I spoke to a friend today who told me that her 10yr old son, who is a close friend of Little mans and who spends a lot of time with us as a family(holidays included), had had his head smashed against a fence twice, punched in the face and then kicked in the stomach. He, being a strong boy both physically and emotionally, actually dealt with it very well and laughed at his attacker and ran away. His attacker is also 10 and has been in the same class at school with her son since they started school. I know both boys very well as my little man also used to go to the same school and was in the same class until very recently when he changed schools for the final year (Yr6)

It then transpired that my friend received a phone call from another child telling her what had happened and that her son had run from the scene, but that the other boy was looking for him and he had a knife. She obviously went out looking for her son, but met up with the other boy before catching up with her son. I think she handled it better than I would have done in the circumstances and basically told the boy that if he had problems with her son, that fighting was not the answer and to calm down and sorting out was the best way to go.

The following day she had a word with the teacher of the boys, basically just advising that there had been a problem, she was not sure what had caused it, but she would appreciate it if they could keep their eyes open for anything and keep them apart for a short while until they had managed to sort themselves out.

It then transpires that the "attacker" was suspended for a week because he had taken the knife into school that day, for what reason we are unsure but that he had taken it in intentionally and he had said that he was going to "hurt" someone.

This child is 10. What on earth is going on! My little mans friend is okay about it all, but I am not so sure that I feel that calm about it and our family were not involved in it.

I'm just in shock to be honest that a child of 10 could do this?!?