Student deliberately poked a pencil point into my son's leg

[LightToast]

What would you do if your kid was deliberately poked in the leg with a pencil point by another student? This is 1st grade. It was unprovoked.

The kid just walked up to my son, while he was sitting at his desk and pushed the pencil hard into his leg, hard enough to leave a circular bruise the diameter of the pencil. Then my son grabbed the pencil away from the boy and told him to stop. DS said the boy kind of chuckled then said he was sorry. Then ds gave him the pencil back.

My son didn't tell the teacher because he was too afraid to get up from his seat because he says that if anyone tries to get up she tells them to go sit down. This happened at the end of the day when everyone was packing up their things to go home. 

I'm not sure what would possess a person to deliberately do something so nasty. It really ticks me off because this boy has been trouble all.year.long.

I just emailed the teacher to make her aware of the incident. I guess that's all I can do for now. Needless to say this is very concerning. 

[sapphire_chan]

So the class troublemaker decided to stab your son? Hmm, if it were a one time thing, I'd suspect the kid was pretending to give a flu shot. As it is, I think it's more that the kid was curious what would happen if he poked someone with a pencil.

Normal 6-8 year old behavior, but it's not normal that the teacher hasn't already figured that the kid is in that sort of phase and acted to keep him better supervised.

And I'd expect a reply back ASAP from the teacher. Right after whatever time she usually checks her email.

[LightToast]

Teacher did respond right away and that's good. I hope she will keep a better eye on this little boy because he's notorious for acting out in devious ways.

When asked this morning if he had poked my son, he denied doing it. I don't think there's much we can do since the boy denied it. The teacher said she talked to the boys and they shook hands, I guess as a peace offering or whatever. I'm not certain that I'm satisfied because this isn't the first time the boy has hurt another child in the class.

In addition, I'm pretty certain the boy is classified as special needs and I think it has to be a behavioral issue. When I was in school, if a child acted as he does he would have been removed from the classroom setting long ago. I'm dissatisfied that he remains in the class without more help to watch him.

Sadly, I know it comes down to lack of money. If I could be in the classroom I would volunteer to get in there and supervise these children as an extra set of eyes and ears. They need more adults to give them more time and attention so that things like this don't keep occurring. It's unfair to the students and to the teachers too.  

The more I think about it, the more I realize just how ridiculous the setting is. Why have 20 6 and 7 year olds together at one time and only 1 or 2 ppl to educate and watch over them? That just sounds ridiculous, especially when half the class is special needs. 

[One_Girl]

I suggest teaching your son to say Ouch or Stop really loud if someone does something to hurt him during class.  That gets the teachers attention and alerts them to the fact that something is up.  In a class of 20 even the most with it teacher is going to have a hard time noticing everything that happens because there are things happening everywhere and she has to teach at the same time.  It takes a long time to get a child an aid or placement out of the classroom even with severe behavior problems and it is made more difficult if the child's parent resists (it can take years if the parent resists and they have to wait until the child does things that are bad enough to expel him for).  Making sure the teacher knows each time this boy hurts your son will help with that process, especially if your son makes noise so the teacher catches him in the act.