School says my 4 yr old kicked Year 6 pupil

meritaten

What does the school mean by your child not taking it seriously when they TRIED to make him have a time-out?
Did he refuse? (usually a sign that the child thinks its unfair)
Have you got the truth now about what happened - his little friend may know - ask his mum!
er - and being grounded and not realising it is rather ineffective as a punishment. Not that I think he should be punished unless you are absolutely clear on the facts.

bestpud

I agree it's hard to hear that our child has been naughty at school, but most of us go through it at least once. I had a few meetings with the teacher when dd was in reception class - she had settled by year one though, thank goodness!

I really wouldn't worry about it at this stage tbh. Sounds like he and his brother are quite physical when they argue and he was perhaps having a bad day and forgot where he was. He's only four, after all, and probably gets a bit overwhelmed with the school day sometimes.

If it continues, then you need to get tougher, but for now, I'd let it be.

Refusing to do time out is the more serious issue, in my opinion, as it shows a lack of respect for his teachers. I'd keep an eye on that, but hopefully it was a one off.

Like you, I'd have prevented him playing out that evening (because of the time out issue), but I wouldn't do more than that, as the school have dealt with it.

Put it behind you and everyone else will too.

DON79

He did refuse to go for the time out and I do think it is probably because someone has either told him to go and do what he did - therefore he does not think it is his fault or that he should not be punished for it.

I don't want to question his little friend and his mum, in case it is his friend that has whispered to him to do this. I don't see the point in stirring up potential trouble between us all. I am just going to make sure my son understands he is not to be influenced by others to do wrong things.

He will realise that being grounded from seeing his friend is a punishment as they are pretty inseparable at school and always want to play at each others houses when coming home. So when he asks to play, I will have to remind him that he can't play and why.

I am sorry if anyone thinks this is harsh somehow but he needs to have a little sanction just to remind him of why he shouldn't have done that. And 2 weeks is nothing in a child's life - it will be gone in a flash for him.

bestpud

DON79 wrote: »

He did refuse to go for the time out and I do think it is probably because someone has either told him to go and do what he did - therefore he does not think it is his fault or that he should not be punished for it.

I don't want to question his little friend and his mum, in case it is his friend that has whispered to him to do this. I don't see the point in stirring up potential trouble between us all. I am just going to make sure my son understands he is not to be influenced by others to do wrong things.

My dd used to be the idiot that went and did what the others only talked about! She would say she felt she couldn't refuse dah de dah.

I got her to stop by saying 'if little johnny asked you to eat a worm, would you do it...?'

It was enough to make her stop and think before she acted, thank goodness!

There is always one child who loads bullets and then stands back while another child fires them - usually the 'quiet' one who the teacher thinks is wonderful! These children also tend to be ones who burst into tears when confronted with their behaviour and they also tend to use emotional blackmail as they get older!

If that is what happened, he will eventually see how he always ends up being the one in trouble whilethe other child denies all knowledge.

It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about your reaction, so long as you feel happy with it.

meritaten

DON79 wrote: »

He did refuse to go for the time out and I do think it is probably because someone has either told him to go and do what he did - therefore he does not think it is his fault or that he should not be punished for it.

I don't want to question his little friend and his mum, in case it is his friend that has whispered to him to do this. I don't see the point in stirring up potential trouble between us all. I am just going to make sure my son understands he is not to be influenced by others to do wrong things.

He will realise that being grounded from seeing his friend is a punishment as they are pretty inseparable at school and always want to play at each others houses when coming home. So when he asks to play, I will have to remind him that he can't play and why.

I am sorry if anyone thinks this is harsh somehow but he needs to have a little sanction just to remind him of why he shouldn't have done that. And 2 weeks is nothing in a child's life - it will be gone in a flash for him.

NO - 2 weeks is forever in a childs life!
Dont you remember waiting for christmas? how long it seemed to take? then later how the long summer holidays lasted for what seemed like months?
Two weeks may seem like nothing to you as you are much older and to a really old person the years go by in a flash.
There is even a mathematical formula to calculate this - I cannot remember exactly what it is but its to do with the rate we age and our assessment of time. It actually proves that our perception of time speeds up as we get older!

minerva_windsong

I don't mean this in a bad way, but does your son have many other friends apart from this kid? I was picked on as a child and would have done anything the popular kids told me to if it would have made them like me. It might be that he's been told - not necessarily by the friend but by someone else, maybe in his class, maybe older - that this will somehow make him 'cool' or something like that, as ridiculous as it sounds. Even at that age kids can be pretty harsh to each other, especially the ones who might not fit in for whatever reason, which can sometimes be being quiet.

jellyhead

DON79 wrote: »

I am sorry if anyone thinks this is harsh somehow but he needs to have a little sanction just to remind him of why he shouldn't have done that. And 2 weeks is nothing in a child's life - it will be gone in a flash for him.

I did a parenting course last year (Webster-Stratton) - it's aimed towards children aged 3-8 but I went more for tips on dealing with my teenager without having a toddler tantrum myself, than for my then-4 year old

Anyway, the thing my husband and I talked about the most from that course was the idea that a punishment shouldn't last longer than a day (or a specific event, if the punishment is not going to drayton Manor, etc.)

I don't have the textbook to hand, and there are people who could explain better than I could the reasons for only having a 1-day punishment. It works well for us though, although we did recently take his playstation away for 2 weeks, but he is 14 so it's a little different.

Unless you are trying to keep them apart to reduce his influence on your son (if this is the same child you think may have encouraged yours in the kicking incident) then I do think 2 weeks is a very long time for a 4 year old.

jellyhead

Being sent to the head is probably not about the kicking, but more about his refusal to do the time-out. This is very serious, and there's not much else a teacher can do when faced with a child who refuses to respect their discipline.

Even if the year 6 boy is a horrible bully, and even if another child persuaded yours to kick him, your child still needs to comply with the teachers request even if he feels it's very unfair. My eldest found this a very hard lesson to learn, because he didn't talk much and could not get his own side of the story across, whereas the other child knew how to talk his way out of trouble and got away scot-free (even though he had ASKED mine to hit him in a delicate place). My eldest seemed to think that the teacher should have some magical powers to determine just how unfair it is that this other boy successfully placed blame onto him.

*Louise*

Plans_all_plans wrote: »

Once my child had been hit one too many times (without any reprimand from parents/teacher that stopped them being the aggressor again), I told her she was to hit them back. I have since noticed a reduction in the amount of incidents where she's been hit. I don't think it's right that undisciplined kids can go around being mollycoddled by teachers, hitting whoever they want and then having some half baked punishment. I'd rather my child got in trouble too for hitting them back, so that the aggressor knew to think twice before hitting her again.

I had this problem when DS2 was at nursery - he was being hit/punched/pushed every day by one boy (he did it to everyone, not just DS, but was good at making sure teachers weren't watching:mad:) it got to the point I had spoken to various teachers and finally made an appointment with the headmistress and I told her that I had now told DS that if he was hit, he was to do the same back because I wasn't having my son bullied any more.

She assigned teachers to speciafically watch them and write reports on any incidents, and it got much better after that

It's all very well bringing kids up not to hit back (ie. stick up for themselves) - but really that's not teaching them (or the bullies) anything and it doesn't prepare them for the real world.