A friend of ours hit our child - what should we do?

Quote:

I suppose you will have to learn yourself

Not everyone likes to go through life with their head in the sand and unchallenged, some of us have learned that the best relationships and interactions are both cooperative and combative, and so we dont shy away from conflict.....a relevant point for this thread, both when considering what happened and what the reaction to the event was. I have argued for pages that the main problem now is that these people refuse to talk to each other, refuse to have it out. This aversion to the face down (and potentially face up and thus possibly coming to terms) is what dooms the relationship and also any learning that could come from this sad story.

She says her kid was hit when clearly he was not, and her english is good enough that she should know how wrong the word hit is in this case.

She knows a guy very well for ten years and yet she had no clue that he had putting hands on her kid in apparent anger in him

She has shown no interest in knowing why he did what he did, she would rather evade the reality and come to A2K for support or her evasion.

She says that she is very strict and that her kids are well behaved and yet this event certainly calls this into question. I have known kids who were well trained by their parents to behave, and they dont generally disobey to this extreme in a potentially dangerous situation, they know better.

She has yet to admit that her kid did not behave from what I can find, I see that he apologized but has she told either us or the ex friend that her kid was out of line? I dont think so.

We certainly did talk to our son about his behavior and explained to him that if he listened to the man and did what he asked right away, nothing would have happened.

She has yet to admit the she and her husband could have handled this better, they attacked their friend for lying hands on their kid but I see no evidence that they have acted towards him in the slightest bit as a long term friend has earned.

odess, More to the fact that those who play musical instruments are usually better in school/more intelligent. It's something I read many years ago about a study done about students that played musical instruments. From personal observations about our own children and children of friends that play musical instruments, they have all done very well in school.

There was one time 5 years ago, my son was 6 then, we were having lunch together at a restaurant, and my son talked too much and asked the man too many questions, so he finally started yelling at him to shut up because he wanted quiet during lunch. I remember confronting him immediately and asking him to never yell at my son, but talk to me or my husband first. My husband wasn't there at that precise moment (in case hawkeye will want to point out that "hubby" didn't solve this in a man-to-man way) so I had to handle that myself. Other than that, I don't remember anything that would worry me. But maybe I'm a bad judge of character. This morning I talked to my dad on the phone about this incident, and he told me he never liked the guy. I asked him why, and he said he wasn't sure, he just had a weird feeling about him. There were a couple of things the guy said to him that he didn't like, like for instance, he said he thought parents who make their kids learn how to play musical instruments are complete idiots - he would never do that. (Sounds weird, isn't it???? Yet doesn't mean the guy's out of line). I don't remember ever discussing this topic with him, so I don't really know what to say.

Drs. Gottfried Schlaug and Ellen Winner led the Harvard University study in which 41 eight- to eleven-year-olds who had studied either piano or a string instrument for a minimum of three years were compared to 18 children who had no instrumental training. Children in both groups spent 30-40 minutes per week in general music classes at school, but those in the instrumental group also received private lessons learning an instrument (averaging 45 minutes per week) and spent additional time practicing at home.

While it is no surprise that the young musicians scored significantly higher than those in the control group on two skills closely related to their music training (auditory discrimination and finger dexterity), the more surprising result was that they also scored higher in two skills that appear unrelated to music—verbal ability (as measured by a vocabulary IQ test) and visual pattern completion (as measured by the Raven's Progressive Matrices). And furthermore, the longer and more intensely the child had studied his or her instrument, the better he or she scored on these tests.
Studying an instrument thus seems to bring benefits in areas beyond those that are specifically targeted by music instruction, but that is not the end of the story. Although this research sheds light on the question of whether connections between music and other, unrelated skills do exist, more studies examining the causal relationships between instrumental music training, practice intensity, and cognitive enhancements are needed

I typed "musical instruments and intelligence," and got the following.

Listen to the bunny, odessitka.
I doubt it says in her profile but she deals with a lot of trouble. Her advice, usually very short, if ever, is right on, if she gives it, not often. She has enough trouble at work.

My husband, our kids, and myself were spending a day out by the oceanside with another couple and their kids, our long-time friends. At some point we came across a huge fallen tree, and our friend L. climbed on it and started walking up. Our 11 year-old son followed him, but L. suddenly realized they won't be able to get down that easily. He turned back and asked our son to get away and down to give him room to get down, too. Our son stopped but didn't get out of his way at once. He was having fun, and we had to tell him 2 more times, and then he obeyed. After that L. got back down, and he suddenly grabbed our son from behind and threw him on the ground with all his might, yelling at him. We were stupefied. A 215lbs 38 year old man could have easily injured him. Fortunately he got up unscathed albeit very frightened. We are in deep shock, we never hit our children. Does anybody know if there are legal ways to teach the man a lesson - but not monetary? Is there any point in filing a police report? Thank you!

You wanting to jam up a guy with the state, a guy you called a friend, over THAT? Hopefully word gets around that this is how you treat people, and you get shunned. Your kid was not minding, and if my guess is right you have a habit of not dealing with your wayward children, and this time it was enough to provoke this guy. I would expect his explanation to be that your kid was causing a dangerous situation, and in the interest of trying to make sure that your brat of a child learned his lesson he went too far.......but given that is motives were pure the state should not cause him problems.

That aside, and sinse it's not the purpose of this thread, I guess I just have to thank you for being that-guy-who-contradicts-everyone-and-the-common-sense-itself-and-by-doing-so-keeps-the-discussion-alive.

he is arguing for a lower multiplier as he has done on other threads involving one strike and your out type incidents.

Odessitka and her husband are the only people who can decide whether it is appropriate to save their relationship with the other couple.

wandeljw wrote:

Odessitka and her husband are the only people who can decide whether it is appropriate to save their relationship with the other couple.

The collective has in interest in teaching individuals that one should attempt to exit long term close relationships with honor. Public disapproval upon refusing to do that is appropriate.

THAT is what the police are for.
That is what we all pay our taxes for.

Call the police as soon as possible.

I don't think that is quite the case here. Everyone makes evaluations in relationships. How much good am I getting, how much bad, is the balance such that I want to continue this relationship? Hawk has repeatedly argued in many different threads that the balance should be different than where many people place it. For example, if your CEO is stealing from the company but he brings in lots of money, Hawk has argued that you retain the CEO. Here he argues that ten years of friendship potentially outweighs one incident, even one that would have a significant "multiplier" due to its seriousness. My multiplier is 100,000 for getting physical with my child, so if I knew someone for the last 274 years, I would consider letting this particular incident slide provided it didn't happen again. If I read his argument correctly, he is arguing for a lower multiplier as he has done on other threads involving one strike and your out type incidents. As usual, I disagree with him, but I do not think he is just trolling.

Odessitka and her husband are the only people who can decide whether it is appropriate to save their relationship with the other couple.