I read about this news story on a forum that I frequent… it caused quite a stir this morning… and quite rightly so!

The full story is here, but basically there’s a court case in Cape Town at the moment where the parents of an 8 year old are trying to get his school to take him back after he made a younger kid have oral sex with him, and then threatened to kill him if he told anyone!

The mind boggles!

A few things bother me about this story…

1. Obviously the fact that this happens in primary schools is VERY concerning… and extremely shocking… and very sad. And I get scared for my boys… but enough of me and my fears…

2. I immediately start thinking about why this boy would be doing things like that… and the first thing that springs to mind is that he must be sexually abused at home. Why else? It’s not normal, by any stretch of the imagination.

3. Kids are cruel. Everyone knows that. So why are his parents insisting that he goes back to that school? Just because his name is being kept out of the papers, doesn’t mean that the entire school doesn’t know who it is. If I were his parents, there is no way on God’s earth that I’d let my son go back to that school. Are they that intent on making him more of a social reject? The kid’s got his whole life ahead of him!

4. And lastly, the comment by the Western Cape Education Head…

He apparently claimed that in this particular situation, it had not been proven that the eight-year-old had been able to distinguish right from wrong. He suggested the boy and other pupils who had been involved receive “urgent intensive therapy”.

WTF??!?!? I’m sorry… I don’t get it… so now… if an 8 year old kills someone in the playground but can’t distinguish between right and wrong, he should be given a slap on the wrist and be told to “play nicely”?

This entire story stinks!!