Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

1 week suspension for fighting

54 replies

mumofblu · 14/10/2022 04:45

My dd hit her ex bf in school
I absolutely agree she should not have done this and a punishment is required .

They split in may but he has continued to be in contact out of school and chat . I hear them in her room .

While they were together their were lots of concerns and the school ( teacher ) was very open in their surprise that my dd ( good grades , motivated , great pupil ) would be with someone like him .

They were together 7 months . I called social services on him because I saw heavy bruising on her upper arms and she finally admitted were him not being very nice .

Anyway yesterday in school she hit him after he ignored her and he has been telling others that she won't leave him alone and is obsessed with him . But he calls her and chats for hours on the phone .

I have told the school this and the teacher described this boy is manipulating but it seems everything is falling on my dd and not where this boy is

Yes she is absolutely wrong to hit anyone but the background of why she is such a state regarding this boys behaviour to her is not being looked at .

Should we just accept the punishment without raising the issues of why ?

OP posts:
Rocketclub · 14/10/2022 06:21

Oh and take her phone

Original poster
mumofblu · 14/10/2022 06:23

The provocation is she has been in an abusive relationship with him and despite them breaking up they are still involved in an a unhealthy way due to him contacting her . Until now she didn't abuse him

I expect his parents may want to press charges

OP posts:
Original poster
mumofblu · 14/10/2022 06:25

Yes @Rocketclub

It was an abusive relationship and she hasn't broken free despite me thinking she had .

OP posts:
girlmom21 · 14/10/2022 06:26

OP this wasn't him contacting her.
I understand where you're coming from completely but this incident was all her. He was ignoring her.

How old is she?

Paq · 14/10/2022 06:30

Firstly it's extremely unlikely that any criminal charges will be brought.

Stop focusing on the punishment and talk to the school about how they can be kept away from each other. He has played a cleverer game and not done anything that the school can sanction him for.

I'm glad your daughter has received support. Keep talking to her, keep your boundaries strong. Take her phone off her at night if you need to.

piefacedClique · 14/10/2022 06:34

She posed a risk to people in school due to her violent actions. He may be a bellend due to all the other stuff but the schools job isn’t to look deeply into the problem and provide relationship advice etc… that’s your job as parents! A schools role is largely academic…. Their role to teach children and tp get qualifications. It’s your job and parents to do the rest! How can you imagine they simply have Time to work through the back story! They have to deal with the issue that presented itself there and then.

Original poster
mumofblu · 14/10/2022 06:37

School don't have to find the back story it's already known because of my calling ss and Dd being allocated as child in need

Yes he had played the cleverer game . He is regularly excluded for behaviour , he is known .

OP posts:
piefacedClique · 14/10/2022 06:38

Then move her. You are the adult she is the child. Sorry to be blunt.

Feetupteashot · 14/10/2022 06:45

School can only act on what they see. You have to go to the police for an investigation. School cannot do that

Original poster
mumofblu · 14/10/2022 06:52

School have been massively supportive. I don't think moving her will help

OP posts:
cansu · 14/10/2022 06:55

The school have a child who hit another child because he ignored her. They don't have a choice. I would think she was lucky he didn't wallop her back. The fact that he calls her would suggest that she calls or messages him. You need to stop this or you need to get her some counselling to see he is not what she thinks. Regardless the school can't do this for you.

PeterPomegranate · 14/10/2022 07:04

SudocremOnEverything · 14/10/2022 05:32

Rather than focusing on whether the school are doing things ‘wrong’, I think you should urgently focus on getting your DD some support around healthy relationships etc.

The best way to protect her from a violent and manipulative boyfriend is to develop her self confidence and understanding of what abuse is and why it’s not acceptable. You can’t change him. But you can help her to recognise the relationship is toxic and that she wants nothing more to do with him.

This is the best advice I think. Perhaps the suspension can be a wake up call that this boy is bad news and she needs to have nothing more to do with him. You are reasonable to believe expect the school to support your daughter to make the break.

Does the Freedom Programme have anything suitable for teenagers?

I do think hitting another pupil at school merits a week’s suspension. Presumably it’s defined in the ‘ladder of consequences’ (as it’s called at my son’s school).

good luck. You must feel very worried.

lisaJN1986 · 14/10/2022 07:15

It sounds like your daughter is also abusive. Maybe the lads parents will ring the social services or the police now that their son has been abused?
To hit someone for ignoring her is crazy. You keep going on about the 'back story' as if this excuses physical assault. Would you be doing this if the ex boyfriend had walloped your daughter?
Stop trying to minimalise your daughters actions in all this and teach her about healthy relationships quick!

Mabelface · 14/10/2022 07:27

OP, I get it. There's not much school can do with regard to the lad in this instance, but you can use this week away from school as an opportunity for her to break away from him completely. She can do the age appropriate freedom programme, you can talk with her about what's led to this point and how to move on from it. Look at it as time to "reset".

itsgettingweird · 14/10/2022 07:47

mumofblu · 14/10/2022 05:10

@itsgettingweird

Yes I would try to look at why whatever the persons gender . What do you mean ?

Men usually try and justify hitting woman in abusive relationships due to their behaviour.

Which is what it seems here.

His controlling behaviour of hers has been addressed by you and it should be.

But she's in control of her behaviour and whatever reason she hit him - she shouldn't have and so is punished.

Original poster
mumofblu · 14/10/2022 07:48

@lisaJN1986

He has hit her in the past , he is abusive . I took photos of her bruises and it's been reported to social services and police . He was spoken to it's on record

Not minimising her behaviour at all

OP posts:
itsgettingweird · 14/10/2022 07:48

But really right now she needs to block him. And if she won't then you need to do it or take her phone. She needs help removing herself from this toxic situation if it's leading to violence.

buggeredmyleg · 14/10/2022 07:53

She needs to have nothing to do with him. She needs to block him and have no contact.

On the face of it, he hasn't done anything and she hit him. Of course that punishment is fair.

Sirzy · 14/10/2022 07:56

You may not think you are but your posts are very much minimising her behaviour.

nobody is saying his behaviour in the past hasn’t been wrong but that doesn’t justify her hitting him with no provocation. She needs to take control of her own actions now.

i assume she has lost all access to any means to contact him while she is off?

buggeredmyleg · 14/10/2022 07:58

The school will have to have a hard line on physical altercations. They won't be interested in the why.

You need to make those interventions for your dd to give her the tools to navigate the ending of this relationship

Ekátn · 14/10/2022 08:01

Op I get where you are coming from. But the school are limited in what they can do. They can’t ignore or lessen the punishment for dd because there’s other ongoing issues. Your dd didn’t hit because she was scared or defending herself. She hit him because she was angry.

Being the victim of abuse is incredibly difficult, but it doesn’t absolve all responsibility if you then abuse someone back. The school can’t say ‘oh smaller punishment because they have history’. Just like if it was 2 boys and one hit the other, for ignoring them? Because they have a history of the one hit, that time, of bullying the other.

Abusers are sneaky. They will do things that are damaging but that aren’t seen or don’t quite cross the line where people can’t step in. She has also handed him the line of ‘I know our relationship is bad and I thought ignoring her was the best thing to do to draw a line under it’ or words similar. And also for him to say she has done this before and it’s mutually toxic.

Hopefully, this is what it takes for her to realise she can’t win here and cut him off for good.

wandawaves · 14/10/2022 08:06

How do you know school hasn't addressed his behaviour? The school will not be openly telling you about his punishment, it's confidential.

buggeredmyleg · 14/10/2022 08:08

wandawaves · 14/10/2022 08:06

How do you know school hasn't addressed his behaviour? The school will not be openly telling you about his punishment, it's confidential.

This is a very good point.

paintitallover · 14/10/2022 08:54

SudocremOnEverything · 14/10/2022 05:32

Rather than focusing on whether the school are doing things ‘wrong’, I think you should urgently focus on getting your DD some support around healthy relationships etc.

The best way to protect her from a violent and manipulative boyfriend is to develop her self confidence and understanding of what abuse is and why it’s not acceptable. You can’t change him. But you can help her to recognise the relationship is toxic and that she wants nothing more to do with him.

Precisely this.

autocollantes · 15/10/2022 06:11

OP, if you're still here, I think you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Clearly some people here don't understand what it means to be abused and manipulated. At the same time, the school cannot be seen to do nothing about one pupil hitting another.

Have a look at something called reactive abuse. I don't like the fact it's called abuse, because it's not actually, is called it self defence in an abusive situation. However, just like in the case with your daughter, it's a reaction to long term, subtle provocation, the victim finally reasonings, it's usually not in a good way, and she gets labelled as abusive. Just like gas happened on here. I have a friend whose husband called the police on her in almost the same situation as your DD's response here and it was my friend carted off to the police station. She'd suffered 20 years of his manipulations (and he was a psychiatrist, so very good at it). My point in this is that your DDs behaviour, in the pattern of their relationship, is not entirely abnormal.

And to the person who thinks it was basically unprovoked because by the nature of him ignoring her, he was doing nothing and she hit him. No. Ignoring someone is part of a the tools used by abusers. It's about power and control: the person ignoring is the person who has all the control.

OP I'm sorry you've had to watch your DD live through this. I think you need to approach the school again, with information on reactive abuse and say that you want to protect your daughter from any possible further provocation she gets manipulated into and ask how the school proposes to keep them apart. And single mention of "she's the violent one" I'd first tackle by asking how many times she's been spoken to about bad behaviour never mind violence in her school career.

And as others have said, she needs to block him on every social platform and stop any direct or indirect contact. This probably seems like the end of the world for her in some ways, but better that than having him humiliate her in public (by ignoring her),

Good luck.