kid brought knife to DDs school
Mountaineers
member
DD is in 1st grade and a 3rd grader in her school brought a knife to school today. The cops were called and Im assuming the child is no longer in school. I heard about it from a friend. Who found out bc she was in the nail salon with a mother who recieved a call bc her daughter was in the class with the boy. Otherwise no other parents were called. Do you feel that you have the right to know what is going on at school even though no threats were made and nothing happened? It was probably a boy who got a pocket knife and wanted to show it off but what if it wasnt. I just feel like homeschooling my children. I feel like our children arent as safe as they should be. Its too easy to get stuff in school. I get that a child could slip a knife in their pocket and you not know about it. But my 1st grader knows about right and wrong. She knows about real life stuff shes never been sheltered. How does a 3rd grader not know he cant bring a knife to school. Some parents really piss me off! My mind is jumping to conclusions and imagining the what ifs. Im really upset
Re: kid brought knife to DDs school
If my child was in the same class, it would be nice to get a phone call. Otherwise, a letter from the school if my child wasn't in the class. So maybe you'll get a letter when DD comes home.
As for how a 3rd grader doesn't know not to bring a knife to school, he may or may not, but remember, maybe to them, a knife is a utensil you eat with, he may not think a pocket knife is the same, children are very literal. That doesn't mean it's not the parent's fault, they should not have that anywhere near where a child could get to it.
As far as the whole homeschooling them, to me I'm tired of every time something like this happens people want to automatically home school. Do we stay away from malls when shootings happen there or not drive when accidents happen in our cars? People are more dangerous now driving & talking & texting, yet, we still drive w/our kids. We might as well stay in a bubble in a field far far away from civilization.
Of course our minds are the worse, when we let them run wild, we get ourselves all worked up (I'm guilty of that!).
Okay, it's entirely possible that the kid is a psychopathic, criminal-minded 9 year old product of dreadful parenting.
But it's also possible (and much more likely) that he is a normal kid who made a mistake. Maybe he got a pocket knife from his grandpa for Christmas and he wanted to show it off to friends? Maybe he talked about having a knife at school and friends dared him to bring it? Maybe he's been bullied, and he wanted to scare the kids in a misguided attempt to fight back? A child bringing a weapon to school without realizing how serious the adults will take it actually isn't that uncommon.
No matter what, the school -- especially so close to the Sandy Hook ES tragedy -- is going to react as though it's the worst case scenario. But you'll never know the real story, because the parental gossip mill is already in full swing. Just like you, all the other parents are in full freak-out mode.
Both my kids' schools have had oddball incidents of a similar nature. When this happens, we usually get a robo-call from the principal explaining the incident, followed up with a letter via backpack express.
To help keep this in perspective, my kids attend good schools in an affluent area that has one of the best school systems in the country. In the last two years, I've gotten robo calls from the school about: a bus accident in which children were injured (bus driver at fault!), a sixth grader who was hit by a car in front of the school and badly injured, a fist-fight between two PE teachers, and an incident in which an elementary school kid brought an "unidentified substance" to the school and got in trouble for it.