"It's the parents' fault". We rattle the line off like the refrain of a song.
Fingers point at parents when a child is violent in school. Surely it's more complex.
Yesterday morning, a 7-year-old boy with scissors in hand smashed windows at Mangakahia Area School. The school went into lock-down after the boy smashed three windows. He had become upset during class. Who knows what triggered the outburst. What terror fell on teachers and pupils when the small child's emotions could no longer stay inside his head or body and he exploded into a violent fit of rage?
Tikipunga High School is working with a family to help a 13-year-old girl. Her mother told the Advocate that she had been the victim of a violent attack and had now become the bully. She has gone 10 months without school as her parents and school try to find a solution.
The co-ordinator of Alternative Education Whangarei, a school which caters for students who have been excluded from mainstream schools, says all 59 places at the school had been taken for term one this year.