My son scratched someone else

[pickleparent147]

My son has just started reception, and today the teacher took my husband aside at pickup to say he had scratched another boy.
We have questioned DS and he says he was feeling angry. We have explained it's not acceptable to hurt other people and told him there will be no TV after school today as a punishment.
I'm surprised that he did this as even though he is quick tempered in some instances, and might shout, I haven't seen/heard of him hurting other children. He has been at home through most of lockdown, I was furloughed so I could be with him, but I am pregnant so we tried to avoid seeing too many other people. We also tried to get a lot of DIY done in that time and I did notice he had become quite assertive when speaking to us, probably because we were often working on things which were boring to him. Adding this background info just to say that I am not experiencing behavior problems at home, besides sometimes not listening very well, so I'm not sure how to address the behavior further.
Really my questions are:
Do you think I should have done more to discipline him, or is talking to him about it/telling him it's not ok/removing the TV for an evening enough when school will also have talked to him about it?
If you were the other parent, would you want me to reach out and apologise? I have no idea how bad the scratch is, or where it is, so will ask my son some more about that.
Thanks in advance for your advice!

Don’t question him again.
School will have talked to him, you have talked to him and punished him.

I wouldn’t expect an apology as another parent (I might have liked a word with the parent of the kid who knocked my DS tooth out in yr 2 though if they had bothered to show their face!) although if the other parent feels the need to mention it do let them know he was spoken to and had a punishment.

There will be more scrapes & tiffs ahead.

I think an apology shows you are a decent approachable parent and shows you know of the incident and have dealt with it.

It goes along way when parents gossip about kids. We expect an apology as a way of acknowledgement. I won’t harm.

Phew! Your son is confirmed as human

All you can do is what you have done. Talk it through, have and follow through with a consequence and examine what may have caused it.

I would not expect or want an apology, it could be one of mine tomorrow!

Funnily enough my DS has just started reception and on Friday the teacher had a quick work with me to say she'd had to have a little word with him about kicking at lunch time.

At the time inwardly I panicked as him misbehaving like that is a trigger for me, I went through a very bad spell of PND/PNA last year and he was playing up at nursery at the time (so I was told so many times).

Then I pulled myself together, asked the teacher if it was anything I needed to ring her to have a proper chat about (ie it's hard to talk properly now in covid times, it's such a quick handover), she said no need.

I then spoke to DS and he said a girl was pretending to kick him at lunchtime and he didn't like it so he kicked her. That was good enough for me - we chatted about how that was the wrong thing to do, the right thing would've been to walk away or to tell a teacher if he didn't like her pretending to kick him, that we must not hurt people etc. I then reminded him on Monday before school that we must not hurt people ever. Other than that I didn't punish him, he would've been told off in school and I felt that was appropriate.

Like your DS he isn't usually physically aggressive although he is a bit stroppy and shouts sometimes. He's been such a good boy in lockdown all things considered and I feel we've come such a long way since last year, I wasn't about to lose perspective over what sounded like it was a very minor incident.

Your DS' situation sounds very similar, I wouldn't have spoken to the parents unless it was something serious, but in which case I'm sure the school would've dealt with it more seriously.

I'm a reception teacher and find at the start of term, children can revert back to babyish behaviours like biting, scratching, spitting etc. It's often from coping with change and/or tiredness. I agree with op, let it go with your son. I used to do a bit of role play with my ta to show the children what to do when you feel frustrated or overwhelmed. Most found it hilarious but gave them ideas for how to cope!

DS seemed to be a target for a boy who scratched for a while in reception and the most practical thing his parents did was keep his nails short to minimise the damage.

Please don't take away his TV (or since it's too late please don't punish him by taking something he loves). It's a hard situation for him. Being outside home after so many months, being on his own with new people in a new place. Please talk to him and ask what angered him. Discuss coping mechanisms like what to do when he feels angry since it's never alright to hurt someone - taking deep breath, shaking his hands, saying something in his mind,...
Tell him how you feel angry sometimes and how you cope with it. Empathise. I think he needs a lot of love right now and not punishment. He needs to be told that what he did was wrong but be empathetic when you say it.
Please do apologize to the other parent. It might have been quite hard for the other child. Being made to feel unsafe in a new environment and with new people. Also, can be quite scary for the parents. It's a small incident but still the other child is also just trying to adjust and a scratch can put the child off school.

Thank you everyone. I think as this is my first child at school I am overthinking some aspects of it, and those of you that have pointed out it is a lot of change for him, you are right.
I did ask him where he scratched the other boy and if it was red/bleeding/did he cry. I just wanted to gauge how upset I would be if I was the other parent (i.e. bleeding face would be a lot worse than graze on arm!) he said it was on the arm and wasn't red, so hopefully he was honest about that and it was simply brought to our attention as he had to be told more than once to stop.
We did talk about ways he could cope if he feels angry, and what DH and I would do if we were angry, so I'm glad we had covered some of the things suggested too. I will drop it from now apart from general reminders about being calm/kind etc.
I really appreciate having a realistic perspective from you all, it's so easy to panic that he will misbehave throughout school, and we are only on week 3!

OP I feel exactly the same, I had to really check myself to gather perspective on this, DS is also my first child at school too.

He was at the school nursery class last year and in November the teacher took me aside to ask if anything had happened as he'd been really naughty that week, refusing to do stuff etc. He was poorly so I put it down to that, but like you I worried then that it was so early in the term and he'd already been naughty. But I didn't have any further comments from then until he finished in March when lockdown happened!

I hope I don't get any more feedback like that though too, we do question ourselves and our children!