Tricky situation with 'friend'

[theluckiest]

Ok this is a bit of a dilemma and not sure how to tackle it. My DS is 5 and in yr1, very happy, lots of friends, getting on well. Good feedback from teacher and all is well.

When DS started at the pre-school he made a friend who lives on the same road as us. Lets call him Sam. I became good friends with Sams mum and we socialise sometimes. However, Me and DH are rather judgy about Sam's mum & dad's parenting style which seems to consist of distracting Sam when he throws a wobbly and no consequences for poor behaviour. His mum rarely deals with bad behaviour (even once when they were here at my house...'Sam don't throw toys otherwise TheLuckiest will tell you off' ??!! ). Instead he gets distracted and usually rewarded when he calms down...Anyway, I digress....this does have some relevance...

My DS and Sam are not in the same class, but are in same year. They often walk home together with Sam's mum or dad and my cousin (who picks DS up).

Sam seems to delight in goading DS (showing off new things, telling DS his things are not as good, teasing him, fighting over silly things like who's turn it is to go first). We have taught DS to tell Sam directly when he is being unkind and walk away. SOmetimes works, sometimes this goads Sam more. DS does seem to take it to heart and gets frustrated. However, they do enjoy playing together at other times.

Found out today that a week ago Sam had said to DS 'I'm going to tell your friends not to play with you then you won't have any friends.' This broke my heart and apparently DS had been very quiet when he got home, not his usual chatty self. I work FT so often don't hear about things until later in the day.

Not sure what to do. Don't want this to escalate but not sure whether this is regular 5 year old bickering. We have tried to distance ourselves from Sam (eg. not as many playdates) but feel like he is becoming a potential bully. It sounds minor now but want to nip it in the bud now.

I feel that I should say something but am concerned that there will be absolutely no action from Sams parents or consequences for Sam's behaviour. It is further confused by the fact that we are friends with the parents and have the same circle of school parent friends (& go to same kids parties, etc).

Need to handle this firmly but sensitively and not sure what the best approach is...

What should I do?

[MrsCantSayAnything]

what you do is speak to the teacher. Not to your friend. Explain to the teacher that this has been said and the other things that have gone on...AND explain that you are friends (kind of but I dont see why!) and that you don't want a big fuss but feel it should be monitored at school.

They will look out to see if the friend is picking on DS....if they DO see something then they will tackle it directly with Sam's parents.

If it does escalate then you can remove yourself and DS from them totally. Tell your cousin to avoid the walks home with them now....she may have to say directly "Oh go on ahead...we're just going to the loo" or similar until they get the picture.

[steppemum]

mm tricky
I can see 2 ways of seeing this

1. you are overeacting, it is normal 5 yo stuff, minor throw away comment
   
2. this is a bit of a pattern which your ds is starting to find is undermining him
   

trouble is, it is hard to say which as we don't know you in rl. And actually in some of these situations in rl it is hard to know whether to react or let it pass.

I mostly find that when these sort of careless unkind comments are being made, that an adult noticing them tends to show them they are being a bit OTT and they move on. So if I had been with them when he said it, I might have said 'Oh Sam that isn't very kind, why would you do that?' or 'I am sure sam didn't mean that, it wouldn't be a very nice thing to do would it sam?'

trouble is you weren't there and I am guessing you don't see sam on a daily basis?

[steppemum]

just read that back and it sounded judgey that you aren't there. Didn't mean that, just not sure how and when you can deal with it.

I would probably start to make the same comments about the teasing too, even if the parents heard you say it.