Friend and Daughter Issues

Wtf. Why on earth are you allowing another child to spit and hit your daughter. Sort out your priorities and tell your friend exactly why

Did you mean......"when your friend asks why, give a reply along the lines of "neither me nor my daughter are going to share airspace with your hitting, spitting and vile child""?

YABU to expose DD to this, it’s horrible. Spitting!!!???

Tell friend you prefer to meet without the DC if you value the friendship. Just suggest cinema or drinks. Anything not child friendly.

I had this. My Mum used to take me to her friend's house sometimes, when she had to work during the school holidays. My Mum's friend had 3 boys...youngest a year younger than me, middle one was 2 years older and the elder one was 4 years older than me. The youngest and middle one were awful to me, constantly mean/hitting me. The eldest was that much older, so didn't participate often.

In the end, after keeping quiet, I told my Mum and immediately she stopped taking me there. She was upset that her friend's boys were so horrible towards me. I hated going, so was pleased. Another of my Mum's friend's looked after me then, who had a daughter a year older than me and a son 2 years younger, and they were nice.

I'm 51, and I still remember the dread I felt having to go to this woman's house and her boys.

If my friend did nothing when her child tried to spit at me I would say to my friend "Are you seriously not going to do anything about this behaviour?" And if she didn't deal with it well enough then I would say "Sorry friend but we are going to have to leave, my dd and I cannot put up with this behaviour any longer"

Your daughter is your priority. Your friend has no boundaries in place for her daughter, and she's allowed to do and treat others as she pleases. Your friend may have MH issues but that's not an excuse to allow her child to run riot with no accountability.

You need to step back from the friendship. Your daughter has clearly told you that she's unhappy with your friend's daughter. I don't blame her either. If your friend asks then you have a choice: be honest regarding the reason or use the 4 year age gap as an excuse.

If you want to continue the friendship that's up to you, but it would need to be without the children's involvement. If that's not possible then, you need to step back from the friendship completely. Your friend's MH is not as important as your own child's well-being.

Meet up with your friend without the children.

Your DD is being bullied and mistreated. You need to prevent this from happening. Your friend’s daughter is no friend to your DD.

You can explain to your friend gently and kindly why the weekend meet ups have to stop. If you lose a friendship over it, better that than your DD losing faith in you. But I suspect you won’t lose the friendship. It will just change.

And you can spend some 1:1 time with your DD at weekends helping to repair her self esteem.

This. I’m almost forty years old and I still remember the utter terror of family visits with some of my parents friends. Their son was out of control, bullying and hitting me. I hated and dreaded those visits and I’m still upset that none of the parents did anything about it.

Now is a good time for you to teach your daughter boundaries OP and have a good think about yours at the same time.

SPITS at her?!! To be honest if one of my kids got spat at I think they would punch whoever did it and I can’t say I’d be that angry with them.

You are not being fair to your daughter. You’re actually allowing her to be bullied by this girl! I had a friend whose daughter wasn’t nice to mine. One day she told me that she never wanted to see them again. So I stopped meeting them because my kids come first. You should never prioritise someone else’s mental health and safety over your own child’s. I have not seen that friend again and that’s okay because my children are happy and know that I have their back. Your friend needs to understand her child is behaving badly and it’s made your child not want to meet up anymore.

HRTFT. YABU unreasonable in not protecting your DD, that's where your loyalty should lie.

Never mind "No thank you", "Stop that!", said by you in a very firm sharp tone is called for along with you taking the hula hoop or whatever from the child. Whatever are you thinking g allowing this behaviour to continue? You need to stand up for your daughter.

You are raising your daughter to be a doormat.

I can’t believe your post is real.

Your friend needs to be told bluntly why you can’t see her anymore.

Your daughter has put up with this bullying from this kid for long enough. Her self esteem is on the floor from being bullied at school and her own mum is doing bugger all about it.

I would meet up once more but at the first sign of hitting or spitting from the friend's DD you need to speak up. Loudly. "Stop that. Spitting is disgusting." If the behaviour doesn't stop immediately you leave and don't arrange any more meet ups with the girls. Don't faff around with phrases like "the girls aren't getting along at the moment". The issue is that your friend is not stopping her DD from behaving deplorably.

This can't be real. But just in case. So you let another child hit and spit at your child because the morher is mentallly ill? If this happens again you tell the child to stop hurting your child in a firm positive way no silly talk like 'we only use gentle hands and kind words'

where does a 4yr old learn to spit at other people?
If this happened to me, the friendship would prob end soon.

Tell your friend the truth. That way you advocate for both children, your own because she doesn’t have to be around a child who isn’t kind to her, and hers because she might receive some parenting that makes it easier for her to make and sustain friendships in the future.

Stop putting your child through this! Why would you allow this and not discipline the child yourself?

Tell your 'friend' that you will not be able to meet up with the kids any more because your daughter doesn't want to be around her daughter. That will effectively end the friendship. Job done.

I stayed friends with another playgroup Mum for far too long given how badly her child was behaving towards mine. One day we'd booked to go out somewhere and my DD just sat quietly saying she didn't want to go as she knew he'd be mean to her all day. I said don't be silly etc, and we'll have a lovely day.

I should have listened because he was so nasty to her that day that he pushed her off something at the play ground and she broke her collarbone. Friend in her defence was utterly mortified as I spent hours in A & E with her and DD couldn't join in at playgroup for the rest of that term. But she spoiled that with a message saying I had to remember he had asthma and eczema and he was sleep deprived so he wasn't in control of his actions Lesson hard learned, and by my DD not me. I've always found it very hard to understand why I tolerated it for so long.

Time for plain speaking. Grow up as a parent and choose your daughter over your friend. That's it really.

I love that you are being there for your friend, but your daughter's wellbeing/safety/future years of self esteem comes first here. Tell friend you will meet her without her child, or not at all.

Your friend is doing her dd a great disservice, allowing her to behave like this. She will either have no friends, or end up being the class bully.

In any case, spitting is absolutely disgusting! She needs to put a stop to that PDQ!

I’d stop the meet ups and tell her why.