9yo classmate killing a newt on school trip

[LostInTransmogrification]

DS came back from a school trip to a nature reserve yesterday, they were catching and classifying animals. DS told me that one of his classmates purposefully killed a newt that they caught, chopped it up with their metal spoon, and said that they wanted it to suffer. DS and another child told a teacher, the act was denied, the teacher told the child off.

I’m not really sure what I’m asking here. That phrase, that they wanted it to suffer, has been going round my head all night. The child seems troubled to do such a thing and use such a horrible phrase. I suppose I want to know if a teacher would see this as troubling and what, if anything, might be done? I don’t feel that I can ask at the school myself, it isn’t my child that did it, although he did see it happen and it did disturb him.

That's horrible. I'd want to know if it was my child so I could at least try to get some psychological intervention. People who commit violent crimes often start with animals.

So would I SnuggyBuggy, but I don’t know what the usual response from teaching staff to this sort of thing is. I can’t imaging a happy child doing this so I hope there’s a follow up of some sort.

All that you can do is mention it to the teacher. And you must. X

ElizabethMainwaring the teacher already knows as she was told when it happened, I was wary of crossing a line in getting involved as I wasn’t there. I think I’m hoping that some teachers will see this and reassure me that if this happened in their school that there are guidelines in place for it to be followed up.

You can definitely speak to the school about it - your child saw it and was upset. The school needs to know about this so they can support all the children.

Deliberate cruelty to animals at that sort of age is a marker for psychopathy/serious mental health issues. This would be taken seriously by the school.

So much for the cunning name change!

I will pop into the school office after drop off tomorrow.

Yes, school staff will be aware of the link but please do pop in to report your concern just to make sure the incident has reached the right ears.

Thanks HarrietSchulenberg, I will

Interesting article - talks about the likelihood that a child who is cruel to animals may have witnessed domestic violence or been abused - so definitely something the school needs to officially know about.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-human-equation/201104/children-who-are-cruel-animals-when-worry%3famp

Please tell the school, this is a huge red flag for possible safeguarding issues. The bit about "wanting it to suffer" is particularly worrying, as it suggests something is being 'taken out' on the poor creature.

And the link between child cruelty to animals and later violent/sexual offending is there too.

I would hope they will be following up already as it’s a big red flag for a child who is unhappy and potentially unsafe. But definitely nothing wrong with speaking to the teacher just to say your child is upset if nothing else

Just typed a long reply to individual PPs and the page reloaded and lost them all.

I’ll be making the school aware and asking that they address it. I don’t want to demonise the child and I’ve no idea about their background so the school need to look into what caused this and ensure it doesn’t happen again (at least on school time)