How to approach friend - her child is bullying mine

[ouchmyheadandshoulders]

Advice needed on how to handle this situation.

I have a casual friend / acquaintance I met through our DC. Both our DC have been friends since primary school and are now in secondary. They have shared the same group of friends during this time and often do things as a group.

Her DC has begun to be quite mean to mine and is a bit of a ring leader amongst their friendship group resulting in my DC often getting picked on. Things like name calling, derogatory remarks, racial slurs passed off as jokes, putting down my DC's hobbies and interests, etc. DC likely has Asperger's as well so does not make friends easily and struggles to understand what's appropriate and what's not.

This behaviour bothers my DC, but still claims these children as friends. My DC will sometimes respond back to the name calling and mean remarks with similar in order to deflect. (I know they shouldn't and we tell DC to stop).

When my DC and friends DC are alone together things appear to be ok. The other child is polite and quiet. So the mean behaviour comes out when they're together as a group. It seems like this other child is trying to impress their friends by joking around and picking on my DC.

This has been going on for months now and doesn't seem to be getting any better. I'm not good with confrontation, especially when it's with someone I'm friends with or respect.

I'd like to address this issue with her but I don't know the best way to go about it. I'm also ND (ADHD & Asperger's) so interacting without second guessing myself or worrying I'm going to offend is an issue. I'm also worried that even though this mum may address the issue with her DC that this may then make its way down the chain back to my DC and their group of friends, causing my DC to be further bullied or completely alienated.

What should I do?

Op this is such a crap situation. I will say though, I absolutely would want a friend to tell me if one of my kids was picking on their kid, or anyone else’s for that matter as I would want to deal with it straight away and wouldn’t want my child doing that. You could just be factual and to the point and say could you have a word as it’s upsetting dd. If they are in any way a good friend they will do what they can to stop it!

Maybe I missed it(apologies if so) but what age is your dd?

They are 13

Ah ok so still really young. I would let the mother say it to the daughter, or you could speak to the school If that is where it is happening and they have a duty of care to deal with it!

If they are at school together then I would speak to the school. It won't get well if you speak to the other parent - it never does.

In my experience talking to the parents can escalate things. Far better to get the school to deal with it.

it is happening at school
So school

Let the school deal with it. I had a similar situation with my DS in Y7 and his best friend from primary, who made new friends and completely turned on him. He was in a terrible state, coming home from school and sobbing until he was sick. I regarded the other mum as a friend, so I spoke to her to see if we could sort it out between us. She called my DS a liar and never spoke to me again.

It is happening both at school and outside when the children hang out together. My DC never makes plans with the other on their own. But they are often together in a group

yes

but the very fact that it is happening at school means your first port of call should be the school

i wouldn’t immediately believe one child saying that my child was bullying them on simply on the word of the mother

Why?
Would you not even think that something was amiss or are you that parent who thinks their child can never do anything wrong?

Talk to the school.

And limit the opportunities outside school for being together.

I agree to talk to school first but if yours is as useless as mine was, what worked for me was to approach the other parent and ask for help. I told them what I knew, including that my dc wasn’t a perfect angel, and explained why my dc might also be over reacting to banter (I knew he wasn’t, but it could have started there), and that my dc was having a hard time at the moment. And all I asked was that they might have a chat with their dc.

I never criticised or accused. We had problems at 11 and 12 with several dc, and this approach worked well. But it all got so much better when we changed to a better school. Once he had faith he would be listened to, and supported, everything improved. I haven’t had to ring a parent because the school are on the ball and really help the kids get through issues.

just jump straight to the extreme why don’t you 🙄

If it includes racial slurs against your child then the school should take it very seriously indeed.

Your dd needs to find a wider social group and interests outside of school and reduce contact. That might help in itself as they might simply be getting sick of each other.