My son has a question, lol, never a dull moment

mum2JK&TH

New Member
It's really never dull around here with my son. I got a call from the school earlier. During unsupervised indoor recess (will get back to that) things got a little out of control with a ball playing game and he fell backwards and hit his head on a bench. A bump later and a small but looks like fairly deep cut and a lot of blood, he wants to know "Does this mean I cracked my head open?" :rofl: It was enough that I had to pick him up from school.

I don't know the answer so I thought I'd ask you guys? What constitutes a cracking open of the head? :hammer:

Back to the school part, what are your schools rules about when kids have to stay indoors at recess due to bad weather? Ours is 2 Grade 6 kids watching a classroom of kids while a teacher peaks in every so often. I am frustrated because last week his hair was cut by another kid with a large pair of scissors and now this, both times....no teacher just two gr. 6's. It doesn't help that I run a daycare and have kids Gr. 6 in my daycare because they are quite ready to be left alone at home, BUT THEY CAN BE RESPONSIBLE FOR A ROOM FULL OF GR. 4 KIDS???!!!! :grrr:
(edited to add, difficult child just told me that one of these gr. 6's was actually involed in the ball throwing that the teacher had said not to do!)

Am I overreacting here?
 

Liahona

Active Member
I don't think your overreacting. My school has to have a teacher/aid with the kids. She has an aid in the room though and can step out leaving the kids with the aid for a few min.
 

Fran

Former desparate mom
Christine,
Rofl about cracking his head open. in my humble opinion, cracking one's head open would be if the bone was fractured. In which case, he as bigger fish to fry.
Splitting one's head open says to me that the skin split and the blood was everywhere. Which is much better than brain tissue being everywhere. I don't know that either are terribly accurate or medically sanctioned. LOL.

I don't know what to say about 6th graders watching 4th graders. I guess if difficult child had his hair cut and split his head open then it's not working and the school needs to find a better alternative.
 

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
Hope his head feels better...I do not think you're overreacting at all. Having sixth graders be responsible for all those kids during indoor recess is not acceptable, in my opinion. Our school have aides or teachers supervising at all times whether it's indoor or outdoor recess.
 

kris

New Member
<span style="color: #660000">i had two positions at the school i worked. first was a teaching assistant in the multiply handicapped classroom. the other was a playground aide. the aides were each assigned a classroom for days when inside recess was called for....if a child had a 1:1 aide the aide also was assigned to their classroom & helped out with-all the students. at NO TIME were students left in charge of other students.

kris </span>
 

givnmegryhr

New Member
We've had a couple of head injuries at school. I know how heartsinking it is until you get there to assess it yourself. I hope he's ok. My son tripped on the blacktop and got brush burns all down the side of his face , legs and body. The nurse was so focused on that , that she didn't notice the huge goose egg on his head. Gee,no wonder he felt nauseous. He was fine, thank goodness.
I would be complaining to the principal if there were no teachers present. The haircutting incident you would think would've been enough for them to realize!
 

dreamer

New Member
LOL, technically, well, LOL- I guess he could say yes he did......
DO be cautious with a head injury. closed head injuries can be much more serious than they appear.....
as for kids watching kids? while leaving a grade 6 home alone might work sorta ok, and is legal in many areas, leaving that many kids such a large group alone that way is a different story. Peer pressure, bullying, more heads being better than one to come up with "brilliant ideas" ------not at all a good idea. Not in my opinion.
As for injuries...well our school has supervised recess indoors and out, but a classmate of my son fell with adult supervision, smacked her head, adult (paid, not volunteers, not teachers) recess aide took her to the school nurse who then sent kid to class, and minutes later the kid was airlifted out to a city childrens hospital ICU for brain injury....but the school nurse thought the kid was "just fine"
Aw heck......our local ER said my sons poked out eye was "just fine", too and 5 days later we were in a major univ teaching hospital in emergency surgery on that eye.

So- who knows how much difference it makes sometimes?
BUT I sure would NOT be happy with ANY grade, not even HS being left alone unsupervised at school, no way. Not a group- and not during unstructured paly for sure. in my opinion thats just asking for trouble.
 

Sheila

Moderator
Sounds like a lawsuit in the making if they don't stop this practice.

I don't know what the rules are, of course, but it wouldn't really matter if they allowed for kids to babysit younger children. I want my son appropriately supervised at all times -- period. And he's 13!

Can't you just hear the headline news if you left your child + 20 other with two six graders? CPS would be there so fast it'd make your head swim.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
I wonder just how many parents would side with you to complain to the principal about this practice of kids watching kids? Probably alot of them, I know I would.

As for difficult child cracking his head open......

Fran had it on the nose. Cracking entails the bone, Splitting is the skin. I have personal experiance with both. So you can confidently tell difficult child that you actually know someone who has "cracked" their head open. lmao

Keep an eye on him. You don't know how hard he hit his head. Must've been fairly hard to cause a gash.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
I've got a dry sense of humor and usually say things like, "Not technically, but since there's a lot of blood, you can tell your friends you cracked your head open if you want." :wink:
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I remember from my own school days, the "she split her head open" line. It was never properly defined for me back then and I never actually saw it, only got told of it. My visualisation was of a head literally cracked open so you could see the brain inside. Now I know that was not the case - it was a deep scalp would, technically a laceration. The scalp is highly vascularised and innervated, so a deep gash will bleed like crazy and also hurt a lot. The lips of the wound will also tend to pull apart - I remember difficult child 1 gashing his scalp and needing stitches.

As for kids supervising kids - it should not be permitted, let alone be the strategy.
We had a Year 6 teacher who would leave the classroom with a student chosen at random left in charge. No talking or misbehaving was permitted and the student left in charge was told to write on the board the name of any student doing the wrong thing. This encouraged a form of power bullying, with the student writing down the names of kids they didn't like and ignoring the misbehaviour of friends. Often, as the teacher was coming back, some names would be rubbed off and not others. Bribery and corruption was rife. The punishment for having your name on the board - lines.

From a safety point of view this is unacceptable. As someone else said, CPS would read the riot act to any parent using grade 6 kids to supervise even a fraction of that number of younger kids. And their failure to appropriately respond to the hair-cutting led to the escalation of misbehaviour.
If the kids were outdoors there would be playground supervision. In the same way there should be classroom supervision. They are failing in their duty of care and your child's injuries are the result.
Why not send them the bill, along with your letter of complaint? And cc it to the District Office as well as CPS?

Marg
 

RAZZLYNNE17

New Member
Hi i hope his head gets better. When my son was in the younger grades k-6, there are recess moniters who takes care of the kids, no way can they be left alone. I don't think sixth graders can handle taking care of their younger classmate!
 
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