Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Our First Encounter With Bullying **UPDATED**

So at the age of 4 1/2, in pre-school, my son officially has a bully in his life.

Missy and I have been concerned about this relationship for awhile (he has been in the same class with this boy for about three years now), but today it came to a head, literally.

According to Jax's teacher, he was punched in the head by this kid. Hard. Apparently unprovoked. Jax started screaming and was unconsolable. He has a HUGE knot on his head (think between temple and eyebrow), bruising, and it even looks like his skin has been broken. As the day went on he seemed his happy old self again, but my wife just called concerned that he fell asleep and complained of his head hurting, so it could be a concussion.

Really, 4 year olds just walking up and POUNDING other kids?

This child apparently "rules" the classroom and has already (in my opinion) caused one teacher to quit (or at least made the decision easier...other factors were at play), and his current one has had more than one day resulting in her own tears because of this boy.

What to do? I don't want to be "that parent" that simply does not allow his kids to learn to deal with any hard relationships, and thus moving him out, and I also don't want to be "that parent" that never thinks it's his own kids' fault.

But dang.

I'm trying to sense how I can pray for this kid, how I can (or, if I should?) approach his parents, the school, etc. Ultimately, I feel for this kid. His parents at least seem to be nice folks, and I can imagine they "know" their kid is "that kid", and that has to be hard...

Thoughts? Would LOVE 'em!

UPDATE

Well, we had a meeting with the head of the school this morning. It was a good one, and Missy and I feel much better about how the situation is being handled. Apparently, conversations have been ongoing between teacher, school-heads, the board, and the parents of the kid causing the trouble, and it has been decided (before we even met, by the way) that the child causing class struggles will not return the rest of this semester and will be moved to another, less-structured (but with more observation) classroom starting in 2009.

I wish to let it be known, that we are not trying to pile on this kid...we truly care about him as well as his family, and simply want what's best for the group, for Jax, and for this boy. My prayer is that he will be able to reach a great potential that he surely has!

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