Is This the Youngest American to Be Served a Restraining Order?

Restraining orders aren’t uncommon among grown adults, even between divorced couples embroiled in bitter conflict, but they typically do not apply to young children. Until now.

A restraining order is a temporary court order that can be requested in order to protect an individual from contact with another person who is deemed dangerous. While most eight-year-old boys are playing outside or watching cartoons, Peyton Whitehead of Missouri is dealing with the fallout from being served a restraining order in his own classroom.

It was only the second day of school when a deputy served Peyton with a restraining order as he sat in class. The father who filed for the restraining order had grown increasingly concerned about Peyton’s behavior for his children and felt that a restraining order would be the only protective measure strong enough to keep his kids safe.

Based on the papers filed with the restraining order, Peyton punched a seven-year-old boy four or five times in the arm, then threatened to “slice his head off.” Just a week later on the school bus, he told an eight-year-old girl that would was “going to murder her with a knife and throw her off a cliff,” then kill her dog. Peyton was also found beating his porch viciously with a baseball bat and then threatening two children with it, going so far as to tell those children that his mother kept a gun in her purse.

Peyton’s mother defended her son to reporters by explaining that the action taken against her son was a backhanded effort to take revenge on her personally. “This is an active retaliation against us because we’re questioning the bylaws of our little community here. Unfortunately, my son was caught in the crossfires.” Whitehead emphasized to reporters that her son was the true victim of bullying and had a behavior plan worked out with the school counselor. Until his hearing, Peyton is not allowed to attend school, and he must stay 1,000 feet away from the other six children protected under the restraining order.

But Payton isn’t the only child to be served a restraining order. A California father filed a restraining order against a 9-year-old boy in 2014 because the boy physically and verbally abused his son. “I am trying to protect [the children] from future attacks by this young man,” Stephen Feudner told reporters.