Very true.
Seems to me that the reason she was hit was because she initiated the violence. Perhaps the fact that she didn’t wish to speak to an adult about this, not even her parents, is indicating that there’s more to the story than meets the eye? Perhaps she did more than just shove the lad?
ggurl, you know your daughter better than anyone else, but you only have her side of the story. She may be the victim of bullies, but she could be putting a spin on the events she relates. Face it–even the best of adolescents aren’t always honest with their parents.
It’s awesome that she still wants to go to school. I’m pleased to see that she is not letting this incident frighten her. You’re obviously not just an “amateur”–you raised a kid with spirit.
Let us know what happened with the school.
:rolleyes:
Cite?
Yeah, a cite for my suspicions. . .here you go.
Absolutely correct, not to mention the self-control and emphasis on other life skills such as honor and integrity, courtesy and respect.
I imagined those sentences were pretty clear. Obviously, my English is a lot worse than I thought :rolleyes:
“A bit of schoolyard ruffle” would have been frogging her arm, leaving her with a charlie horse. This was not the case, he punched her in the face, fully aware that she was wearing glasses. He meant to seriously injure her. He’s old enough to realize the consequences of his actions, and know EXACTLY what kind of injuries could by caused by punching anyone in the face, much less someone who has on glasses. That is why I say call the police but ONLY if the school refuses to take action. Also, as far as I’m aware, in parts of the UK they are even stricter about schoolyard violence, so maybe you shouldn’t call names.
How do you know this?
We have one half of the story from a person who admittedly initiated the violence.
So if the school investigates and finds that the girl was really at fault, you’d still advocate getting the police involved? How on Earth is that going to aid anyone in this situation, not least the daughter of the author of the OP?
Not the school I attended.
I suspect that you are an asshole.
ggurl
Is this a one time incident or a continuing threat? It seems to me that in this day and age of zero tolerance the teachers would be doing more. It sounds to me like we don’t have any where near the whole story here. What were the kids doing? Why did she shove someone? What happened after? How could she go through the rest of the day with bent up glasses and the teachers didn’t notice?
Give me a fucking break. You want a teacher assigned to be a bodyguard for your little precious? She got hit in the face once. It happens. Talk to the principal, talk to the teachers, talk to the kid’s parents about replacing your daughter’s glasses.
Fair enough, I suppose.
Why? Have you talked to them?
:rolleyes:
Maybe you should homeschool her. You’re obviously far too overprotective and can’t handle your daughter being out of sight for more than an hour. Here’s an idea, listen to your daughter. She says it’s fine, so it’s fine for the time being. And you know what, unless she’s getting constantly bullied, then she probably is.
Again, unless this is something that happens on a daily basis, then you are massively overreacting. Get the facts, talk to the principal and the teacher on duty to get their version of the facts, find out what they can do.
Further, I read the situation as she and her friend are surrounded by several guys (possibly larger than her) who were being aggressive. Gauging the situation, she decides the best way to get out of it is not to flat out run, (because that risked getting tackled) but to push past them and leave. She was leaving, and she got punched in the face. If I’m not mistaken, the only way she could have gotten away was to “make a hole in the circle” of people surrounding her, i.e. pushing someone out of her path so she could get to safety. She was being as peaceable as she could be, actually. Yeah, she pushed someone, in an attempt to get away. Are we not allowed to defend ourselves the least bit? Was she supposed to stay in the middle of her aggressors, and risk getting verbally assaulted, spit on, or beat down? Those things were very possible, especially considering she was facing an aggressive group of young males, and that “pack mentality” was in play.
I think you’re overreacting and should read the article that Rune posted. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a word with the pricipal, and with the boy’s parents about getting the glasses fixed, but assigning her a “bodyguard” is over-the-top.
No one but the kids know what really happened out on the playground, so like someone else said, she may be leaving out some relevant details.
The only reason to punch a person in the face is to blacken eyes, and maybe break or bloody a nose or knock out teeth, sometimes it’s an attempt to knock the person unconcious too. Striking a person in the face who wears glasses, at the least is showing disregard of the fact that you could send glass into their eyes and blind them. I’ve has bullies threaten to punch my face, mentioning broken glasses and that maybe I’d be blinded so they wouldn’t even have to pay to replace them. Maybe this guy really wasn’t thinking, and really is completely stupid. Now is the time for him to learn, and suffer the consequences of his actions. At the least, he meant to draw blood. I don’t think the same could be said of the girl. She just wanted to get away, from the account we have. If it’s found that this is not the case, that she did more, than both should be punished. However, I stand by the thought that punching the face of a person wearing glasses should get a more severe punishment.
FTR, I think a bodygaurd may be over the top, but seeing to it that the message that punching the face of someone, especially someone who wears glasses is wrong and that you will be punished for it isn’t.
That’s probably what the kid she pushed was thinking.
Talking is talking, taunting is talking, threatening is talking.
None of us were there so none of us knows the “threat level” of the circle of taunting.
All that’s happening now is that the Traumatized Survivors of Horrible Bullying are lining up on one side and the A Little Injury is Good for Kids Society is lining up on the other and batting this girl’s story back and forth like some Freudian tetherball.
The kid says it’s fine. Either she’s covering for her own actions, which is fine, or she’s not affected by it as much as her hysterical sight-unseen defenders would have her be, which is fine (and healthy).
And I’ll let you in on a schoolyard fact: as far as the politics of rough play goes, she’s better off having asserted herself and paying a small physical price for it than she ever will be if her mother comes screeching and yelling into school. Nobody is less respected than someone who can’t fight her own battles.
Stop imposing your own traumas on the kid and let her be a kid. She’ll sort it out.
A punch to the face is intent to seriously injure her? 12 year olds must punch a lot harder than when I was that age.
I don’t know the situation but if the daughter pushes the boy and he decides to punch back, he will hit her in the face. There really isn’t much of an option there.
If she was surrounded, pushing one of the boys really isn’t going to help the situation. Pack mentality and all, if she can’t deliver a decisive blow, she’s best off calling for help.
All that being said, I have seen another boy hit a girl and there was a mess to clean up once I was done. Call me old-fashioned but boys should know better.
Good point.
Pushing past to escape makes sense to me. You don’t want to be in the middle of a pack and turning your back on them is a mistake. Twelve year olds can hit hard. They can also do much,much worse.
Ggurl, this socialization that many talk about being an advantage to public schools is too often just being beaten or learning to beat others. When I was beaten, I asked that someone do something and was told that I needed to learn how to deal with this myself. Don’t tell your daughter that. If co-workers did that to me, I would not accept that as an answer from my boss. Since these are children, they need to be taught better, but too often the burden is placed on the victims to change their behavior, not on the aggressors.
Please, don’t tell her to be nice to them and avoid fighting at all costs. Please, don’t tell her not to scream when they beat her; that piece of advice still haunts me.
[quote]
Anaamika said:
Unless they get hit first, and then they have the right to defend themselves the same as anyone else.
It was a school yard scuffle, and it’s probably an overreaction to think that this is some example of horrific bullying. Assinging a teacher as personal bodyguard to this kid while on the playground is not, IMO, a good solution. Not only is it extremely over protective, but it could also cause even more problems for the kid. Teacher can’t watch her 24/7, and she may be targetted for more picking on when she is out of the teacher’s sight, like in the restroom, at the bus stop, etc.
Kids get in altercations. Good kids don’t always cop to their full role in those altercations, and often a kid’s friends will stick up for them by telling the agreed-upon story to any authority figures (adults) who ask about it.
The ‘culture of violence’ thing is a big over reaction, IMO, to what happened here. When I was a kid, and I got beat up at school, my mom wanted me to just tell a teacher and not try to defend myself. That had absolutely no positive effect, and actually made other kids hate me and ostracize me more, because I was a tattletale. It was only after my dad suggested that I should defend myself, but that I would be harshly punished if I ever hit first, that things started to get better.
I only had to defend myself once or twice for the message to get around that I was not an easy target, and I certainly wasn’t going to hit someone first and be in trouble at home. That included pushing, I learned as I pushed a boy who was in my face while walking home from the bus stop, screaming at me and insulting me, and he punched me. I wore a black eye for a week and was told ‘You touched him first, so what you got for it is your fault.’ at home.
All that stuff was happily left behind when I went off to high school, because I didn’t want to start any fights, and I wasn’t an easy target or a ‘tattle’.