Children are naturally active and love to play around, stumble, and accidentally hurt themselves. While you’re pretty confident that your child is well-taken care of in school, there are times when a child is hurt by another child because of bullying or negligence on the part of the teachers or management.
How do schools manage such issues? Can you sue the school? And, what if your child is hurt by another student? Know how to protect your child's rights, safety, and well-being by reading below.
Counseling: Talk to Your Child
Upon seeking medical attention, it's important to show your love and comfort to your child after the accident. Even if it's a minor case, a child that got hurt in school because of injury or caused by someone else’s negligence or intentional actions can result in psychological impacts.
Here are some tips to get your child talk about the incident:
- Show Your Love and Care: Show your child that you're willing to listen to what they’re about to narrate by talking calmly and gently. Avoid overreacting, shouting, or showing anger in front of your injured child. Explain to your child privately that you're sad about what happened but assure that you're there to protect them.
- Consult a Child Psychologist: If your child acts differently or show unusual behavior days or weeks after the incident, it's important to seek the help of a child psychologist to help your child work through their thoughts and emotions, express themself in a more positive way, and avoid detrimental long-term psychological impacts caused by shame or bullying.
Get Legal: Consult a Personal Injury Lawyer
Schools are children's second home, and children's safety is always a priority. A school or any child care facility is supposed to provide a safe environment for your child during the time away from home. Teachers act as second parents, ensuring that students get adequate nutrition or access to food, safe shelter, reliable transportation, available medication, and guaranteed safety.
However, there are cases wherein child care facilities and schools fail to ensure the safety of children because of negligence. If you believe that your child got hurt because of negligence on the part of the school, you may consult a personal injury lawyer to know your child's rights and protect their welfare and general well-being.
Here's how a personal injury lawyer can help:
- Answer any personal injury question so that you can make a sound legal course of action as needed.
- Check available legal options to protect your child's rights and best interests.
- Evaluate your child's personal injury claim and determine if you have a strong case or not.
Filing a Lawsuit: Consider the Type of School
If your child gets hurt, who’ll pay for the treatment? Now, it gets tricky on this part, and the type of school your child goes to will determine who’ll pay for the treatment of your child's injuries. Schools usually have a few defenses, such as sovereign immunity. Of course, you'll also need to know the degree of your child's involvement in the accident.
Here are the important things you have to know before filing a lawsuit:
- If your child attends a public school, it's treated as a political subdivision. You need to report the accident first to the school district before you file a lawsuit.
- If it's a private school, then you can directly sue the school.
- When filing a lawsuit, you have to make sure that you know the statutes of limitation or the amount of time you can file a lawsuit before it expires or you're not allowed to file one anymore. If it's a government case, you have 60 to 90 days to file a claim from the time your child got hurt or was injured.
Note that waivers can be used as another defense. When going on a field trip or playing sports, parents are usually asked to sign a waiver beforehand, acknowledging the risks of travel and playing sport. That's why it's important to talk to a lawyer to see how strong the waiver is and if there are loopholes available.
Conclusion
It's important to know the next steps you need to do if your child gets hurt. Of course, you have to ensure that your child's injuries are attended.
Since an incident can be traumatic to a child, you have to consult a child psychologist as needed and hire a personal injury lawyer to know the legal actions you have to take, most especially if your child got hurt badly.
