I've just had a phone call from the mum of one of dd's friends saying that dd is bullying her daughter.

Hope everyone had a peaceful journey to school today, Seeker.

Did you speak to her, seeker?

I was stuck on a bus to secondary school with a girl who I'd been friends with at primary school but no longer had much in common with (we went to different schools) for seven years. I really feel for your daughter, seeker.

I remeber this thread. my thoughts were those girls having nothing else in common other than going to different schools on the same bus each morning.
Why should they be friends? They have nothing in common other than a shared bus journey, and I think the other mother is being very naive in blaming her daughter's problems on the bus journey into school.

Your dd and her friends have a lot of mutual things in common teachers, other pupils at the school, school events etc and this child would have no interest or knowledge of these. Does this mean that any conversations involving anything this child can't share are out of bounds , how rediculous is that.

I would say this child probably is being bullied at school. It stands to reason she is spending 10 times longer in school than on the bus each day so there is much more potential for it to take place. Also if she was happier she wouldn't see the imagined slights on the bus each day.

I would tell the mother you don't want to discuss this any further with her and cut all contact.

That is a good idea Squiffy.

Why don't you try to deflate the situation by asking her to set out very clearly in writing all the instances and specfic actions which have led her to decide her DD is being bullied by your DD.

If it is a bunch of "didn't say good morning" and "didn't ask her to sit next to her" and similar then either the mother will feel foolish once she has written it down in Black and white, or you can point out to her that she is being foolish and then tell her to get out of your DD's life and go hothouse in someone else's back garden.

If it is a bunch of "On this day, every time my DD opened her mouth all the children turned round, laughed at her, then turned their backs on her" and "They all wait until she has sat down and then they go and sit down as far away from her as possible", then you have a situation where you might want to talk to your DD about empathy

I doubt very much it will be anything more than normal cattyness even if it is stuff like the latter rather than the former, so taking this approach should at least prove to the other mother that there is no bullying involved.

I think you've handled this really well, and I remember when you first posted about this and it didn't sound like you were assuming that you dd couldn't be at fault at all.

it's absolutely wrong of the other mother to have approached your dd, and it sounds like she and her daughter have fixated on her as being the cause, or at least the symbol, of the girl's difficulties. It's really sad, and it would be a lovely end to it if your dd became really good friends with her and she became a big part of this social group of girls from another school on the bus. But that wasn't that likely before; they seemed to be drifting apart, and it's going to be pretty much impossible now. Your dd is only 13 and while of course she should be civil and kind it's not her job to sort this girl's life out for her, nor yours.

I think it's probably reached the stage where it's better for the girls to have very little interaction now. i also wouldn't speak to the mother until you've had time to talk with dd and come up with some ways forward with her, eg, if she says that she just doesn't feel like they're friends anymore then you can help her come up with for her some ways to be polite with her.

then I would ask first tell the mother that you can see she's upset and worried about her dd having no-one to be a best friend on the bus, because of course no-one would shout at a child at the bus stop unless they were very stressed. It is, however, NOT ok, and that although you won't take it further this time( if that's ok with your dd) it must NEVER happen again.

Tell her what your dd has said about how she sees the relationship, and ask the mother, with that as context, what she would like to happen.

And then just let her speak without interuption for as long as. Sometimes if you don't fuel someone's fire by giving them something to argue against they can come up with more sense than you'd expect.

You can keep very firm that

she is never to approach your dd again
your dd isn't really friends with hers anymore

but other than that, what would she like you to do?

Sorry, i've spent ages trying to come up with something useful, and I suspect this isn't very. I had a similar situation with ds a couple of years ago.
It was harsh at the time, but i think it has been good in the long run. It did make him think about how he acts with people, and actually ended up with real compassion for the other child, after he'd got over the anger and feeling of injustice. I felt very sorry for the kid too; his mum clearly had a lot of ishoos and fears, but everything she did was actually disempowering him more. She gave him no tools to deal with a situation he wasn't happy with, and unwittingly 'rewarded' him for blaming ds, because it fitted in with what she wanted to believe.

Hope it goes ok tonight.

Seeker just read the whole thread and I think you should ring the other mother and say simply that when she rang you the last(Feb) time,
you weren't rude to her and arranged to meet with her and her dd, so who does she think she is verbally attacking your daughter in the street, she should have approached you again if she thought there was still a problem

I think that you have been more than accomadating!

Seeker, what a dreadful situation for both you and dd. In my opinion Merrylegs and Ahundred are offering the best solutions. Be as calm and as reasonable as you have been thus far, but call her, explain that perhaps there are greater forces going on here, that your dd has tried and should not herself be victimised and then leave it at that. Tell dd to stay away from the girl. Then you leave the whole situation yourself, no spying on what goes on on the bus, no phoning schools, no talking to the bus driver simply remove yourself from the whole scenario. And don't answer any more calls from the mother.

I think the other girl is feeling very low and is no doubt genuinely upset. But the mother should find her a strategy to deal with that, and a way to boost her self esteem. Something like, "you must be feeling very upset, but it is only a bus ride. Be glad these girls aren't at your school. Plug yourself into your ipod and ignore them. They are looking for a reaction. Don't give them one. You are better than that."

She may well have blanked your DD when she said hello, but if she is wary of your DD's attitude to her she may have been suspicious and not had the confidence to accept it for the friendly gesture it was. She does sound very insecure and I am sure she is a worry for her mother, who is trying to make things better but actually not!

Hi Seeker, just my 2c but I think you have handled things really well. In my experience I have seen even the nicest most reasonable mums get ultra defensive when approached by another mum regading their child bullying and completely deny, or even worse, justify all - which you did not do.

I think this could be just a matter of perception. That doesn't make it any less upsetting but difficult to sort.

I was bullied at school (or feel I was!)in this sort of way and more overtly so I am very sympathetic BUT i think the other mother has crossed a serious line and probably needs to be doing more to help her DD deal with the situation not attacking your's.

I call the school for advice, perhaps talk to the bus company and ask them to tell the driver to call the police should this woman turn up again.

Girls of this age can be really bitchy and extremely devious. Surely you wouldn't really believe that the other girls are going to say that your dd is bullying this girl, they are going to all stick together. It is going to be difficult to get the real picture unless there is somebody on the bus who isn't involved with either of the girls. Obviously this girl believes that she is being bullied even if her interpretation of bullying is excluding her (although maybe in that special way that girls of this age can). It is not right for the mother to have a go at your dd though.

Is there another bus? Short of both girls agreeing to ignore each other completely, I can't imagine what the other Mum actually wants to happen next. Difficult.

I'd say that allowing everyone to give their own interpretation and meaning to the word bullying would be entering very dangerous territory indeed.....

Just because someone says they are being bullied does not mean that they are.

No not necessarily, but I was just trying to put the other mothers point of view, because I have been there as a parent and I know how it feels.
But the way the other girl behaved to your daughter is a "classic" bullied child. If she feels bullied by your daughter and I meand "if" then she probably felt your daughter was only being friendly to her because you were there.

See, I've been in versions of this situation with my ds too. He often thought he was being bullied because he's so sensitive and prickly, and feels slights that would glide over another child's head. There was one child who was mean, but the rest weren't, but it felt to him like they were. He got in a habit of blaming other children for his lack of confidence.

We took his concerns v. seriously - that he felt like he was being bullied - which was the right approach I think.

This is what the girl's mother should do too

Didn't you discover that your daughter had been lying to you Seeker about other things or have I confused you with someone else?

We had an incident between parents outside our school which was horrible to see. One parent couldn't seem to 'get' that the reason another child was reluctant to acknowledge her son was because her son had been vile to him for weeks.

Good luck in sorting it out.

Good lord, seeker, how awful for your daughter....I wouldn't contact the mother, I'd contact the school.

This kind of happened to me at school- I wasn't friends (or enemies) with a girl in my class who lived near me. Her mother went to see the teacher and I was bollocked for "not being her friend". I wasn't not her friend IYSWIM? I remember the injustice of it to this day.

The word bully is thrown about far too often IMO. There is a huge difference between systematic bullying and just "not being particularly friendly" This other girl is not being bullied. Your daughter was bullied by the girl's mother though.

I have been in the position of the other mother with my DS being bullied on the train by friends' dcs when he started secondary. It is extremely stressful situation to be in and it doesn't help when the other parents are in denial. The other mother must feel at the end of her tether if her daughter is still coming home upset after all this time.

I did witness some of the bullying ie went to meet ds off the train and found the other boys hiding from him etc, although I would admit he probably was being oversensitive at times, it was the fact it was going every day which wore him down.

Thankfully it did sort itself out and ds is now friends with them again, but at the time it was horrible and i found myself doubting ds when i shouldn't have. He was acting like a bullied child, very quiet and withdrawn at school and didn't want to make friends with anyone after his old friends had let him down so badly.

I don't understand why you expect this girl to behave friendly to your daughter if she feels she is being bullied by her. There is obviously something going on, which needs to be sorted out with this girl. It must be in a very stressful situation for both sides.