bigbottom
Footballguy
A disturbing story unfolding involving threats against my 10-year-old son by another kid in his fifth grade class. I'm concerned, worried and mad, but suspect that I may need a bit of a gut check. Here's the situation:
My son goes to a small private school. There are only 25 boys in fifth grade, and they're all in the same class. This year, several new students joined the class. One of them, we'll call him Greg, has had behavioral issues the entire school year. This has been reported to us, not by the school administration, but from my son, the other boys in his class, and their parents. The issues are primarily anger management and impulse control problems. Every little thing will cause him to lose his temper. Gets tagged out in dodgeball, he'll start cussing and swearing at the other kids. It's not uncommon for him to scream things like I hate this school and I hate all of you. He's instigated at least two physical confrontations: he punched another boy in the face, and he hit my son in the face. He swears regularly - not in casual conversation like some boys his age, but rather at people in anger. When he gets angry, his face gets red and he clenches his fists. And he's also physically imposing. Much taller, bigger and stronger than most of the boys in his class. The boys in the class, including my son, are afraid of him. And all indications are that this is not a situtation where the new kid is getting bullied - quite the opposite. With respect to the two incidents where he punched his classmates, the teacher was notified, but he did not receive detention or any other punishment that we're aware of. Most of the other behavior goes unreported, in part because of the intimidation factor.
Okay, these issues are a concern, but nothing too crazy. The kid's got anger issues and impulse control problems. Okay. But in the past day, I've learned that Greg has really been focusing his anger on my son. As stupid as it is, there is a girl in the fifth grade that Greg has a fixation on. He says that he is madly in love with her and can't live without her (his words). Well, this girl happens to like my son. (Seriously, these kids are freaking ten years old.) As a result, Greg has verbally expressed his hatred of my son. And not only in these uncontrolled outbursts. Last weekend, my son had a sleepover at a friend's house. They were playing XBox online and apparently Greg was on. He told my son, in a very measured tone "I may be nice to you on the outside, but inside, I deeply hate you." My son is afraid of him, and does his best to avoid him at school, which is difficult since they're in every class together.
So yesterday is when things got escalated. He stated to a couple of kids in the class: "If it were legal, I'd strangle [my son's name] and kill him." The kids he said this to were freaked out. They told a couple other kids in the class and then one of them went to the teacher to report the threatening statement. The kids said that the teacher confronted Greg, he denied it, and then turned around and dropped the F-bomb. Later that day, Greg confronted the kid who reported him and got in his face with fists clenched, threatening him for being a tattle tale. As far as we are aware, Greg did not receive detention or any other punishment for making the threat.
My son had a track meet yesterday, so he went straight from school to the meet and we didn't see him. Shortly after the school day ended, my wife received calls from multiple parents to ask her if she was aware of what happened (she wasn't). Apparently, a number of the students in my son's class had gone home and reported the day's events to their parents. Obviously my wife was freaked out, and the parents she spoke to are freaked out as well, because it is common knowledge that this kid has issues. What floors me is that we were notified of the threat against our child not by the school, but by other parents in the class.
The other piece of the puzzle that concerns me is that Greg had a birthday party a few months ago. The birthday party was held at a gun range where the boys would be firing pistols and rifles. Not BB guns, or AirSoft - actual handguns and rifles. Now I live in Texas, and pretty much everyone has a gun here. My 10-year-old has a .22 rifle that he shots when he goes to his grandpa's ranch. But a fifth grade birthday party at the gun range is a bit nuts, even for Texas. My son had no interest in going and from what I understand a number of other parents didn't let their kids go. I've never met Greg's dad. Greg's parents are divorced and he lives with his mom. His mom seems extremely nice.
So this morning we ask for a meeting with the school administration. They know nothing about any problems with Greg. Nothing has been reported to them by the fifth grade teacher. They were not aware of yesterday's threat, and were floored that they had not been made aware of it. And during the meeting, reference was made that before Greg started at the school this year, there were discussions with his mother about problems at prior schools, though the details were not disclosed to us for confidentiality reasons. So perhaps the kid has been expelled from prior schools. At the very least, it appears that there were problems. They assured us that they would take immediate steps to investigate and assess the situation. We made no demands as to what action should be taken, and are waiting to hear back.
I'm definitely in the boys will be boys camp. I blew off the prior physical confrontations because, even though hitting people in the face isn't common at our school, it wasn't all that uncommon when I was growing up. But these recent revelations have me very worried.
We have a kid with obvious anger management and impulse control issues. He apparently has a history of these issues at past schools. He verbally expresses hatred. He has focused that hatred on my son. He has verbally articulated a threat to kill my son (whether veiled, conditional, whatever). And he made that threat not in the middle of a confrontation or an outburst when someone might say stupid things. He referenced killing my son calmly, in conversation. And he's a gun nut. I think you'd have to be a gun nut to want to have your 11th birthday party at a gun range with firearms. I have no idea what access this kid has to gunds or other weapons, but I have to assume that they are in the house.
So my question to the FFA: Am I wrong to be freaking out about this?
p.s. Apologies for the length, and for any typos as I'm not proofreading this.
p.p.s. And one other odd fact. The track season is almost over. There is one more meet. My son is only one of three boys from his class on the team. Apparently, yesterday, when the season is just about over, Greg decided to join the track team. He didn't go to yesterday's meet as it was too late. But it's odd to join a sport so late in the year. Could it be that he wants to get closer to my son, particularly when they will be off campus and largely unsupervised? Probably not, but it's a nagging question.
My son goes to a small private school. There are only 25 boys in fifth grade, and they're all in the same class. This year, several new students joined the class. One of them, we'll call him Greg, has had behavioral issues the entire school year. This has been reported to us, not by the school administration, but from my son, the other boys in his class, and their parents. The issues are primarily anger management and impulse control problems. Every little thing will cause him to lose his temper. Gets tagged out in dodgeball, he'll start cussing and swearing at the other kids. It's not uncommon for him to scream things like I hate this school and I hate all of you. He's instigated at least two physical confrontations: he punched another boy in the face, and he hit my son in the face. He swears regularly - not in casual conversation like some boys his age, but rather at people in anger. When he gets angry, his face gets red and he clenches his fists. And he's also physically imposing. Much taller, bigger and stronger than most of the boys in his class. The boys in the class, including my son, are afraid of him. And all indications are that this is not a situtation where the new kid is getting bullied - quite the opposite. With respect to the two incidents where he punched his classmates, the teacher was notified, but he did not receive detention or any other punishment that we're aware of. Most of the other behavior goes unreported, in part because of the intimidation factor.
Okay, these issues are a concern, but nothing too crazy. The kid's got anger issues and impulse control problems. Okay. But in the past day, I've learned that Greg has really been focusing his anger on my son. As stupid as it is, there is a girl in the fifth grade that Greg has a fixation on. He says that he is madly in love with her and can't live without her (his words). Well, this girl happens to like my son. (Seriously, these kids are freaking ten years old.) As a result, Greg has verbally expressed his hatred of my son. And not only in these uncontrolled outbursts. Last weekend, my son had a sleepover at a friend's house. They were playing XBox online and apparently Greg was on. He told my son, in a very measured tone "I may be nice to you on the outside, but inside, I deeply hate you." My son is afraid of him, and does his best to avoid him at school, which is difficult since they're in every class together.
So yesterday is when things got escalated. He stated to a couple of kids in the class: "If it were legal, I'd strangle [my son's name] and kill him." The kids he said this to were freaked out. They told a couple other kids in the class and then one of them went to the teacher to report the threatening statement. The kids said that the teacher confronted Greg, he denied it, and then turned around and dropped the F-bomb. Later that day, Greg confronted the kid who reported him and got in his face with fists clenched, threatening him for being a tattle tale. As far as we are aware, Greg did not receive detention or any other punishment for making the threat.
My son had a track meet yesterday, so he went straight from school to the meet and we didn't see him. Shortly after the school day ended, my wife received calls from multiple parents to ask her if she was aware of what happened (she wasn't). Apparently, a number of the students in my son's class had gone home and reported the day's events to their parents. Obviously my wife was freaked out, and the parents she spoke to are freaked out as well, because it is common knowledge that this kid has issues. What floors me is that we were notified of the threat against our child not by the school, but by other parents in the class.
The other piece of the puzzle that concerns me is that Greg had a birthday party a few months ago. The birthday party was held at a gun range where the boys would be firing pistols and rifles. Not BB guns, or AirSoft - actual handguns and rifles. Now I live in Texas, and pretty much everyone has a gun here. My 10-year-old has a .22 rifle that he shots when he goes to his grandpa's ranch. But a fifth grade birthday party at the gun range is a bit nuts, even for Texas. My son had no interest in going and from what I understand a number of other parents didn't let their kids go. I've never met Greg's dad. Greg's parents are divorced and he lives with his mom. His mom seems extremely nice.
So this morning we ask for a meeting with the school administration. They know nothing about any problems with Greg. Nothing has been reported to them by the fifth grade teacher. They were not aware of yesterday's threat, and were floored that they had not been made aware of it. And during the meeting, reference was made that before Greg started at the school this year, there were discussions with his mother about problems at prior schools, though the details were not disclosed to us for confidentiality reasons. So perhaps the kid has been expelled from prior schools. At the very least, it appears that there were problems. They assured us that they would take immediate steps to investigate and assess the situation. We made no demands as to what action should be taken, and are waiting to hear back.
I'm definitely in the boys will be boys camp. I blew off the prior physical confrontations because, even though hitting people in the face isn't common at our school, it wasn't all that uncommon when I was growing up. But these recent revelations have me very worried.
We have a kid with obvious anger management and impulse control issues. He apparently has a history of these issues at past schools. He verbally expresses hatred. He has focused that hatred on my son. He has verbally articulated a threat to kill my son (whether veiled, conditional, whatever). And he made that threat not in the middle of a confrontation or an outburst when someone might say stupid things. He referenced killing my son calmly, in conversation. And he's a gun nut. I think you'd have to be a gun nut to want to have your 11th birthday party at a gun range with firearms. I have no idea what access this kid has to gunds or other weapons, but I have to assume that they are in the house.
So my question to the FFA: Am I wrong to be freaking out about this?
p.s. Apologies for the length, and for any typos as I'm not proofreading this.
p.p.s. And one other odd fact. The track season is almost over. There is one more meet. My son is only one of three boys from his class on the team. Apparently, yesterday, when the season is just about over, Greg decided to join the track team. He didn't go to yesterday's meet as it was too late. But it's odd to join a sport so late in the year. Could it be that he wants to get closer to my son, particularly when they will be off campus and largely unsupervised? Probably not, but it's a nagging question.
for me.
