of Shameless?

Depends what you said, what you did, how you did it, were there people there, and all sorts of context.

I remember a mum doing this when we were all ten years old. Her boy had been picked on for years. She waited by the school gates, in full public view, and simply told off the culprits in a firm yet emotional voice. I'll never forget it. Awesome woman. One boy answered back but the others were stunned. And it worked.

You got it wrong and you know that. So if I were you I would give the school a simple and unqualified apology - don't try to explain or justify or this becomes a post mortem of what you did.

Then you can set this aside and move on to talk to them about how they are managing behaviour, which is presumably what really matters to you.

oh beg pardon, I assumed the red misting involved getting close to the child's face and hissing frighteningly at them complete with spittle and showing the whites of your eyes. I am sorry.

You don't need to shout to intimidate or be aggressive.

How many times had you complained to the school?

you were out of order.. I would go nuts. He's a little kid, do it through the proper channels.

you will get your arsed hauled into school.. you do know that don't you?

My dsis did this, solved an going problem immediately. Mum of child confronted her in the playground and she proceeded to list all the stuff the child had done - very loudly...and that ended the conversation and the problem, the HT did not become involved.

Do you know what I don't think what you actually said is that bad. Saying you'll talk to his parents about it if he does it again is pretty restrained. Of course you should have mentioned it to the school rather than tackling it yourself but the HT doesn't have the power to stop you making a reasonable comment to a child.

Have the school and the other boy's parents failed to deal with it? Is that why you confronted the child directly? How many times have you approached the school previously?

What have the school said about it?

I do think we have lost a bit of the sense of community parenting that used to exist with people being afraid to reprimand a child that doesn't belong to them for unacceptable behaviour. If we all took an overall responsibility towards and interest in the behaviour of young people perhaps things would improve. If somebody told off my DS's I would be asking DS's why they were told off and backing other adult of they had shown unacceptable behaviour.
The answer to this is what actually happened. Adult losing temper or "red mists" is unacceptable. However if I directly observed some behaviour that was unacceptable I might intervene in a calm and firm way. I would then be immediately telling the parents and school what had happened and what had been said. If the behaviour hasn't been directly witnessed though then it's more difficult as you can't be sure exactly what happened and have only half the story, in that case better to report concerns to school so they can investigate and get to the bottom of it.

PS also hate with a passion the title of this thread. No child deserves a label like that.

Can totally understand your reaction. I have done similar in the park but with slightly younger boys, they lived to still be little shits another day.

Tell the HT to pull his socks up and deal with the bullying in his school.

Little shit?

Have you given the school a chance to deal with this OP? What with you having a rather one-sided view of events and all that?

(Before I post I just want to say that I don't think calling anyone the word in the title is ever appropriate).

However, OP I feel your pain. I wish I could talk to the little boy who makes my son's school time miserable. I imagine doing it a lot! Some parents just allow their children to be badly behaved and the rest of us have to deal with the consequences. People don't seem to think about the child who is being made miserable by the bully.

What is really wrong with a parent telling off another person's child? If my child was bullying someone I would have no problem with the parent talking to them. However, I would be totally ashamed if I had allowed it to reach that stage.

In some countries children are still parented by society as a whole, so telling off someone elses child would be absolutely acceptable. I don't think you did anything wrong.

If it's happening at school - why aren't you talking to them?

I know how you feel op. I had bullies know on my door to offer my son a fight. It was horrendous.

The parents didn't give a shut so I felt like I had to take matters into my own hands.

School can manage the problem, if there is one and OP might have made the situation worse for her son by confronting the other child n the way that she did.

I was confronted in the playground by the grandparent of one of the children known for his more erm..challenging behaviour after my DS stopped him picking on a smaller child by physically placing himself between the bully and the other child and telling him to stop it in no uncertain terms (corroborated by the child that was being bullied). The bully went running to his gran in tears and I got a mouthful in the playground (she'd already had a go at DS). Trouble is, at that point you don't know what happened so can't really put any sensible points forward.

I was a bit pissed off that she'd raised it in the way that she did because if she'd dealt with it through the school the whole issue would have been addressed properly rather than her just getting a mistaken belief off her chest that DS was nasty to her Grandson.