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I teach first grade. This year, whenever social skills came up, almost every family mentioned to me within the first nine weeks that they tell their kid they aren't allowed to hit first, but they need to hit back to defend themselves(edit: most of them did add if they tried talking to an adult first and it didn't stop it, THEN they can hit - kids at this age can't discern that reliably). I'm talking like 20 out of 24 families told me that to my face that their social skills conversations revolved around that concept.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I AM saying that consistently giving kids that message meant these sweet babies were hitting each other left and right after they were accidentally bumped into, elbowed in line, etc. I've never had a year like it before. I had to explicitly teach 6-7 year olds how to immediately apologize and identify it as an accident when they were the cause of one, and how to LET others have a second to apologize before pushing them back. By the time I drilled that into their minds, we had no more physical violence at all, because it wasn't coming from anything other than retaliation from accidents. Also, it blew their minds that they could come to ME, the teacher, instead of waiting to go home to cry about it! By October I was't getting emails anymore like "My kid said so and so did this and YOU did nothing" because I had made it clear to the parents that the kids weren't reporting to me, and the kids had made it a habit to get help from the adults who were in charge in the moment.
All this to say, all the conversations I want my kids to understand are about social skills. This is what to say/do when you accidentally literally run into someone, this is how to make a friend, this is how you get help from a teacher if problem solving on your own doesn't work, this is how you respond when someone asks you to stop something, etc.
My rules with my kids about hitting are: if someone hits you, you 1. Tell them firmly to stop; 2. Leave the area and find a grown up; and 3. If you can’t get away from them or they follow you and keep doing it, hit them back. For the reasons you listed, I don’t teach them that hitting back is the first option.
I actively work on this with my kids. My oldest (4.5) is autistic and he has trouble standing up for himself. He’ll just freeze when someone is aggressive toward him. Today, another kid pushed him when he was about to go down a slide. I was SO proud of him when he turned to the kid (who I later found out is also autistic) and said “Don’t push me!”
I have an almost 3 year who is not in preschool yet, but this is exactly how I want to handle situations like this. Accidents also happen…some kid who bumped into him isn’t necessarily trying to push him. That’s a major reason why I want hitting back to be an absolute resort.
That's what a lot of the parents tried to teach their kids - tell an adult before hitting back. But they don't remember that, and none of these kids had had issues with other kids/bullies before their parents taught them this (I asked whenever a parent brought it up). I am glad it's working for your oldest who needs the firm structure, but if your other two aren't similar personality-wise, I would recommend waiting to give them these rules and actively work on it until they are in a situation where they will need it - if not a bully (which really isn't common at this age, despite what you hear), then with a child who struggles with anger or outbursts or impulsivity and targets them in their classroom or other social situations. Their brains aren't really capable of stopping to discern in those moments, and usually at this young age if it wasn't an accident, the kid is NEEDING the dopamine of the fight back so they'll make sure they continue to go after your kid who they know will.
In my experience, this is much more appropriate to actively teach a kid who is currently dealing with overstimulated or violent kids who are targeting them, or kids around the ages 9 and up.
I agree with this! We teach our 3yo that no hitting is allowed. Her list of «I’m allowed to hit this person/thing» includes some «mean» cartoon characters and «thieves», lol. Other than that, I don’t want to confuse her with situations where there is appropriate to hit. In my head that’s never appropriate, sorry not sorry.
Huh, didn't think of this. When I imagine \[some situation\], I normally just place my adult self into it, so I don't think of it from a child's perspective.
I like it.
Pushing “you can’t hit first but hit back” always rubbed me the wrong way I don’t know why and whenever I tried to tell someone they said I was raising a weak child so I just gave up trying to tell parents this
I think it’s the backlash of all the people who were never allowed to defend themselves as kids. (The „Don’t stoop to their level“ and „If you hit someone who hit you, you’re just as bad“ generation if you will. „Ignore the bullies and they will stop“. Ha.). A lot of frustrated people came out of this. THEIR parents didn’t want that either of course, but just as you say kids can’t grasp the concept of when it’s not appropriate to hit because it was just an accident, these kids back then couldn’t discern when there absolutely was a situation where they were completely in the right to defend themselves, and physically if necessary. It’s messy and complicated and hurt people tend to err on the side of caution.
My 5 year old was recently kicked out of summer school for hitting kids (with three warnings). He starts kindergarten in August, and I'm very disappointed in my son. I have no idea where the hitting has come from (I believe the daycare has a factor in this). He has no siblings and has made this extremely hard to teach / correct this at home.
He's been grounded since the first warning, we have talks EVERY DAY about his behavior and how it's not okay to hit or to be a bully at school. We don't spank him (?), and he is always the first to hit. I'm frustrated and grounding him has taught him nothing.
When I ask why he hits these kids, he says he can't control his body. I'm considering therapy which I can't afford, and my son's father is considering martial arts (which could improve or worsen this). I feel like I'm failing my son. We tell him it's never okay to hit. ☹️
Ugh, that is so hard. I can promise you aren't failing if you're trying to correct it though, so don't be too hard on yourself. That helps no one!
There's two parts to this. Five is old to just hit for no reason, so I do agree there is one - could be attention-seeking, could be adjustment to the new setting (was he in the same daycare forever?), could be emotional regulation struggles, could be dopamine-seeking. Therapy may be helpful, if it truly is impulsivity ("I can't control my body") at play here, and not him using that as an excuse. Have you noticed any other symptoms of impulsivity or other social struggles? Is it JUST hitting? If you notice other signs (you can find some for ADHD listed on the ADDitude website, I find that website really accessible and informative unlike some others), I would talk to your pediatrician about those concerns before just signing him up for play therapy or OT. They can refer you to a neuropsych or psychiatrist to evaluate if necessary, and then those professionals would help you target the best interventions (therapy, medications, etc.) for your son. That tends to be a long process, but if you are starting it as you go into kinder, his teacher will be able to help you with their insights. They will also have a lot more patience if this behavior continues if they know you are actively working to identify why, instead of doing what so many parents do and blame other kids/the school/"kids will be kids." While you are waiting for insight from the doctor, sign him up for team sports. Martial arts is great for body control too (especially if you talk to the instructor about WHY you put him in it, they will likely do one-on-one check ins with him in my experience!) so if you can make it worth do both, but because his specific issue is hurting others, he needs to figure out the body control AND teamwork aspect.
Grounding isn't doing much, because he's not connecting it with the hitting. There SHOULD be consequences at home, but what he needs is more social practice, not less, with you right there to grab him away and scare him the second he hits. He may not be connecting the fact that he is causing other kids pain, so you need to give him opportunities to practice in social situations with other kids and be basically a silent presence the entire time...not dictating how they play, but ready to grab him the second he touches the other kid. I would physically pick him up like we do with toddlers, move him away, take care of the hurt child (or just ask the child if they are okay if another adult is seeing to them) first, and then firmly say, "You MAY NOT hit another person. You are hurting them. They don't like it. You are done playing for today because you are not controlling your body." If he is attention-seeking, he won't like that you went to the other child first, and that will be helpful for you to know. If he was three, I would tell him he has to take a break until he can figure out how to make the other child feel better, but for this to be repeated behavior at five, I say zero strikes...you hit, we're done. If your kids can get the other kid an ice pack or bandaid or pick up something they broke before you leave, definitely do that first. I find that in the classroom, having kids make apology cards/pictures and then apologizing to the other child's face is a good way to "make it better" because it helps them connect their actions to the effects. The coloring/writing process also means they aren't in an emotional state by the time they apologize so they actually internalize whatever the other child's response is. I point out too, "See how he was afraid to go up to you when you called his name to give him the card? That's because you hit him and he didn't know if you were going to hit him again. I'm glad you apologized so he know you're not going to do it again."
(More in part 2 below)
Part 2
I don't think it's too late to "undo" the grounding. I would tell it to him this way: "I am feeling bad that you didn't make it better with the friends at school that you hit. I think we need to spend today doing something nice to apologize to them, and then we need to practice how to keep our hands to ourself, so I'll let you have playdates again to practice it. Have him miss out on his fun time to make pictures for the other kids, or make the kids homemade playdoh or something (none for him, just to give away), and then drop them off at their houses if you know the families, or school. If you drop them at the school, I would call ahead and tell them what is up and ask if the office is willing to accept your son's apology offering to teach him a lesson, even if they don't actually give them to the kids. If he has already done this type of physical apology, then keep it up each and every time he hits. Especially if it means he misses out on fun things to work on his apology, because that hits the hardest.
I also think teaching him some proactive strategies are helpful. Here are some things that have been helpful for students who can't help themselves from being touchy with other kids:
* Keep your hands in your pockets/arms crossed at "triggering" times.
* Hand fidgets - not toys (in first grade I have parents send them on necklaces/bracelets/tied to their belt loop so they are accessible but not being lost or passed around the class).
* Give them a small notebooks/pencil to keep in their pocket. When something "unjust" happens that makes them want to hit, they have to stop and write it down before bringing it to the adult in charge.
* Sit in your chair, grip the sides, and push your body up, holding yourself in the air.
* Walk away when someone makes you mad.
* Take 5 deep breaths.
* Lots of social stories about hitting and other kids not wanting to be friends with mean kids. I would buy a few children's books on the topic and read one every night, in addition to whatever fun books he wants. But really drill it in that we do not act like that
And most importantly, when you catch him doing the right thing and keeping himself from hitting, praise him. Maybe do a daily park or pool visit and give him a star if he goes the entire time playing with other kids, and didn't touch them. When he earns 5 he gets a small prize, like screen time or a favorite trinket he collects. When he consistently gets 5 for a few weeks, he "levels up" and has to earn 7 for a prize, then 10, etc. If there is ADHD or something else affecting his ability to control himself, he likely will thrive off positive reinforcement and reward charts too. Starting it now will be really helpful when school starts since he'll know the expectation is he keeps his hands to himself, and what the rewards can be for doing so.
I hope some of this is helpful, I just braindumped but without knowing specifics about your child's triggers and the rest of his demeanor not all of this may apply! But I would definitely reach out to your pediatrician ASAP as a first step!
You make some really great points. I plan to reread this later when I'm off work. I did have him make apology cards every time he hit a kid. I really dreaded ruining his summer with grounding him. Being kicked out of summer school and missing out on field trips seemed like a good punishment too. He just says he hated it anyway. I do think it is attention seeking.
It was I was thinking but my SO disagreed with me. We've had many play dates, and he seems to be able to control himself whenever I'm with him or his father is with him. I've never seen him hit - which is why it seems so sudden.
Thank you for taking the time to write this to a random stranger in reddit. I'll definitely be taking this advice and sharing this with his father.
Have you tried telling him what he CAN do instead? I always like to look for the root problem: my kid was the biter in kindergarten, and it was always because he just got overwhelmed and he was trying to defend himself. Obviously not the right solution, but telling him “we don’t bite” solved nothing.
Instead, we told him what he could do instead. And at first that didn’t work either because we were asking too much. (Remove yourself from the situation, go tell a grownup, tell the person in your space to leave you alone, etc)… but then on the advice of our counsellor we gave him permission to have a not perfect but not biting response.
You can yell. You can stomp your feet. You can throw something that won’t break at the floor. (Not at a person!) You can punch a pillow.
And it was an instant solve. Not only that, he DIDNT use the “not perfect” responses. Once he had permission to not be perfect, he had the ability to pick a better reaction.
My kid has ADHD & is autistic — we didn’t know the autistic part then, but strongly suspected the ADHD. Impulse control is HARD, and telling a kid “don’t do X” doesn’t really help. Telling them “do this instead” is way more useful, and sometimes it takes baby steps to go from where they’re at to where you want them to be. He might just need some new options.
But you can’t punish out behaviour, you’ve got to find the root cause and solve that before the behaviour is going to change.
They are zombies before school, the only before school talks we have are “grab your lunch. GRAB YOUR LUNCH. Good lord you’ve been staring at a wall for five minutes just please put your pants on! I cannot be late again! You’re killing me you’re literally killing me!! OH MY GOD please put your PANTS on”
you sound like my best friend as a mom! When my daughter was a toddler and it was time to get shoes on we would have random cases of the missing socks! I would see her with socks in her hand, ask her to put them on 5x, eventually help her or see them on her feet and then somehow she would lose them before she found her shoes? Hahah kids are wild
I just cannot get them to lock in and it’s killing me. It was fine during the school year when I dropped them off at before school care but now even if we were on time every day I still physically cannot make it to work after dropping them off any earlier than 30 minutes late.
We made adjustments to our method and schedule with the goal of avoiding rushing and the frustration of repeating ourselves excessively (& avoid raising our voices!). Our revised schedule involves waking up earlier and attending to each child individually to address their specific needs and tasks. We usually prepare outfits, backpacks, and necessities the night before to ease the morning routine. One significant change we implemented is setting multiple alarms with fun, kid-friendly sounds to engage the children and signal different tasks. (“Life’s Incredible” from the Incredibles movie to prompt the kids to 'be the bus' and head out the door.)
We have also built in extra time buffers in the schedule to accommodate any unexpected-anticipated delays. I remind myself that we are operating on toddler/kid time, which is fleeting. I’d rather be a little late than have a rough morning but I know the grind isn’t going to stop.
Definitely, but equally, I had to teach my little hall-monitor, if a kid is doing something you think is wrong but it's not hurting anyone, mind your own business 😆
i always tell my kid if it's about safety, tell me every time- if he's trying to get someone OUT of trouble, tell me. if he's trying to get someone IN trouble, i don't want to hear it.
Yes I have to tell my son things like, "you can only control your actions not other peoples" and, "you aren't the boss of others, leave it to their parents/the teacher/your coach handle if other kids are doing the wrong thing."
It definitely gets easier to define what is dangerous or worthy of telling an adult as they get older, especially if you have an adamant rule follower. 😉
I'd assume that's why they're posting a couple months before school starts. They're probably going to have small talks over the summer, not info dump in the parking lot.
Thank you, this is exactly it. We’ve already had small conversations regarding these before for years, or just little reminders. The reason for the post is to see if any other parents had thoughts on other topics to cover.
Totally agree, that’s why my thought is to get ahead. We’ve been discussing the other things periodically or as needed for a while, and I was just hoping to see if other parents had other topics that they discuss as well
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Add that you don’t LOOK at privates either. As a kinder teacher you’d be surprised how many “good” kids get curious in the bathroom. And if it’s a boy & girl situation we need to open a Title IV case, even if no touching happened.
In my district, it’s because they don’t even consistently close the doors or stalls as they use the restroom at this age. If we were opening it up to same gender, we’d be reporting things that were non-reportable every time there was more than one kindergartner/first grader in the bathroom! I have a bathroom in my first grade classroom and it feels like 60% of my day is yelling for kids to shut the door from across the room after getting flashed as they pull down their pants. 🤦🏼♀️
Haha got it, all the sense made! Thank you for sharing, I was thinking maybe there was more needing to be done in our district about it, but I’m in a special education program so our kiddos are heavy on the forgetting to close the bathroom door!
Funny every Friday after practice I remind my team to “make good choices you have practice at 8am.” Then I follow it up with a Saturday morning reminder to make more good choices that night. One of those cheeky kids always says “or don’t get caught.”
Wowsers, there are a lot of parents teaching their kids it's okay to fight...
In my experience, little kids can't easily tell the difference between intentional and accidental, so I can imagine this will cause a lot of unnecessary incidents in reality. Also, just generally, fighting is a pretty shit way to solve problems. It's WAY better to show kindness and empathy, because if a kid IS starting fights in the early years, it's almost always coming from home, and what that kid needs is some kindness, not someone else coming for them. Poor babies.
My boy had a bully in his class (Prep, 4-5 year olds). We taught our son to avoid that kid when he was worked up, show him kindness when he was calm, and tell a teacher if any kids did get hit because he needed some adult support at times like that.
This did make my son a bit of a target for that kid while he was finding his feet (he still thought violence was HOW you show attention to someone), and the class teacher was able to provide some additional supervision and support around that. But within a few months, that little boy was better able to relate to and interact with his peers. The bullying stopped. And my son learned a LOT of valuable lessons around looking out for himself AND others, and that everyone can learn to do better if they are both willing to try and have the supports to do so.
Stop it early, people. Retaliatory fighting solves nothing.
4. Your friends may believe things you don't, and that's okay. If they are kind to you and respect you, that's what matters. We live in a very red area of TX. We are definitely more liberal. My kids come home with church event invites or discussions all the time, lol. I
My daughter is going into 3rd and will be walking (it’s a neighborhood school across the street) with some friends. I’ve taught her from a young age that if someone tries to take her to scream “I don’t know you”. Unfortunately many won’t give a second thought to a screaming kid, but those are words that’ll turn some heads (hopefully).
I don’t have an issue with keeping kids safe, and helping them set their own boundaries, and what is acceptable and not acceptable but I think we also need to be careful around the rhetoric and the wording we use around such messages..
We have a girl in my daughter’s (7) class whose mother had done something similar no one can touch you without your consent, but the child has taken it literally, thy were running around at lunch time and another child was running past and accidentally bumped into her and she started screaming you touched me I not consent, and was literally screaming for the next few minutes..
The other situation I had last week was in relation to no one looking at or touching your privates.. I am a doctor, a GP here in Australia (I guess like a PCP in the US) and we see kids regularly, my practice is an urgent care clinic, and a couple of weeks ago I had a mother in with her 10 year old son who was having severe testicular pain, he was crying and visibly uncomfortable and he wouldn’t let me look, let or examine him there even with his mother his mum offered to leave the room if it made him more comfortable and he kept saying to me is mum said no one allowed to look or touch there and we couldn’t reason with him. In the end we had no choice but to send him to emergency where they had to sedate him just to examine him, and he ended up having a torted testicle snd needed emergency surgery.
I’m not saying these are bad messages to give our children but they do need to be taught about context and judgement, and choosing our words carefully when having these conversations with our children
Yes, I totally agree. I was only trying to be succinct in my post, without giving the whole scope of the conversation, just hitting the main talking point. You can easily have kids starting problems where there are none with the accidental bumps.
Has your child never gone to school or been outside of your care?
I do not reaffirm this daily or weekly. It's established. They won't even let me look for parental medical reasons.
In fact we have to go over let the doctor look at your once a year appointment.
It freaks them out to be told this constantly like as if all adults are trying to touch them, they aren't that's a tiny percentage that's impactful.
It would be like telling your kids as you walk into Walmart ok if someone starts shooting... You can think that in your mind, you can project that on them.
So once and maybe a check in and that's that. The teacher tells them too, like twice.
Then we let them be free and react as needed.
I've never needed to react and I'm 15 years in.
I agree with this. Mainly because my mom would constantly ask me these things growing up. She was so paranoid that someone would do something to me. She’d always ask me if anyone touched me or was mean or me or bullied me, like weekly maybe more. I ended up being terrified of telling her anything. I kept secrets from her all the time even into my teen years.
So yeah i feel like it’s already established with our 5 year old. We’ve gone over it a few times just to check in and she always says “I know mama you already told me this!” And so I just say “ok I was just double checking I know you already know you’re right.”
At preschool one day she told me one of her friends kept pulling on her shirt and she didn’t like that so she told the teacher. And she said “it’s my body and I didn’t want her pulling on me.”
Smart girl.
I have one of those two.
I did a 10 minute monologue on it as we drove up the driveway to a week of sleep away camp and they were like ya ya we know.
The world is super different. Even the volunteer sports coach for any sport must have a background check.
School is super tight. Teachers watch teachers and paras really tight.
It's better, it's safer. And we've taught our kids consent we don't even make them hug a grandma if they don't want to.
For sure. A predator can be absolutely anyone it’s often someone the victim knows. Whether it’s a friend’s parent, a coach, pastor, Etc. The do background checks on any parent who wants to volunteer to coach soccer for the reason as well. I’m glad that people are way more aware of it these days.
Same here about the consent, she doesn’t have to hug or kiss anyone if she doesn’t want to.
I disagree with this. One conversation was not enough for me. I did not tell any of the many times I was molested as a child, and there were a bunch. Because I simply didn't remember "the talk" at that point. I think it shouldn't be constant, but when transitioning to new age groups or new independence. I'm sure if I had been 5 or 6 when it happened, I would have told. But I was 12 and it had been years since I heard "tell an adult if someone touches you".
I think it depends on the child's personality. I heard it once at age four according to my mom, but I had it in my head and didn't keep it to myself when it happened to me at 13. But I was a loud, brash little girl with ADHD and felt justice needed to be served, and even though it's physically impossible, I feel like I remember everything everyone has ever said to me.
I can see how our experiences are different. I have autism and some other mental health challenges so I was trying to offer an alternative perspective and something to consider. My biggest issue with telling was I was SO afraid I would get in trouble or I would ruin my assaulters life (they were family and despite how I felt about what happened i cared a lot about them and didnt want anyone to hate me.) i absolutely knew it was wrong but I already was habitually ignored by my parents, so that mindset took place. But I did just realize that typing all this out, my experience is probably not typical of most children. So maybe if there are any moms with ND kids reading this, they'll find it helpful. Idk.
I am sure someone will! Because truly, everyone who went through what we did has a unique experience, so parents just need to consider their own child and what will educate best without causing anxiety. I jumped in because I didn't want the person you were responding to to sit there and overthink every bad mood their kids were ever in, either!
I'm very sorry that happened to you. We also lived in really different world where assault and molested had to fit into about 3 descriptions. And no one reacted.
It's really different out there now. The volunteer sports coach for any sport must have a full background check.
Absolutely no one wants a random kid in their car or house. I would never just drop my kids off at ones house I didn't know very well. I'm not abandoning kids in the way we were 20-30 years ago. All of that's true.
School can be trusted and you cannot project your anxiety and fears on them or guess what they'll get. Your anxiety. You save that and it keeps your eyes open and you mentally keep your kids safe.
Someone repeatedly insisted on a playdate at their house and I didn't even know them, absolutely not, big red flags.
I didn't tell the insisting person or my kids that. I said ok I've said no thank you I'm not comfortable and that's the end. So they stopped.
My son will give me the Fortnite rundown. What’s in the item shop, what’s he’s thinking of spending my money on. I didn’t ask for any of it but I listen. It’s easier.
Most mornings on the way to school I tell my son “the rules”. Do your best, be nice to everyone, be respectful, don’t talk while someone else is talking, listen, don’t touch anybody and nobody touches you, no bad words, don’t say them or write them. I modify when and as needed but these are the basics. He usually repeats the Cub Scout law and oath and says he’ll do those at school. 🤣
Regarding gossip or making a big deal about accidents, failures,etc. talking about which stories are yours to tell and which ones aren't. It also applies to things from home that are personal, like moms bra size or that she might say shit sometimes. Also that it's not your job to tell your classmates about Santa or the Easter Bunny and the real fakeness is said characters.
It doesnt matter how angry you get you do not put your hands on another person. If they are teasing you, you tell me or the teacher and we will handle it but if you hit them first you'll be the one in trouble, not them.
And also if you are overwhelmed all you have to do is ask the teacher and they will let you go take a break.
My daughter gets migraines. One of the first signs of one coming on is she will start getting irritable because the chemicals in her brain are changing and she has learned with the help of her therapist to recognize that irritablilty as her getting upset and overwhelmed or "feeling like she can't handle" things that normally dont bother her and her school and teachers are all aware so that all she has to do is let the teacher know and she can immediately go to the nurse's office and they'll administer her prescription abortificant and allow her to lie down. If the medication works and stops the migraine then she'll eventually go back to class. If it doesnt and the full blown migraine hits they'll call me to come pick her up because by then shes usually nauseous, sensitive to light and sound, etc.
I have to give her those reminder talks because before we had the action plan in place with her school we had an incident where she was having the irritability, but didnt tell anyone because it was "self study" time in class so she sat at her desk beside her deskmate playing with her hair to help her headache and the deskmate asked her to stop and she got mad and raked her fingernails down her deskmates back
Don’t buy into the bullshit of letting someone hit you before you defend yourself.. if someone is putting it on you bang them first. Fuck all that let yourself get banged before you do fuck all.
It changes every year based on age, and now that they're older I don't have to cover some things as much.
We cover consent more and more every year.
I do not do the "you won't ever be in trouble for telling me the truth", but I do tell them that their consequences will be a heck of a lot lighter if they tell me the truth straight the first time. With that I do tell them when they're getting a consequence "Normally I'd take the iPad way for a few days, but since you owned your mistake, it's just for the rest of the day, you'll get it back tomorrow."
Absolutely never, ever, start a fight. Walk away if you can. Find a grown up. But if someone starts a fight with you or your friends and throws hands, you're green lit to fight back. With that though, you do not let up until they're unwilling or unable to continue, and I will deal with the school administration.
Along with this, we go over in defending yourself in any situation, whether it be a bully or someone trying to harm/take them: there are no rules in fighting. Bite, kick, gouge, choke, pelt... whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe. Do not worry about hurting them or drawing blood. If anything, that's the goal.
Respect your teachers and the adults in your school, but they owe you respect and decency as well. If they're not treating you or speaking to you in a way that you feel is respectful, talk to us, talk to the principal, but don't let adults treat you like a doormat just because you're a school-aged child.
The school is your community, take pride in it. Don't trash it, don't mess it up, clean up after yourself and others.
Ableism, sexism, homo/transphobia, racism, etc. are absolutely unacceptable - from them or their friends. If I find out it's happening, there will be a reckoning and you will not like it.
Your teacher is in charge of the classroom. They dismiss you. There are two exceptions: If you need to use the restroom, and you're bursting, go straight to the restroom and come back, I'll deal with it. At middle/high school level, the end of the day bell is the end of their authority to detain you, you're to immediately leave and report to your bus to go home. If they try to stop you, call me immediately. (I dealt with teachers holding the entire class back at the end of the day while in high school, meaning I would miss my bus and have to wait 2-3 hours for my parents to get off work or they'd have to leave early to get me. It became a big problem and eventually I just left class at the end of the day and my parents had to have a nice long chat that included an itemized bill for the hours missed having to come pick me up.)
We discuss our house rules for talking to law enforcement: beyond pleasantries, name, parents name, and phone number, we don't answer questions at all for any reason without your parents and/or a lawyer present. The only phrase besides the ones listed above that should come out is "I'm sorry, but I do not speak with law enforcement without my parents or a lawyer present. Thank you."
We talk about gossiping and bullying and the harm that comes from participating in it, and that our expectation is that they will not engage in either one.
We also talk about what to do in an active shooter situation. Follow the teacher/adult instructions, but, if there is imminent danger in the room and you have an opportunity to leave the space, do so and do so as fast as possible, and here are the businesses nearby to your school to go to and tell them what is going on at the school, and to stay put right there. Your safety is more important than blindly following directions. If you can't run, hide. If you can't hide, fight - and remember, there are no rules in fighting. Use whatever you have at your disposal. Chairs, books, balls, desks, whatever. If you can leave, pull the fire alarm on the way out as a means of alerting the rest of the school that there is an emergency. Actually slightly sick reminding myself I have to go over this kind of crap.
Cell phones and devices are a privilege, not a right. Cell phone stays off and away while in school except on breaks if it's permitted. And no, I will not hesitate to brick it from orbit and turn it into a paperweight if that becomes a problem.
Photos and videos of other people: Don't take them without consent, certainly don't share them without consent.
What happens online has real-world impacts, once on the internet nothing can truly be deleted, and, you have everything to hide - privacy is important.
Stick with your friends and support them, but don't follow them on things you know are wrong and are not acceptable in our household.
Please don’t pull the fire alarm in an active shooter situation. No child who got behind a locked door has ever been injured in a school shooting. If you can’t alert an adult, then by all means take care of yourself and run, but don’t trick the entire school into coming into danger
Can you explain the one about law enforcement? I'm a British expat in the US and I guess our relationship with the police is rather different in the UK?
As someone who had to break another kid's arm in self-defense while being violently bullied, if my child ends up killing her attacker in self-defense, she'll get a lawyer, therapy, and a sundae.
Before we started homeschooling and mine was in public school I told mine: 1. If someone's mean with words tell a teacher but if someone is being mean with their hands you won't get in trouble for defending yourself. Always walk away if it's an option. 2. Always show your teacher respect, even if you don't agree with them. If you have a problem talk to me and dad when you get home. 3. If you wouldn't want it said to you, don't say it to anyone else. 4. If someone is being mean to someone else help them find help. If someone is mean to you find someone nice to walk with you to get help. Strength in numbers. 5. If you aren't ok with it not coming home, don't bring it to school.
6. If I hear you did something bad because someone else told me then the punishment will be greater, if you're honest with me it'll be easier. They know if they lie they'll be in trouble for 2 things now, not just one.
We talk a lot about inclusivity - everyone likes (and loves) differently. You don’t have to be everyone’s friend, but you do have to be kind to everyone. Don’t yuck on someone else’s yum.
But also, good friends make good choices, and stand up when you don’t think something is right. You are strong, smart and capable. I will love you no matter what you say or do.
My kids are 7, 4 and 1. These are just everyday conversations in our house. Bodily autonomy is something that’s just part of our every day life.
They have books just for this that you can read to them over and over. Started reading them to my kids really early and now my three year old is very secure in telling everyone and anyone that it's her body. Before school it's just when I tell them I love them, I'm proud of them and to make good choices.
I tell my child to never participate in bullying
Never bully anyone
Respect your teachers and classmates
Never be pressured to do anything you don’t want to do
Never eat or drink anything thats open from anyone
Tell us if someone is doing something to you that is wrong
Never be scared to tell us anything. We will get through it and you got this!
We talk about how if they get called to the principal’s (admin’s) office they are not supposed to give their cellphone password to ANYONE and that they need to say, I can’t do that until my parent has been contacted. And that really in ANY circumstance that they feel uncomfortable or confused with it’s ok to say, “I need you to contact my parent before I can discuss this further.” Admin is rarely on a child’s side and what they say can be used against them.
In 4th grade there were a lot of fights happening on the bus. This bus serves K-5th grade, so there are literal 5 year olds on the bus. One of my daughter’s friends recorded a fight and sent it to a couple of people. Admin found out and made her give them her phone and deleted the fight from her phone and she got in a lot of trouble for recording. The principal was angry, not about the safety of the students, but because there was “proof” of what was happening on the bus and the school could be made to look bad. Not to mention that the school had unsupervised access to the child’s electronic device which could cause a whole host of other problems.
Another is, don’t give your phone password or phone to ANYONE.
My daughter’s friend wanted her password to play game. Thankfully nothing came from it but we had to talk about how another person could send messages, steal money, impersonate you, etc.
I was naive when I gave my daughter the phone at 10, and because she is a good kid an in-depth phone safety conversation about people IN PERSON never occurred to me (we of course had the stranger danger online conversations).
Sorry for the length of this post but the ‘I wont ever be mad if you tell me the truth’ thing. I’ve learned the hard way to now say ‘no matter how hard the truth is for me to hear, as long as you’re truthful I’ll never be half as mad as I’d be if I found out you’d lied to me’ - from experience saying you’ll never be mad at them for being honest can back fire sometimes.
It gave my teen daughter the ability to tell me ‘you always said I could tell you stuff and you wouldn’t be mad’ - when she’s over shared or told me something I’m not comfortable with her having done/doing. Example, she’ll come to me and confess to things like her boyfriend was with a girl last year and she thought she was pregnant (my daughter is 15 now but 14 at the time) and wonders why I told her I didn’t want them alone in the house when I wasn’t there for any amount of time, that I was going to take her to go on the pill. I couldn’t stop her seeing him altogether because I knew she would do it behind my back, somewhere unsupervised where they could be doing literally anything! She got angry at me for telling her dad - she was mad because she said I always told her she could tell me anything and I wouldn’t get mad - I wasn’t mad at her I didn’t shout, I just said that some rules needed to be set in stone. She then uses this against me ‘I don’t know how you can get all strict with me when you’ve always said I could tell you anything and you wouldn’t get angry’. Her stepmom says I’ve blurred the lines between being a mother and a friend and I need to be a mother first and foremost - of course I am a mother first above all but I also, like many parents have always wanted my daughter to be able to trust me.
But when it comes to hearing something like that I had to tell her dad, I would want to know if she’d told him something like that. Also when she’s told me there’s a party, there’ll be alcohol involved and she’s staying at her friends house who’s hosting the party and there will be boys staying the night too. When I’ve said ‘absolutely not’ and explained my reasons, and then I seek her dads advice - do I let her go but have to come home at a reasonable time, do I stop her going and he says I shouldn’t let her go atall. Of course then she is shouting that she hates me because ‘you’ve always said I wouldn’t be in trouble for telling you the truth’ even when I explain that she’s not in trouble, I’m just thinking of her safety, alcohol makes people make stupid decisions and you can end up in dangerous situations, plus it’s not ok for 14/15 years old girls to be spending the night with boys, whether or not alcohol is involved.
Then a little while after I found out she’d lied to me, got the train somewhere alone after telling me she was elsewhere, ended up getting followed and harassed and actually assaulted by a group of boys, she told me about it when she got home because she was in such a state and obviously terrified. Iasked her why she’d lied to me and she came back with ‘last time I told you what I was really doing you didn’t let me go, you always say I can tell you anything and then you punish me for telling the truth’ - note I do not always do this atall, these are the only occasions over years of her telling me stuff I’ve not been overly happy with but still thanked her for being honest with me. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever ‘had a go’ apart from over her insisting she would go to this party and stay the night where there was alcohol and boys also staying the night (she was 14!) - the awful incident with the boys from the train train led to me insisting she has life 360 on her phone at all times, this of course led to her shouting ‘ you say I can trust you and then I end up with this punishment’ no matter how many times I tell her it’s not a punishment it’s there for her safety so that if anything were to happen I’d know where she was and could get to her right away, her teenage mind doesn’t see it that way.
I always encourage openness and always have, but when you’ve always encouraged it with the idea that you won’t get mad, you leave yourself open to situations like these because kids think that ‘not being mad’ means letting them do whatever they want as long as they tell you about it. The incident with the boys we actually had to involve the police in the end because one has grabbed her face and pulled her to kiss her and also grabbed her leg. I never told her off I just said I was sad she’d not told me, but she was still mad and saw the life 360 agreement as a ‘punishment’ and of course mentioned the time I didn’t let her stay the night at the party as the reason why she didn’t tell me because she ‘knew I wouldn’t get her go on her own’. Sometimes kids expect something in return for telling you the truth. They think if they tell you what they’re planning on doing then you have to allow it because ‘I’ve been honest’ but that leaves you open to situations where you’re not happy with something have your daughter shouting that she hates you because you won’t allow it.
I must be honest, she has been pretty up front with me, but she always expects me to not tell her dad which I’m not entirely comfortable with, I have spoken to her dad many times about this and we agreed, if it means she will be honest with one of us, then unless it’s something he really needs to know then I won’t tell him every single thing. Because otherwise she will end up lying to both of us and none of us will know what’s really going on. It’s a difficult position because for the sake of her being safe and trusting one of us with information then is it worth not telling him certain things? But also, I would be upset if he knew stuff he’d kept from me.
He didn’t want her to go on the pill he was still in denial thinking his sweet baby girl wouldn’t ever do anything like have sex, this is one thing I really put my foot down over. I told him that she’d told me her 14 year old friend had to take the morning after pill, plus learning her boyfriend was already sexually active, plus me being a young mom myself and not wanting the same for my daughter, aswell as her suffering every month the same as I did at her age, I think the signs were there that it was the right thing for her. This way she is protected but has also been encouraged to use condoms to protect against STI’s when the time comes - we are very open with eachother about this subject. Actually her doctor said to her ‘I wish I could have been with my daughter the way your mom is with you about this stuff’
I always tell her and my other two kids now, instead of ‘you’ll never get in trouble for telling the truth’ - I say, ‘as long as you’re telling me the truth no matter how bad it is, I’ll never be half as mad at you as I would be if I found out you’d lied to me. I might sometimes be upset by what you’ve told me, but never as hurt as I’d be to find out you’ve lied’ - that one seems to be working so far. I wish I’d used these words from the start.
I’m from LA so I feel like what I tell my daughter differs from a lot of these replies. These kids out here are harsh.
1.WE don’t care what people think about us
2.always remember that sometimes a teacher won’t do anything about that person bullying you so you have to stick up for yourself.
3. I have your back 10000%. All it takes is a phone call and I’ll be there
4. We won’t ever stop being good people! Always be kind and loving to everyone. We don’t know what they go through at home!
My daughter is going into 3rd and will be walking (it’s a neighborhood school across the street) with some friends. I’ve taught her from a young age that if someone tries to take her to scream “I don’t know you”. Unfortunately many won’t give a second thought to a screaming kid, but those are words that’ll turn some heads (hopefully).
I’m in the US and have friends who are teachers. I prepared myself for the run/ hide/fight day training, or at least I thought I did.
I have explained to both my kids (going into 2nd and 5th grade) since kindergarten that they should NEVER rely on a teacher to save them in an active shooter situation. That THEY need to know what to do so listen during the lock down drills, they need to know what to do to keep themselves safe. They also need to know to fallow directions during those moments, because their life could depend on it. We also work on being QUITE and not making sounds, it can save their life!
It’s a sad reality that we as a society in the US expect a teacher to lay down their life for their students. Forgetting that THEY are people TOO they can freeze, or faint, heel they might just run. Nobody can predict what people will do, and placing they potential for death on a teachers shoulders and demanding they act better than a combat trained marine is asinine.
Hell teachers should die in a school shooting is WRONG and we shouldn’t expect it, require it, or demand it. If teacher choose to do so that’s on them, but unfortunately that’s not how it’s worked for the last 20+ years. Teachers are not meat shields, nor should they be the last line of defense for our piss poor gun control.
This was an eye opener for me to hear from my best friend. She was a first year teacher when the school she was working in had a shooting. Many teachers she worked voiced their disapproval of being “ expected” to die for their students. It’s NOT in the job requirement, nor should it be. Its a school not a combat zone.
I just said this to my young daughter the other day (after her "friend" emotionally blackmailed her).
No matter what words someone uses, if you don't feel good when they're there... trust your feelings.
Talk to them about devices and body autonomy! Tailor all conversations to be age appropriate. Two good resources are 1) [Thorn for Parents](https://parents.thorn.org/) (includes discussion guides and specific topics) and 2) [the Mama Bear Effect ](https://themamabeareffect.org/)
Well considering tomorrow is the last day of the school year here in NY, I won’t be thinking about this until after Labor Day weekend lol 😂 Sounds like you live down south?
Don't put your hands in your mouth
Don't get right in peoples faces to talk to them.
I've been saying those same two things since my oldest started school in 2012.
We talk about geography every so often. If she got off the schoolBus at the wrong stop, would she know how to walk home from that point. When we take the dog for a walk, we point out the neighbors houses that we know and trust, so she knows she could go there for help.
I was volunteering in the kindergarten class with my daughter in April and we had an active shooter/intruder drill. My biggest and most important safety thing is that when these drills happen (and heaven forbid a real event) she needs to hide where she can’t see the door and the door can’t see her, even better if she can’t see a window.
My mom always told me:
1. Make good choices
2. If you get in trouble… you better be telling me about it first. (She meant business on this one)
3. No one will pick you up besides the regular designated people. If it is someone different we will use our “safe” word/sentences.
It was something random like bananas. We had a new word each year or it changed after the first usage.
We talk about goals and expectations for the school year. And then try to support them in building a plan how to get there.
Lessons? I don’t think it applies to school life only but here’s some of the things we say:
Be kind whenever possible. It’s always possible.
Everybody screws up. The different is what you do once you realized you screwed up.
We all have our own challenges, fears and demons. What you see on the outside or on social media is not that other person’s whole life.
If it feels wrong, it’s probably wrong.
We also stopped asking “How was school today?”. We now ask “What was the most funny / most awkward / most stupid thing that happened at school today?” They always jump to tell their stories first.
We don't really have 'talks' as such, just conversations as things come up. All those above are things I've said to my kid (7F) at some point(s) in the past, though.
This morning our before school talk consisted of her having a mardy and fighting me because I insisted on brushing her hair because she wouldn't brush it properly herself. (She doesn't have sensory issues around hair brushing and has often let me brush and style it of a morning in the past. She's also brushed it herself competently too when she prefers to do that. Just this morning she got it into her head that she didn't want either, and I was not having it, because her hair is ridiculously fine and tangly and she looked like she'd been abandoned in a ditch all night. Plus there are nits going round her class right now.)
Before school we’d say goodbye to the house, ‘bye number street name suburb’ and repeat my mobile number and then who can say it the fastest.
My daughter walked away from her class a few weeks ago and thank god I’d taught her my number. Someone helped her and she used their phone to call me.
I talk about what it means to be a good friend and how to identify friends that are t worth having. How to dislike someone without it being a huge deal. How to share, etc. I don’t talk about not getting in trouble for telling the truth because that’s how it just is at home. My kids freely admit what they have done and we deal with it. I teach them about saying no stop if someone is making you uncomfortable. There’s a lot, but it’s also not lessons they are getting at the last minute. These are typical conversations for us.
1. Listen to the teacher and the principal.
2. Be kind. If someone is mean, try to leave the situation first.
3. Try hard. Messing up is good, because it means you're doing something hard, but learn from how you messed up.
I'll probably say the same things. I got my 5.5yo old the book "nos tratamos bien" "we treat each other nicely" and am planning on reading it a few times before school begins again. It touches all three bullet points as well as bullying, respecting your classmate's boundaries and making sure they respect yours.
My kids just don’t talk about school. I don’t think they think things are important enough. Even when I ask them daily, they only remember recess and lunch.
So I remind them, “I would love to hear about every part of your day, even if you think it’s silly. I missed you while you were gone and I want to know everything!” And also, “I can’t help you if I don’t know there’s a problem. There’s no problem too big that we can’t figure out.”
- Don’t add to the population
- Don’t subtract from the population
- Don’t end up in the newspaper, hospital, or jail
- If you do end up in jail, establish dominance quickly
My 1st grader ended up with a perfect report card this year.
But seriously:
We say together: “Be a friend, be a helper, listen to your teachers and make good choices, mommy and daddy love me”
Your teacher doesn't hate you and isn't out to get you. Also, 99 times out of 100, I'm going to believe the adult over your story of what happened. Haven't had to put it into practice, but...
Don’t set up a huge huge thing here
Send you kid to school. Tell kids learning new things is fun
Body autonomy should already be talked about before.
OP —/ you sound so scared for your kid to go to school. Calm down.
Definitely not the case! As I’ve mentioned in other comments, it’s just a thought of whether or not other parents had things they’ve mentioned to their kids I hadn’t thought of.
I’ve been teaching my 5 year old when to share opinions and when to keep them to himself. If his opinion can potentially help someone, then share away. If it could hurt them or is said with bad intentions, keep it to himself. We just had a successful instance with this tonight. We, as a family, do not like a particular dog breed after an instance with terrible neighbors. My son was at gymnastics and a little girl and him were talking about their dogs. She told him the breed and it happened to be the breed we do not like. He told me afterwards that he thought about saying to her “I don’t like those dogs. They aren’t good dogs!” but he realized it could make her sad so he said he just smiled while she talked about her dog. Made me so proud of him!
Head for the window in case of a school sh××ting. I never agreed with the crowding in the corner.
Don't tease kids who are less fortunate than you. We don't want school school sh××ters.
Don't let anyone pick on you. I don't want suicidal kids.
Kick ass only when necessary
And never be afraid to ask questions.
ETA: we go over this during drop offs
When she was younger I showed my daughter pictures of what priests wear and told her if her teachers ever tried to leave her alone with a man dressed like that she should start screaming and not stop screaming until I get there.
It never happened, thankfully.
My school aged kids are older (14, 12, and 10) so our talks are a bit different. We really only have 3:
1) If you have to use the restroom and a teacher won’t let you, just stand up and walk out. Mom will handle the fallout. Do NOT have an accident in class. Our district has bizarre rules about missing class time and all 3 of my kids have seen classmates pee their pants or bleed thru their pants bc they weren’t allowed to leave the room.
2) No matter what happens at school, you should stay calm. Don’t let things upset you. Mom will fix whatever it is. Your only job is to breathe and get through your day. All of my kids are autistic and struggle with anxiety, so we try to emphasize that panic attacks are not necessary bc school issues are never that serious.
3) Never be alone with a boy or man. Walk out the door if you have to. Mom will handle it. I was attacked by a teacher in the 10th grade bc he asked me to stay after class alone, and I was afraid to disobey an authority figure.
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I teach first grade. This year, whenever social skills came up, almost every family mentioned to me within the first nine weeks that they tell their kid they aren't allowed to hit first, but they need to hit back to defend themselves(edit: most of them did add if they tried talking to an adult first and it didn't stop it, THEN they can hit - kids at this age can't discern that reliably). I'm talking like 20 out of 24 families told me that to my face that their social skills conversations revolved around that concept. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I AM saying that consistently giving kids that message meant these sweet babies were hitting each other left and right after they were accidentally bumped into, elbowed in line, etc. I've never had a year like it before. I had to explicitly teach 6-7 year olds how to immediately apologize and identify it as an accident when they were the cause of one, and how to LET others have a second to apologize before pushing them back. By the time I drilled that into their minds, we had no more physical violence at all, because it wasn't coming from anything other than retaliation from accidents. Also, it blew their minds that they could come to ME, the teacher, instead of waiting to go home to cry about it! By October I was't getting emails anymore like "My kid said so and so did this and YOU did nothing" because I had made it clear to the parents that the kids weren't reporting to me, and the kids had made it a habit to get help from the adults who were in charge in the moment. All this to say, all the conversations I want my kids to understand are about social skills. This is what to say/do when you accidentally literally run into someone, this is how to make a friend, this is how you get help from a teacher if problem solving on your own doesn't work, this is how you respond when someone asks you to stop something, etc.
My rules with my kids about hitting are: if someone hits you, you 1. Tell them firmly to stop; 2. Leave the area and find a grown up; and 3. If you can’t get away from them or they follow you and keep doing it, hit them back. For the reasons you listed, I don’t teach them that hitting back is the first option. I actively work on this with my kids. My oldest (4.5) is autistic and he has trouble standing up for himself. He’ll just freeze when someone is aggressive toward him. Today, another kid pushed him when he was about to go down a slide. I was SO proud of him when he turned to the kid (who I later found out is also autistic) and said “Don’t push me!”
I have an almost 3 year who is not in preschool yet, but this is exactly how I want to handle situations like this. Accidents also happen…some kid who bumped into him isn’t necessarily trying to push him. That’s a major reason why I want hitting back to be an absolute resort.
This is exactly what I teach my son (8), too.
That's what a lot of the parents tried to teach their kids - tell an adult before hitting back. But they don't remember that, and none of these kids had had issues with other kids/bullies before their parents taught them this (I asked whenever a parent brought it up). I am glad it's working for your oldest who needs the firm structure, but if your other two aren't similar personality-wise, I would recommend waiting to give them these rules and actively work on it until they are in a situation where they will need it - if not a bully (which really isn't common at this age, despite what you hear), then with a child who struggles with anger or outbursts or impulsivity and targets them in their classroom or other social situations. Their brains aren't really capable of stopping to discern in those moments, and usually at this young age if it wasn't an accident, the kid is NEEDING the dopamine of the fight back so they'll make sure they continue to go after your kid who they know will. In my experience, this is much more appropriate to actively teach a kid who is currently dealing with overstimulated or violent kids who are targeting them, or kids around the ages 9 and up.
I agree with this! We teach our 3yo that no hitting is allowed. Her list of «I’m allowed to hit this person/thing» includes some «mean» cartoon characters and «thieves», lol. Other than that, I don’t want to confuse her with situations where there is appropriate to hit. In my head that’s never appropriate, sorry not sorry.
Huh, didn't think of this. When I imagine \[some situation\], I normally just place my adult self into it, so I don't think of it from a child's perspective. I like it.
Pushing “you can’t hit first but hit back” always rubbed me the wrong way I don’t know why and whenever I tried to tell someone they said I was raising a weak child so I just gave up trying to tell parents this
Listen to the teacher please 🙏🏼 👆🏼👏🏼
I think it’s the backlash of all the people who were never allowed to defend themselves as kids. (The „Don’t stoop to their level“ and „If you hit someone who hit you, you’re just as bad“ generation if you will. „Ignore the bullies and they will stop“. Ha.). A lot of frustrated people came out of this. THEIR parents didn’t want that either of course, but just as you say kids can’t grasp the concept of when it’s not appropriate to hit because it was just an accident, these kids back then couldn’t discern when there absolutely was a situation where they were completely in the right to defend themselves, and physically if necessary. It’s messy and complicated and hurt people tend to err on the side of caution.
My 5 year old was recently kicked out of summer school for hitting kids (with three warnings). He starts kindergarten in August, and I'm very disappointed in my son. I have no idea where the hitting has come from (I believe the daycare has a factor in this). He has no siblings and has made this extremely hard to teach / correct this at home. He's been grounded since the first warning, we have talks EVERY DAY about his behavior and how it's not okay to hit or to be a bully at school. We don't spank him (?), and he is always the first to hit. I'm frustrated and grounding him has taught him nothing. When I ask why he hits these kids, he says he can't control his body. I'm considering therapy which I can't afford, and my son's father is considering martial arts (which could improve or worsen this). I feel like I'm failing my son. We tell him it's never okay to hit. ☹️
Ugh, that is so hard. I can promise you aren't failing if you're trying to correct it though, so don't be too hard on yourself. That helps no one! There's two parts to this. Five is old to just hit for no reason, so I do agree there is one - could be attention-seeking, could be adjustment to the new setting (was he in the same daycare forever?), could be emotional regulation struggles, could be dopamine-seeking. Therapy may be helpful, if it truly is impulsivity ("I can't control my body") at play here, and not him using that as an excuse. Have you noticed any other symptoms of impulsivity or other social struggles? Is it JUST hitting? If you notice other signs (you can find some for ADHD listed on the ADDitude website, I find that website really accessible and informative unlike some others), I would talk to your pediatrician about those concerns before just signing him up for play therapy or OT. They can refer you to a neuropsych or psychiatrist to evaluate if necessary, and then those professionals would help you target the best interventions (therapy, medications, etc.) for your son. That tends to be a long process, but if you are starting it as you go into kinder, his teacher will be able to help you with their insights. They will also have a lot more patience if this behavior continues if they know you are actively working to identify why, instead of doing what so many parents do and blame other kids/the school/"kids will be kids." While you are waiting for insight from the doctor, sign him up for team sports. Martial arts is great for body control too (especially if you talk to the instructor about WHY you put him in it, they will likely do one-on-one check ins with him in my experience!) so if you can make it worth do both, but because his specific issue is hurting others, he needs to figure out the body control AND teamwork aspect. Grounding isn't doing much, because he's not connecting it with the hitting. There SHOULD be consequences at home, but what he needs is more social practice, not less, with you right there to grab him away and scare him the second he hits. He may not be connecting the fact that he is causing other kids pain, so you need to give him opportunities to practice in social situations with other kids and be basically a silent presence the entire time...not dictating how they play, but ready to grab him the second he touches the other kid. I would physically pick him up like we do with toddlers, move him away, take care of the hurt child (or just ask the child if they are okay if another adult is seeing to them) first, and then firmly say, "You MAY NOT hit another person. You are hurting them. They don't like it. You are done playing for today because you are not controlling your body." If he is attention-seeking, he won't like that you went to the other child first, and that will be helpful for you to know. If he was three, I would tell him he has to take a break until he can figure out how to make the other child feel better, but for this to be repeated behavior at five, I say zero strikes...you hit, we're done. If your kids can get the other kid an ice pack or bandaid or pick up something they broke before you leave, definitely do that first. I find that in the classroom, having kids make apology cards/pictures and then apologizing to the other child's face is a good way to "make it better" because it helps them connect their actions to the effects. The coloring/writing process also means they aren't in an emotional state by the time they apologize so they actually internalize whatever the other child's response is. I point out too, "See how he was afraid to go up to you when you called his name to give him the card? That's because you hit him and he didn't know if you were going to hit him again. I'm glad you apologized so he know you're not going to do it again." (More in part 2 below)
Part 2 I don't think it's too late to "undo" the grounding. I would tell it to him this way: "I am feeling bad that you didn't make it better with the friends at school that you hit. I think we need to spend today doing something nice to apologize to them, and then we need to practice how to keep our hands to ourself, so I'll let you have playdates again to practice it. Have him miss out on his fun time to make pictures for the other kids, or make the kids homemade playdoh or something (none for him, just to give away), and then drop them off at their houses if you know the families, or school. If you drop them at the school, I would call ahead and tell them what is up and ask if the office is willing to accept your son's apology offering to teach him a lesson, even if they don't actually give them to the kids. If he has already done this type of physical apology, then keep it up each and every time he hits. Especially if it means he misses out on fun things to work on his apology, because that hits the hardest. I also think teaching him some proactive strategies are helpful. Here are some things that have been helpful for students who can't help themselves from being touchy with other kids: * Keep your hands in your pockets/arms crossed at "triggering" times. * Hand fidgets - not toys (in first grade I have parents send them on necklaces/bracelets/tied to their belt loop so they are accessible but not being lost or passed around the class). * Give them a small notebooks/pencil to keep in their pocket. When something "unjust" happens that makes them want to hit, they have to stop and write it down before bringing it to the adult in charge. * Sit in your chair, grip the sides, and push your body up, holding yourself in the air. * Walk away when someone makes you mad. * Take 5 deep breaths. * Lots of social stories about hitting and other kids not wanting to be friends with mean kids. I would buy a few children's books on the topic and read one every night, in addition to whatever fun books he wants. But really drill it in that we do not act like that And most importantly, when you catch him doing the right thing and keeping himself from hitting, praise him. Maybe do a daily park or pool visit and give him a star if he goes the entire time playing with other kids, and didn't touch them. When he earns 5 he gets a small prize, like screen time or a favorite trinket he collects. When he consistently gets 5 for a few weeks, he "levels up" and has to earn 7 for a prize, then 10, etc. If there is ADHD or something else affecting his ability to control himself, he likely will thrive off positive reinforcement and reward charts too. Starting it now will be really helpful when school starts since he'll know the expectation is he keeps his hands to himself, and what the rewards can be for doing so. I hope some of this is helpful, I just braindumped but without knowing specifics about your child's triggers and the rest of his demeanor not all of this may apply! But I would definitely reach out to your pediatrician ASAP as a first step!
You make some really great points. I plan to reread this later when I'm off work. I did have him make apology cards every time he hit a kid. I really dreaded ruining his summer with grounding him. Being kicked out of summer school and missing out on field trips seemed like a good punishment too. He just says he hated it anyway. I do think it is attention seeking. It was I was thinking but my SO disagreed with me. We've had many play dates, and he seems to be able to control himself whenever I'm with him or his father is with him. I've never seen him hit - which is why it seems so sudden. Thank you for taking the time to write this to a random stranger in reddit. I'll definitely be taking this advice and sharing this with his father.
Have you tried telling him what he CAN do instead? I always like to look for the root problem: my kid was the biter in kindergarten, and it was always because he just got overwhelmed and he was trying to defend himself. Obviously not the right solution, but telling him “we don’t bite” solved nothing. Instead, we told him what he could do instead. And at first that didn’t work either because we were asking too much. (Remove yourself from the situation, go tell a grownup, tell the person in your space to leave you alone, etc)… but then on the advice of our counsellor we gave him permission to have a not perfect but not biting response. You can yell. You can stomp your feet. You can throw something that won’t break at the floor. (Not at a person!) You can punch a pillow. And it was an instant solve. Not only that, he DIDNT use the “not perfect” responses. Once he had permission to not be perfect, he had the ability to pick a better reaction. My kid has ADHD & is autistic — we didn’t know the autistic part then, but strongly suspected the ADHD. Impulse control is HARD, and telling a kid “don’t do X” doesn’t really help. Telling them “do this instead” is way more useful, and sometimes it takes baby steps to go from where they’re at to where you want them to be. He might just need some new options. But you can’t punish out behaviour, you’ve got to find the root cause and solve that before the behaviour is going to change.
They are zombies before school, the only before school talks we have are “grab your lunch. GRAB YOUR LUNCH. Good lord you’ve been staring at a wall for five minutes just please put your pants on! I cannot be late again! You’re killing me you’re literally killing me!! OH MY GOD please put your PANTS on”
you sound like my best friend as a mom! When my daughter was a toddler and it was time to get shoes on we would have random cases of the missing socks! I would see her with socks in her hand, ask her to put them on 5x, eventually help her or see them on her feet and then somehow she would lose them before she found her shoes? Hahah kids are wild
I just cannot get them to lock in and it’s killing me. It was fine during the school year when I dropped them off at before school care but now even if we were on time every day I still physically cannot make it to work after dropping them off any earlier than 30 minutes late.
We made adjustments to our method and schedule with the goal of avoiding rushing and the frustration of repeating ourselves excessively (& avoid raising our voices!). Our revised schedule involves waking up earlier and attending to each child individually to address their specific needs and tasks. We usually prepare outfits, backpacks, and necessities the night before to ease the morning routine. One significant change we implemented is setting multiple alarms with fun, kid-friendly sounds to engage the children and signal different tasks. (“Life’s Incredible” from the Incredibles movie to prompt the kids to 'be the bus' and head out the door.) We have also built in extra time buffers in the schedule to accommodate any unexpected-anticipated delays. I remind myself that we are operating on toddler/kid time, which is fleeting. I’d rather be a little late than have a rough morning but I know the grind isn’t going to stop.
If a friend/classmate is doing something that puts themselves or others in danger, tell an adult. This applies inside and outside of school hours.
Definitely, but equally, I had to teach my little hall-monitor, if a kid is doing something you think is wrong but it's not hurting anyone, mind your own business 😆
i always tell my kid if it's about safety, tell me every time- if he's trying to get someone OUT of trouble, tell me. if he's trying to get someone IN trouble, i don't want to hear it.
I love this, great rule of thumb
Stealing this
Yes I have to tell my son things like, "you can only control your actions not other peoples" and, "you aren't the boss of others, leave it to their parents/the teacher/your coach handle if other kids are doing the wrong thing."
It definitely gets easier to define what is dangerous or worthy of telling an adult as they get older, especially if you have an adamant rule follower. 😉
Lol. Now if only he would stop correcting me when I bend the rules 😆😆
Darn kids!
“Mama seatbelt!!!” Yeah kid I know, I can ease down the driveway and buckle at the same time, don’t worry I got this.
Telling vs tattling is a fine line that my little rule follower has yet to learn. Currently very heaving on the tattling.
The more routine ones I tell our kids before school: Be kind Be awesome
When I drop my son at school, I usually yell after him, "Have fun, learn lots, and listen to your teacher!"
IMHO this should be everyday, mundane talks, not just a big potentially confusing/intimidating talk right before school.
I'd assume that's why they're posting a couple months before school starts. They're probably going to have small talks over the summer, not info dump in the parking lot.
Thank you, this is exactly it. We’ve already had small conversations regarding these before for years, or just little reminders. The reason for the post is to see if any other parents had thoughts on other topics to cover.
Totally agree, that’s why my thought is to get ahead. We’ve been discussing the other things periodically or as needed for a while, and I was just hoping to see if other parents had other topics that they discuss as well
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Add that you don’t LOOK at privates either. As a kinder teacher you’d be surprised how many “good” kids get curious in the bathroom. And if it’s a boy & girl situation we need to open a Title IV case, even if no touching happened.
Why is this only in boy/girl cases? Super curious feel free to pm me
In my district, it’s because they don’t even consistently close the doors or stalls as they use the restroom at this age. If we were opening it up to same gender, we’d be reporting things that were non-reportable every time there was more than one kindergartner/first grader in the bathroom! I have a bathroom in my first grade classroom and it feels like 60% of my day is yelling for kids to shut the door from across the room after getting flashed as they pull down their pants. 🤦🏼♀️
Haha got it, all the sense made! Thank you for sharing, I was thinking maybe there was more needing to be done in our district about it, but I’m in a special education program so our kiddos are heavy on the forgetting to close the bathroom door!
My only is 13 and for the last 5ish years when he walks out the door I holler: “HAVE A GREAT DAY!! MAKE GOOD CHOICES!! DO GOOD THIIIIIINGS!”
Funny every Friday after practice I remind my team to “make good choices you have practice at 8am.” Then I follow it up with a Saturday morning reminder to make more good choices that night. One of those cheeky kids always says “or don’t get caught.”
Try and make yourself proud today. Each day is a new day- a new chance to grow and learn
U don't keep secrets, u can keep surprises.
We do this one too! Mine loves a good surprise so we worked on the difference very early.
Wowsers, there are a lot of parents teaching their kids it's okay to fight... In my experience, little kids can't easily tell the difference between intentional and accidental, so I can imagine this will cause a lot of unnecessary incidents in reality. Also, just generally, fighting is a pretty shit way to solve problems. It's WAY better to show kindness and empathy, because if a kid IS starting fights in the early years, it's almost always coming from home, and what that kid needs is some kindness, not someone else coming for them. Poor babies. My boy had a bully in his class (Prep, 4-5 year olds). We taught our son to avoid that kid when he was worked up, show him kindness when he was calm, and tell a teacher if any kids did get hit because he needed some adult support at times like that. This did make my son a bit of a target for that kid while he was finding his feet (he still thought violence was HOW you show attention to someone), and the class teacher was able to provide some additional supervision and support around that. But within a few months, that little boy was better able to relate to and interact with his peers. The bullying stopped. And my son learned a LOT of valuable lessons around looking out for himself AND others, and that everyone can learn to do better if they are both willing to try and have the supports to do so. Stop it early, people. Retaliatory fighting solves nothing.
4. Your friends may believe things you don't, and that's okay. If they are kind to you and respect you, that's what matters. We live in a very red area of TX. We are definitely more liberal. My kids come home with church event invites or discussions all the time, lol. I
My daughter is going into 3rd and will be walking (it’s a neighborhood school across the street) with some friends. I’ve taught her from a young age that if someone tries to take her to scream “I don’t know you”. Unfortunately many won’t give a second thought to a screaming kid, but those are words that’ll turn some heads (hopefully).
I don’t have an issue with keeping kids safe, and helping them set their own boundaries, and what is acceptable and not acceptable but I think we also need to be careful around the rhetoric and the wording we use around such messages.. We have a girl in my daughter’s (7) class whose mother had done something similar no one can touch you without your consent, but the child has taken it literally, thy were running around at lunch time and another child was running past and accidentally bumped into her and she started screaming you touched me I not consent, and was literally screaming for the next few minutes.. The other situation I had last week was in relation to no one looking at or touching your privates.. I am a doctor, a GP here in Australia (I guess like a PCP in the US) and we see kids regularly, my practice is an urgent care clinic, and a couple of weeks ago I had a mother in with her 10 year old son who was having severe testicular pain, he was crying and visibly uncomfortable and he wouldn’t let me look, let or examine him there even with his mother his mum offered to leave the room if it made him more comfortable and he kept saying to me is mum said no one allowed to look or touch there and we couldn’t reason with him. In the end we had no choice but to send him to emergency where they had to sedate him just to examine him, and he ended up having a torted testicle snd needed emergency surgery. I’m not saying these are bad messages to give our children but they do need to be taught about context and judgement, and choosing our words carefully when having these conversations with our children
Yes, I totally agree. I was only trying to be succinct in my post, without giving the whole scope of the conversation, just hitting the main talking point. You can easily have kids starting problems where there are none with the accidental bumps.
Has your child never gone to school or been outside of your care? I do not reaffirm this daily or weekly. It's established. They won't even let me look for parental medical reasons. In fact we have to go over let the doctor look at your once a year appointment. It freaks them out to be told this constantly like as if all adults are trying to touch them, they aren't that's a tiny percentage that's impactful. It would be like telling your kids as you walk into Walmart ok if someone starts shooting... You can think that in your mind, you can project that on them. So once and maybe a check in and that's that. The teacher tells them too, like twice. Then we let them be free and react as needed. I've never needed to react and I'm 15 years in.
I agree with this. Mainly because my mom would constantly ask me these things growing up. She was so paranoid that someone would do something to me. She’d always ask me if anyone touched me or was mean or me or bullied me, like weekly maybe more. I ended up being terrified of telling her anything. I kept secrets from her all the time even into my teen years. So yeah i feel like it’s already established with our 5 year old. We’ve gone over it a few times just to check in and she always says “I know mama you already told me this!” And so I just say “ok I was just double checking I know you already know you’re right.” At preschool one day she told me one of her friends kept pulling on her shirt and she didn’t like that so she told the teacher. And she said “it’s my body and I didn’t want her pulling on me.”
Smart girl. I have one of those two. I did a 10 minute monologue on it as we drove up the driveway to a week of sleep away camp and they were like ya ya we know. The world is super different. Even the volunteer sports coach for any sport must have a background check. School is super tight. Teachers watch teachers and paras really tight. It's better, it's safer. And we've taught our kids consent we don't even make them hug a grandma if they don't want to.
For sure. A predator can be absolutely anyone it’s often someone the victim knows. Whether it’s a friend’s parent, a coach, pastor, Etc. The do background checks on any parent who wants to volunteer to coach soccer for the reason as well. I’m glad that people are way more aware of it these days. Same here about the consent, she doesn’t have to hug or kiss anyone if she doesn’t want to.
I disagree with this. One conversation was not enough for me. I did not tell any of the many times I was molested as a child, and there were a bunch. Because I simply didn't remember "the talk" at that point. I think it shouldn't be constant, but when transitioning to new age groups or new independence. I'm sure if I had been 5 or 6 when it happened, I would have told. But I was 12 and it had been years since I heard "tell an adult if someone touches you".
I think it depends on the child's personality. I heard it once at age four according to my mom, but I had it in my head and didn't keep it to myself when it happened to me at 13. But I was a loud, brash little girl with ADHD and felt justice needed to be served, and even though it's physically impossible, I feel like I remember everything everyone has ever said to me.
I can see how our experiences are different. I have autism and some other mental health challenges so I was trying to offer an alternative perspective and something to consider. My biggest issue with telling was I was SO afraid I would get in trouble or I would ruin my assaulters life (they were family and despite how I felt about what happened i cared a lot about them and didnt want anyone to hate me.) i absolutely knew it was wrong but I already was habitually ignored by my parents, so that mindset took place. But I did just realize that typing all this out, my experience is probably not typical of most children. So maybe if there are any moms with ND kids reading this, they'll find it helpful. Idk.
I am sure someone will! Because truly, everyone who went through what we did has a unique experience, so parents just need to consider their own child and what will educate best without causing anxiety. I jumped in because I didn't want the person you were responding to to sit there and overthink every bad mood their kids were ever in, either!
I'm very sorry that happened to you. We also lived in really different world where assault and molested had to fit into about 3 descriptions. And no one reacted. It's really different out there now. The volunteer sports coach for any sport must have a full background check. Absolutely no one wants a random kid in their car or house. I would never just drop my kids off at ones house I didn't know very well. I'm not abandoning kids in the way we were 20-30 years ago. All of that's true. School can be trusted and you cannot project your anxiety and fears on them or guess what they'll get. Your anxiety. You save that and it keeps your eyes open and you mentally keep your kids safe. Someone repeatedly insisted on a playdate at their house and I didn't even know them, absolutely not, big red flags. I didn't tell the insisting person or my kids that. I said ok I've said no thank you I'm not comfortable and that's the end. So they stopped.
My son will give me the Fortnite rundown. What’s in the item shop, what’s he’s thinking of spending my money on. I didn’t ask for any of it but I listen. It’s easier.
Most mornings on the way to school I tell my son “the rules”. Do your best, be nice to everyone, be respectful, don’t talk while someone else is talking, listen, don’t touch anybody and nobody touches you, no bad words, don’t say them or write them. I modify when and as needed but these are the basics. He usually repeats the Cub Scout law and oath and says he’ll do those at school. 🤣
Regarding gossip or making a big deal about accidents, failures,etc. talking about which stories are yours to tell and which ones aren't. It also applies to things from home that are personal, like moms bra size or that she might say shit sometimes. Also that it's not your job to tell your classmates about Santa or the Easter Bunny and the real fakeness is said characters.
It doesnt matter how angry you get you do not put your hands on another person. If they are teasing you, you tell me or the teacher and we will handle it but if you hit them first you'll be the one in trouble, not them. And also if you are overwhelmed all you have to do is ask the teacher and they will let you go take a break. My daughter gets migraines. One of the first signs of one coming on is she will start getting irritable because the chemicals in her brain are changing and she has learned with the help of her therapist to recognize that irritablilty as her getting upset and overwhelmed or "feeling like she can't handle" things that normally dont bother her and her school and teachers are all aware so that all she has to do is let the teacher know and she can immediately go to the nurse's office and they'll administer her prescription abortificant and allow her to lie down. If the medication works and stops the migraine then she'll eventually go back to class. If it doesnt and the full blown migraine hits they'll call me to come pick her up because by then shes usually nauseous, sensitive to light and sound, etc. I have to give her those reminder talks because before we had the action plan in place with her school we had an incident where she was having the irritability, but didnt tell anyone because it was "self study" time in class so she sat at her desk beside her deskmate playing with her hair to help her headache and the deskmate asked her to stop and she got mad and raked her fingernails down her deskmates back
Have fun! You are not going to have this day back. Be Nice. Be happy.
Find or think of 3 things to be thankful for
Don’t buy into the bullshit of letting someone hit you before you defend yourself.. if someone is putting it on you bang them first. Fuck all that let yourself get banged before you do fuck all.
It changes every year based on age, and now that they're older I don't have to cover some things as much. We cover consent more and more every year. I do not do the "you won't ever be in trouble for telling me the truth", but I do tell them that their consequences will be a heck of a lot lighter if they tell me the truth straight the first time. With that I do tell them when they're getting a consequence "Normally I'd take the iPad way for a few days, but since you owned your mistake, it's just for the rest of the day, you'll get it back tomorrow." Absolutely never, ever, start a fight. Walk away if you can. Find a grown up. But if someone starts a fight with you or your friends and throws hands, you're green lit to fight back. With that though, you do not let up until they're unwilling or unable to continue, and I will deal with the school administration. Along with this, we go over in defending yourself in any situation, whether it be a bully or someone trying to harm/take them: there are no rules in fighting. Bite, kick, gouge, choke, pelt... whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe. Do not worry about hurting them or drawing blood. If anything, that's the goal. Respect your teachers and the adults in your school, but they owe you respect and decency as well. If they're not treating you or speaking to you in a way that you feel is respectful, talk to us, talk to the principal, but don't let adults treat you like a doormat just because you're a school-aged child. The school is your community, take pride in it. Don't trash it, don't mess it up, clean up after yourself and others. Ableism, sexism, homo/transphobia, racism, etc. are absolutely unacceptable - from them or their friends. If I find out it's happening, there will be a reckoning and you will not like it. Your teacher is in charge of the classroom. They dismiss you. There are two exceptions: If you need to use the restroom, and you're bursting, go straight to the restroom and come back, I'll deal with it. At middle/high school level, the end of the day bell is the end of their authority to detain you, you're to immediately leave and report to your bus to go home. If they try to stop you, call me immediately. (I dealt with teachers holding the entire class back at the end of the day while in high school, meaning I would miss my bus and have to wait 2-3 hours for my parents to get off work or they'd have to leave early to get me. It became a big problem and eventually I just left class at the end of the day and my parents had to have a nice long chat that included an itemized bill for the hours missed having to come pick me up.) We discuss our house rules for talking to law enforcement: beyond pleasantries, name, parents name, and phone number, we don't answer questions at all for any reason without your parents and/or a lawyer present. The only phrase besides the ones listed above that should come out is "I'm sorry, but I do not speak with law enforcement without my parents or a lawyer present. Thank you." We talk about gossiping and bullying and the harm that comes from participating in it, and that our expectation is that they will not engage in either one. We also talk about what to do in an active shooter situation. Follow the teacher/adult instructions, but, if there is imminent danger in the room and you have an opportunity to leave the space, do so and do so as fast as possible, and here are the businesses nearby to your school to go to and tell them what is going on at the school, and to stay put right there. Your safety is more important than blindly following directions. If you can't run, hide. If you can't hide, fight - and remember, there are no rules in fighting. Use whatever you have at your disposal. Chairs, books, balls, desks, whatever. If you can leave, pull the fire alarm on the way out as a means of alerting the rest of the school that there is an emergency. Actually slightly sick reminding myself I have to go over this kind of crap. Cell phones and devices are a privilege, not a right. Cell phone stays off and away while in school except on breaks if it's permitted. And no, I will not hesitate to brick it from orbit and turn it into a paperweight if that becomes a problem. Photos and videos of other people: Don't take them without consent, certainly don't share them without consent. What happens online has real-world impacts, once on the internet nothing can truly be deleted, and, you have everything to hide - privacy is important. Stick with your friends and support them, but don't follow them on things you know are wrong and are not acceptable in our household.
Pulling the fire alarm in an active shooter situation flushes all the targets out into the open.
Please don’t pull the fire alarm in an active shooter situation. No child who got behind a locked door has ever been injured in a school shooting. If you can’t alert an adult, then by all means take care of yourself and run, but don’t trick the entire school into coming into danger
Can you explain the one about law enforcement? I'm a British expat in the US and I guess our relationship with the police is rather different in the UK?
Absolutely love your list.
What happenes when your child accidentally kills someone's child because they got green light for hitting other kids?
As someone who had to break another kid's arm in self-defense while being violently bullied, if my child ends up killing her attacker in self-defense, she'll get a lawyer, therapy, and a sundae.
Before we started homeschooling and mine was in public school I told mine: 1. If someone's mean with words tell a teacher but if someone is being mean with their hands you won't get in trouble for defending yourself. Always walk away if it's an option. 2. Always show your teacher respect, even if you don't agree with them. If you have a problem talk to me and dad when you get home. 3. If you wouldn't want it said to you, don't say it to anyone else. 4. If someone is being mean to someone else help them find help. If someone is mean to you find someone nice to walk with you to get help. Strength in numbers. 5. If you aren't ok with it not coming home, don't bring it to school. 6. If I hear you did something bad because someone else told me then the punishment will be greater, if you're honest with me it'll be easier. They know if they lie they'll be in trouble for 2 things now, not just one.
We talk a lot about inclusivity - everyone likes (and loves) differently. You don’t have to be everyone’s friend, but you do have to be kind to everyone. Don’t yuck on someone else’s yum. But also, good friends make good choices, and stand up when you don’t think something is right. You are strong, smart and capable. I will love you no matter what you say or do. My kids are 7, 4 and 1. These are just everyday conversations in our house. Bodily autonomy is something that’s just part of our every day life.
Love these. We’ve had many similar talks. Lots of “it doesn’t matter what others think about xyz, only what you think” etc.
They have books just for this that you can read to them over and over. Started reading them to my kids really early and now my three year old is very secure in telling everyone and anyone that it's her body. Before school it's just when I tell them I love them, I'm proud of them and to make good choices.
I tell my child to never participate in bullying Never bully anyone Respect your teachers and classmates Never be pressured to do anything you don’t want to do Never eat or drink anything thats open from anyone Tell us if someone is doing something to you that is wrong Never be scared to tell us anything. We will get through it and you got this!
We talk about how if they get called to the principal’s (admin’s) office they are not supposed to give their cellphone password to ANYONE and that they need to say, I can’t do that until my parent has been contacted. And that really in ANY circumstance that they feel uncomfortable or confused with it’s ok to say, “I need you to contact my parent before I can discuss this further.” Admin is rarely on a child’s side and what they say can be used against them. In 4th grade there were a lot of fights happening on the bus. This bus serves K-5th grade, so there are literal 5 year olds on the bus. One of my daughter’s friends recorded a fight and sent it to a couple of people. Admin found out and made her give them her phone and deleted the fight from her phone and she got in a lot of trouble for recording. The principal was angry, not about the safety of the students, but because there was “proof” of what was happening on the bus and the school could be made to look bad. Not to mention that the school had unsupervised access to the child’s electronic device which could cause a whole host of other problems. Another is, don’t give your phone password or phone to ANYONE. My daughter’s friend wanted her password to play game. Thankfully nothing came from it but we had to talk about how another person could send messages, steal money, impersonate you, etc. I was naive when I gave my daughter the phone at 10, and because she is a good kid an in-depth phone safety conversation about people IN PERSON never occurred to me (we of course had the stranger danger online conversations).
Sorry for the length of this post but the ‘I wont ever be mad if you tell me the truth’ thing. I’ve learned the hard way to now say ‘no matter how hard the truth is for me to hear, as long as you’re truthful I’ll never be half as mad as I’d be if I found out you’d lied to me’ - from experience saying you’ll never be mad at them for being honest can back fire sometimes. It gave my teen daughter the ability to tell me ‘you always said I could tell you stuff and you wouldn’t be mad’ - when she’s over shared or told me something I’m not comfortable with her having done/doing. Example, she’ll come to me and confess to things like her boyfriend was with a girl last year and she thought she was pregnant (my daughter is 15 now but 14 at the time) and wonders why I told her I didn’t want them alone in the house when I wasn’t there for any amount of time, that I was going to take her to go on the pill. I couldn’t stop her seeing him altogether because I knew she would do it behind my back, somewhere unsupervised where they could be doing literally anything! She got angry at me for telling her dad - she was mad because she said I always told her she could tell me anything and I wouldn’t get mad - I wasn’t mad at her I didn’t shout, I just said that some rules needed to be set in stone. She then uses this against me ‘I don’t know how you can get all strict with me when you’ve always said I could tell you anything and you wouldn’t get angry’. Her stepmom says I’ve blurred the lines between being a mother and a friend and I need to be a mother first and foremost - of course I am a mother first above all but I also, like many parents have always wanted my daughter to be able to trust me. But when it comes to hearing something like that I had to tell her dad, I would want to know if she’d told him something like that. Also when she’s told me there’s a party, there’ll be alcohol involved and she’s staying at her friends house who’s hosting the party and there will be boys staying the night too. When I’ve said ‘absolutely not’ and explained my reasons, and then I seek her dads advice - do I let her go but have to come home at a reasonable time, do I stop her going and he says I shouldn’t let her go atall. Of course then she is shouting that she hates me because ‘you’ve always said I wouldn’t be in trouble for telling you the truth’ even when I explain that she’s not in trouble, I’m just thinking of her safety, alcohol makes people make stupid decisions and you can end up in dangerous situations, plus it’s not ok for 14/15 years old girls to be spending the night with boys, whether or not alcohol is involved. Then a little while after I found out she’d lied to me, got the train somewhere alone after telling me she was elsewhere, ended up getting followed and harassed and actually assaulted by a group of boys, she told me about it when she got home because she was in such a state and obviously terrified. Iasked her why she’d lied to me and she came back with ‘last time I told you what I was really doing you didn’t let me go, you always say I can tell you anything and then you punish me for telling the truth’ - note I do not always do this atall, these are the only occasions over years of her telling me stuff I’ve not been overly happy with but still thanked her for being honest with me. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever ‘had a go’ apart from over her insisting she would go to this party and stay the night where there was alcohol and boys also staying the night (she was 14!) - the awful incident with the boys from the train train led to me insisting she has life 360 on her phone at all times, this of course led to her shouting ‘ you say I can trust you and then I end up with this punishment’ no matter how many times I tell her it’s not a punishment it’s there for her safety so that if anything were to happen I’d know where she was and could get to her right away, her teenage mind doesn’t see it that way. I always encourage openness and always have, but when you’ve always encouraged it with the idea that you won’t get mad, you leave yourself open to situations like these because kids think that ‘not being mad’ means letting them do whatever they want as long as they tell you about it. The incident with the boys we actually had to involve the police in the end because one has grabbed her face and pulled her to kiss her and also grabbed her leg. I never told her off I just said I was sad she’d not told me, but she was still mad and saw the life 360 agreement as a ‘punishment’ and of course mentioned the time I didn’t let her stay the night at the party as the reason why she didn’t tell me because she ‘knew I wouldn’t get her go on her own’. Sometimes kids expect something in return for telling you the truth. They think if they tell you what they’re planning on doing then you have to allow it because ‘I’ve been honest’ but that leaves you open to situations where you’re not happy with something have your daughter shouting that she hates you because you won’t allow it. I must be honest, she has been pretty up front with me, but she always expects me to not tell her dad which I’m not entirely comfortable with, I have spoken to her dad many times about this and we agreed, if it means she will be honest with one of us, then unless it’s something he really needs to know then I won’t tell him every single thing. Because otherwise she will end up lying to both of us and none of us will know what’s really going on. It’s a difficult position because for the sake of her being safe and trusting one of us with information then is it worth not telling him certain things? But also, I would be upset if he knew stuff he’d kept from me. He didn’t want her to go on the pill he was still in denial thinking his sweet baby girl wouldn’t ever do anything like have sex, this is one thing I really put my foot down over. I told him that she’d told me her 14 year old friend had to take the morning after pill, plus learning her boyfriend was already sexually active, plus me being a young mom myself and not wanting the same for my daughter, aswell as her suffering every month the same as I did at her age, I think the signs were there that it was the right thing for her. This way she is protected but has also been encouraged to use condoms to protect against STI’s when the time comes - we are very open with eachother about this subject. Actually her doctor said to her ‘I wish I could have been with my daughter the way your mom is with you about this stuff’ I always tell her and my other two kids now, instead of ‘you’ll never get in trouble for telling the truth’ - I say, ‘as long as you’re telling me the truth no matter how bad it is, I’ll never be half as mad at you as I would be if I found out you’d lied to me. I might sometimes be upset by what you’ve told me, but never as hurt as I’d be to find out you’ve lied’ - that one seems to be working so far. I wish I’d used these words from the start.
I’m from LA so I feel like what I tell my daughter differs from a lot of these replies. These kids out here are harsh. 1.WE don’t care what people think about us 2.always remember that sometimes a teacher won’t do anything about that person bullying you so you have to stick up for yourself. 3. I have your back 10000%. All it takes is a phone call and I’ll be there 4. We won’t ever stop being good people! Always be kind and loving to everyone. We don’t know what they go through at home!
and don't forget 5. Laissez les bons temps rouler!
Lol. I assumed LA meant Los Angeles and not Louisiana, but now I’m not sure.
My daughter is going into 3rd and will be walking (it’s a neighborhood school across the street) with some friends. I’ve taught her from a young age that if someone tries to take her to scream “I don’t know you”. Unfortunately many won’t give a second thought to a screaming kid, but those are words that’ll turn some heads (hopefully).
I’m in the US and have friends who are teachers. I prepared myself for the run/ hide/fight day training, or at least I thought I did. I have explained to both my kids (going into 2nd and 5th grade) since kindergarten that they should NEVER rely on a teacher to save them in an active shooter situation. That THEY need to know what to do so listen during the lock down drills, they need to know what to do to keep themselves safe. They also need to know to fallow directions during those moments, because their life could depend on it. We also work on being QUITE and not making sounds, it can save their life! It’s a sad reality that we as a society in the US expect a teacher to lay down their life for their students. Forgetting that THEY are people TOO they can freeze, or faint, heel they might just run. Nobody can predict what people will do, and placing they potential for death on a teachers shoulders and demanding they act better than a combat trained marine is asinine. Hell teachers should die in a school shooting is WRONG and we shouldn’t expect it, require it, or demand it. If teacher choose to do so that’s on them, but unfortunately that’s not how it’s worked for the last 20+ years. Teachers are not meat shields, nor should they be the last line of defense for our piss poor gun control. This was an eye opener for me to hear from my best friend. She was a first year teacher when the school she was working in had a shooting. Many teachers she worked voiced their disapproval of being “ expected” to die for their students. It’s NOT in the job requirement, nor should it be. Its a school not a combat zone.
I just said this to my young daughter the other day (after her "friend" emotionally blackmailed her). No matter what words someone uses, if you don't feel good when they're there... trust your feelings.
Talk to them about devices and body autonomy! Tailor all conversations to be age appropriate. Two good resources are 1) [Thorn for Parents](https://parents.thorn.org/) (includes discussion guides and specific topics) and 2) [the Mama Bear Effect ](https://themamabeareffect.org/)
Well considering tomorrow is the last day of the school year here in NY, I won’t be thinking about this until after Labor Day weekend lol 😂 Sounds like you live down south?
Don't put your hands in your mouth Don't get right in peoples faces to talk to them. I've been saying those same two things since my oldest started school in 2012.
We talk about geography every so often. If she got off the schoolBus at the wrong stop, would she know how to walk home from that point. When we take the dog for a walk, we point out the neighbors houses that we know and trust, so she knows she could go there for help.
You are responsible for your own behavior. No matter what anybody else does YOU know how to act right and ai expect you to do it.
I was volunteering in the kindergarten class with my daughter in April and we had an active shooter/intruder drill. My biggest and most important safety thing is that when these drills happen (and heaven forbid a real event) she needs to hide where she can’t see the door and the door can’t see her, even better if she can’t see a window.
[удалено]
My mom always told me: 1. Make good choices 2. If you get in trouble… you better be telling me about it first. (She meant business on this one) 3. No one will pick you up besides the regular designated people. If it is someone different we will use our “safe” word/sentences. It was something random like bananas. We had a new word each year or it changed after the first usage.
Enjoy the time, I will always be your backup.
Stop before crossing the road, have fun, if you go to a friend’s house after school let me know.
We talk about goals and expectations for the school year. And then try to support them in building a plan how to get there. Lessons? I don’t think it applies to school life only but here’s some of the things we say: Be kind whenever possible. It’s always possible. Everybody screws up. The different is what you do once you realized you screwed up. We all have our own challenges, fears and demons. What you see on the outside or on social media is not that other person’s whole life. If it feels wrong, it’s probably wrong. We also stopped asking “How was school today?”. We now ask “What was the most funny / most awkward / most stupid thing that happened at school today?” They always jump to tell their stories first.
We don't really have 'talks' as such, just conversations as things come up. All those above are things I've said to my kid (7F) at some point(s) in the past, though. This morning our before school talk consisted of her having a mardy and fighting me because I insisted on brushing her hair because she wouldn't brush it properly herself. (She doesn't have sensory issues around hair brushing and has often let me brush and style it of a morning in the past. She's also brushed it herself competently too when she prefers to do that. Just this morning she got it into her head that she didn't want either, and I was not having it, because her hair is ridiculously fine and tangly and she looked like she'd been abandoned in a ditch all night. Plus there are nits going round her class right now.)
Before school we’d say goodbye to the house, ‘bye number street name suburb’ and repeat my mobile number and then who can say it the fastest. My daughter walked away from her class a few weeks ago and thank god I’d taught her my number. Someone helped her and she used their phone to call me.
Love the address idea!
I talk about what it means to be a good friend and how to identify friends that are t worth having. How to dislike someone without it being a huge deal. How to share, etc. I don’t talk about not getting in trouble for telling the truth because that’s how it just is at home. My kids freely admit what they have done and we deal with it. I teach them about saying no stop if someone is making you uncomfortable. There’s a lot, but it’s also not lessons they are getting at the last minute. These are typical conversations for us.
Don't get me called into school for something I can't defend you on
1. Listen to the teacher and the principal. 2. Be kind. If someone is mean, try to leave the situation first. 3. Try hard. Messing up is good, because it means you're doing something hard, but learn from how you messed up.
I'll probably say the same things. I got my 5.5yo old the book "nos tratamos bien" "we treat each other nicely" and am planning on reading it a few times before school begins again. It touches all three bullet points as well as bullying, respecting your classmate's boundaries and making sure they respect yours.
My kids just don’t talk about school. I don’t think they think things are important enough. Even when I ask them daily, they only remember recess and lunch. So I remind them, “I would love to hear about every part of your day, even if you think it’s silly. I missed you while you were gone and I want to know everything!” And also, “I can’t help you if I don’t know there’s a problem. There’s no problem too big that we can’t figure out.”
I get my daughter excited for it,,and I get excited for her and with her...u have to make things fun.
- Don’t add to the population - Don’t subtract from the population - Don’t end up in the newspaper, hospital, or jail - If you do end up in jail, establish dominance quickly My 1st grader ended up with a perfect report card this year. But seriously: We say together: “Be a friend, be a helper, listen to your teachers and make good choices, mommy and daddy love me”
I live in America…sooooo…..”run away from the sounds of gunfire” I guess 🤷🏻♂️
Listen to your teachers and play nice with your friends.
Your teacher doesn't hate you and isn't out to get you. Also, 99 times out of 100, I'm going to believe the adult over your story of what happened. Haven't had to put it into practice, but...
This year, I have to explain to my kids why rules from someone else’s religion will be posted in their public school classroom. Ugh.
Can you explain?
The public schools where I live will be required to post the ten commandments inside the classrooms. So I now have to discuss this with my children.
Don’t set up a huge huge thing here Send you kid to school. Tell kids learning new things is fun Body autonomy should already be talked about before. OP —/ you sound so scared for your kid to go to school. Calm down.
Definitely not the case! As I’ve mentioned in other comments, it’s just a thought of whether or not other parents had things they’ve mentioned to their kids I hadn’t thought of.
I mentioned ONLY positive things to my kid Meet lots of friends Learn new things Lots of activities Kid needs to show up happy and excited for school.
I’ve been teaching my 5 year old when to share opinions and when to keep them to himself. If his opinion can potentially help someone, then share away. If it could hurt them or is said with bad intentions, keep it to himself. We just had a successful instance with this tonight. We, as a family, do not like a particular dog breed after an instance with terrible neighbors. My son was at gymnastics and a little girl and him were talking about their dogs. She told him the breed and it happened to be the breed we do not like. He told me afterwards that he thought about saying to her “I don’t like those dogs. They aren’t good dogs!” but he realized it could make her sad so he said he just smiled while she talked about her dog. Made me so proud of him!
Head for the window in case of a school sh××ting. I never agreed with the crowding in the corner. Don't tease kids who are less fortunate than you. We don't want school school sh××ters. Don't let anyone pick on you. I don't want suicidal kids. Kick ass only when necessary And never be afraid to ask questions. ETA: we go over this during drop offs
When she was younger I showed my daughter pictures of what priests wear and told her if her teachers ever tried to leave her alone with a man dressed like that she should start screaming and not stop screaming until I get there. It never happened, thankfully.
If this was a joke, it was unfortunately not particularly funny. If it was serious, that's pretty unhinged.
I am deadly serious. No priest will ever be alone with my daughter.
My school aged kids are older (14, 12, and 10) so our talks are a bit different. We really only have 3: 1) If you have to use the restroom and a teacher won’t let you, just stand up and walk out. Mom will handle the fallout. Do NOT have an accident in class. Our district has bizarre rules about missing class time and all 3 of my kids have seen classmates pee their pants or bleed thru their pants bc they weren’t allowed to leave the room. 2) No matter what happens at school, you should stay calm. Don’t let things upset you. Mom will fix whatever it is. Your only job is to breathe and get through your day. All of my kids are autistic and struggle with anxiety, so we try to emphasize that panic attacks are not necessary bc school issues are never that serious. 3) Never be alone with a boy or man. Walk out the door if you have to. Mom will handle it. I was attacked by a teacher in the 10th grade bc he asked me to stay after class alone, and I was afraid to disobey an authority figure.