Trying to salvage friendships after a terrible holiday

Don't get involved - don't be drawn into conversation, tell them it's between them to sort out, or not, if they prefer.

Haha. You should have seen my niece in action at this age. It was unbelievable.

In any given room she would identify whatever toy was most prized by the other child and seemingly oblivious would take it or take parts of it and play with it conspicuously.

Her mother would say 'ah, she's so oblivious' (to the upset she's causing) and her father would mutter 'she's not oblivious '

I would say that I don’t want to discuss it and why. If I was really pushed, I’d say what I think… Which in my case would be that children absolutely need to be told off if they hit people.

Well that should be the case, but not the impression I got from the OP and lots of comments

Pretty shocked by most of these comments tbh…

If I understand correctly, you’re the link yes? You know them both, but they don’t know each other before this trip?

Either way, your friend with the little girl had a 9 month old baby with her and instead of being supported by the other mums there, your other friend barely spoke to her, was off with her and rude and made her feel uncomfortable. Not to mention failed to discipline her son correctly because he kept hitting the little girl despite being ‘gentle parented’ 🙄

If I was girl mum, and you stayed completely neutral despite the glaringly obvious errors of the boy mum, which you have admitted yourself, I don’t think I’d want to maintain a friendship with you anyway because I’d feel utterly let down and unsupported by you - not really a friend I’d want tbh.

So by staying neutral, you run the risk of damaging both friendships anyway. So I would, as kindly as possible, tell boy mum, your supposed ‘friend’ the truth. I’d do it tactfully obviously, but I would say ‘Xs behaviour was really challenging and I’m not sure I agree with your position here. I know it’s hard because we’re intrinsically wired to defend our own but I think once you’ve had some time to reflect on XYZ scenarios you might see it a little differently, because I was honestly quite shocked by how cold you were to a friend of mine, particularly one that had a new baby and could have done with some additional support’ etc

And I would reassure girl mum that you agree other friends behaviour was a little off, and apologise the trip didn’t go as planned etc and her little girl kept getting hit, and reassure her you understand her position and agree with it.

But that’s me, the next time you go away it could kick off between your boys and let’s face it, it’s going to be all your kids fault isn’t it? Is that a friend you even want? A ticking time bomb unable to think objectively or be rational? 🤷🏼‍♀️ I’d nip it in the bud now x

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Were you not in the same room as the children to witness what was going on? 4 year olds still need some element of supervision - surely. Especially if two of them don't know each other very well and you don't know the history of how they interact together. The boy mum should have made sure she was present the first time her ds hit the girl. How did she know the girl was 'manipulative' if she didn't witness their play?

It depends on what you want your future relationships with these Mums to be, if at all. The advice saying stay out of it is naiive, because you were THERE and saw it all happen. If you had not been, then yes, stay out of it and stay neutral (something you will need to embrace as your child gets older).

It gets much harder when your child comes home with stories about what happened at school and it's tempting to jump in to 'protect' them but that's a big mistake. As one of my DCs teachers told me, when I asked her if she knew anything about an incident, (I wanted to make sure my DC was behaving themselves), if you believe half of what they say and I believe half, the truth is in the middle and she was spot on.
In other words don't take on board every little thing they tell you - it will have blown over in a couple of days.

I always find honesty is the best policy. For example, if you say nothing and the boy keeps hitting others, a pattern develops, but you said nothing to his Mum for fear of your friendship, aren't you doing her a disservice? You sound like her closest Mum friend. If I was her I would hope my friend would help me see things from another perspective. It may be better to sit down all 3 of you (without the baby), like the adults you are, instead of separate conversations like school kids.

Going away with a baby the girl's Mum had her hands full, but she should not have expected you to basically care for her daughter. Given your closeness with boy Mum, she was probably also feeling left out. Her anxiety would have been felt by her daughter. You seem to be standing back like it had nothing to do with you but did little to include the girl in an established friendship with the boys. At that age, showing them works better than telling them.

As a Mum of adult children, I've been there and got the tshirts. Kids need to learn to get along but most importantly they need their parent to be a parent.
They don't need another friend.

Boy mum sounds like typical “my little prince can do no wrong” mum which leads to grown men still being excused for poor behaviour.

nothing to do with being a boy. The kid sounds like a nightmare little shit.

stay out of it.

Yea, and the slapping boys mother is so gentle and sensitive, the OP is afraid of bring it up......easier to allow a little girl be slapped.🙄

Unbelievable.
Explains so much about how abusive men are reared from a young age... .no boundaries, reared to believe slapping is acceptable.

I would give the pair of you the widest berth.

I haven't been able to be completely honest with the boys mum as I think she has been quite unreasonable

You're child wasn't on the receiving end of her sons aggression. So you're happy to ignore it.

Dont expect everyone else to go along with this.

An early example of female discovering that if she calls out male misbehaviour that she knows she wouldn't be able to get away with, SHE will be the one labelled a troublemaker. Poor kid, hopefully she isn't aware that she's got a lifetime of this ahead of her.

It sounds like the boys mum is going to be a shit MIL. When her precious boy acts like a dick it will be his partner’s fault and you can be sure she will take his side if he has an affair or is abusive etc. There’s being loyal to your kids and there’s being absolutely blind and wilfully ignorant to their faults.

This makes sense.

I agree with this.

It’s none of your business and I’d keep well out of it.

I also don’t think girls “get away with more” - in general they get away with less imo (I have one of each so no bias) as people expect more of them.

At four, there’s not reason why a boy (or girl) should think hitting is OK unless they’ve been allowed to think that. If she was saying things that upset him, he should have been coming to an adult.

It sounds a bit like no one was supervising these 4 yos closely enough.

They are not allowed to hit anywhere.

I agree

Sounds like a nightmare and reminds me not to go on holiday with other people and their kids

I am not liking your unreasonable friend based on your op. You say she is unreasonably defensive and criticise other friend’s dd in a way she would never accept criticism of her son.
I completely understand you don’t want to get involved in this. Just tell them you would prefer that they sort themselves out. I also don’t agree girls get away with more than boys.
This kid is assertive, confident, her mother is her advocate but seems like don’t want to be his teacher while boy is hitting another girl. Don’t get involved in this scenario. But make sure this confident boy with over indulging mum does not become bossy with your shy child.

My thoughts too

Ultimately these sorts of holidays are usually a bad idea unless you're all very chilled, happy to supervise closely, on the same page with parenting and have very laid-back easygoing kids. There is a reason why a sensible length of time for playdates is normally a couple of hours before the kids, having turned grotty, are either carted off home or parked in front of the TV to decompress.

I am probably on girl mum's side. Probably, because hitting is always wrong and, after giving a warning for the first time, my DC would have been sat out of the fun by my side until I felt they could be trusted to play again. Boy mum sounds ineffective. When she realised the holiday wasn't going to work out, it would probably have been sensible to leave then rather than prolongue the experience.

I say "probably" rather than definitely as I do remember a rather awkward moment between my DS (then 5) and a rather officious little girl of a similar age or maybe slightly older who had taken a dislike to him in the soft play of a UK holiday park we were staying in. DS was slightly boisterous to begin with and knocked into her unintentionally, and we made him apologise of course and thought no more about it. But then this little girl (rather cleverly, in hindsight) cottoned onto us being his parents and decided to tell tales to us all evening about his misdeeds 😂. So we were treated to a constant round of "Do you know he's just climbed up the slide?" and "He's taken the blocks I was going to play with" for much of the evening. I dealt with this with as much good humour as I could manage, trying to soothe her ruffled feelings and meditate between the two, until DH, who was bored of the whole thing, looked at her and said very firmly "Go back to your adult NOW. You can complain to them if you like". And she scuttled off and we heard no more about it.

I think some kids do like to wind up other kids and put them in the wrong, and often they don't even realise they're doing it, they just feel aggrieved. So it's possible the DD was a bit like this, but from what you're saying, sounds more like boy mum was in the wrong.

Not your spillage on aisle 4.

Keep out of it. I can't think of anything worse than sharing a house with others peoples children of that age🤦🤣

Absolutely, but what you’d have done in removing your dc is parenting. This mum didn’t do any parenting, just got shitty at the other mum.

Honestly if that boy meets a boy like him who whacks him back what will the ‘gentle parenting’ mum do then? Blame the other parent, obviously! Good luck to her as that will happen.