to think friends DD is a lying little tell tale and deliberately wanted to get DS into trouble!

[superv1xen]

had my friends and their DD round this afternoon for lunch and so the kids could play etc.

friends DD and my DS are both 4. they play nicely generally but she is a bit princessy and whiny and cries easily, IMO, for attention, as, if she so much as makes one whinge slightly unhappy sound her mum snaps to attention, "ooooh dear whats the matter darling" kind of thing.

well they were playing in DS's room and after a while she came downstairs whinging about something and kind of, pretend crying. and when asked whats the matter by her mum, she said "DS has hit me" but i could tell by her face she was making it up, and if he HAD have hit her, she would have been hysterical as thats how she is. you could just tell how she was telling the story she was making it up as she went along. And if you all knew DS, you would know he is not the type to "hit" people, he is a placid, gentle, loving little boy, and if anyone is the hitting, bullying type, its her. in fact not only have i seen her bully DS, i have seen her aim sly kicks and pushes at my youngest (19 months) when she thinks no one is looking

so i called DS down and asked him what happened, and he said he hadn't hit her, but it was blatantly obvious my friends didnt believe him, they believed their precious DD, so i felt obliged to tell him off to kind of keep the peace and send him back to his room for time out :( and i am so angry at myself for doing that. esp as brat friends dd carried on crowing about what a "naughty boy" DS was etc for about half an hour afterwards.

i love my friend but i really disliked her DD today and their attitude towards DS :(

I feel your pain OP. I have a friend whos DD's are the same. A complete over reaction to DS touching them when he passes. Its the mentality of the more noise I make the worse it will seem.

I use to 'puinshed' DS as they 'made' him look bad and I felt if I didn't I would look bad. I have learnet now to do the whole ' well one of yous telling the truth and that person can go off and be proud of themselves'. I also say if I hear it discussed anymore they will have to come where we can see/hear them. Same for arguing.

I now say before they disappear off - they can play what they want as long as they are sensible, kind and tidy up after.

It is slowly improving.

Great example of a recent incident - the dd came and said DS had hit her in the face with something. I said I doubted it or she'd be crying. She said he did he was holding a plastic lid and wibbling it in fromt of his face. Turns out she went up to him as she wanted him to stop it and it had caught her lip. I politly pointed out that in furture if she minded her own business she wouldn't get hurt.

I have to sy though I notice that its usually the children with stricter parents (me!!) who get squinned on - as others know they will get punished when they have done something wrong. A kind of heirachy - I can do what I want and get away with it sort of thing.

My DS and these dc's are older though 6/7.

OOOOOOOOOOoooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I had a friend like that when I was little, and she didn't bloody grow out of it, even tried to set me up for flooding school toilets once !

Why would you punish your son in this situation? Just tell the kids to play nicely surely?

You don't like this little girl do you?

it happens with 4 yr olds. im sure your name calling is just sounding off but it is a bit ott to say those things she just a little girl and her behaving like this is her mothers fault for buying into it.

in future dont get sucked into it and dont punish your son for the benifits of a 4 yrl old who could be fibbing.

I was so sure that the girl in question was going to be 8/9 from the thread title. I think you are angry at yourself for not handling the situation well, and projecting all sorts of nasty attributes on this little girl.

Christ, this little girl is 4. OP clearly doesn't like her, but why are so many posters leaping in to demonise her?

OP, lesson learned: you don't know what happened, so you shouldn't have punished your ds. But actually, you shouldn't rush to assume you know that the little girl is lying either. Maybe she isn't. You'll never know. But it doesn't matter: let it go.

I wouldn't be letting 4 year olds play alone anyway, keep them in view.

It's all a bit OTT tbh they're 4

Well my DDs friend is 5, and she is a manipulative, sly and spiteful little cow! Had i not encountered this first hand i would have been with the rest of you who are villifying the op. As a parent we are here to protect OUR children. We too bloody worried about keeping other mums happy, something which i learnt to my own DDs cost this week, NEVER AGAIN

If you know this girl as well as you appear to from your OP, I am very surprised you allowed the two children to play alone away from adults.

Keep them in view - or at least hearing distance - and you will minimise potential problems such as these.

I hope you have learnt from this and never again punish your son because of peer pressure.

Well my DDs friend is 5, and she is a manipulative, sly and spiteful little cow! Had i not encountered this first hand i would have been with the rest of you who are villifying the op. As a parent we are here to protect OUR children. We too bloody worried about keeping other mums happy, something which i learnt to my own DDs cost this week, NEVER AGAIN

EXACTLY brightlights

and i will never punish him again if anything similar happens like this, i will simply say, well, no one saw what happened, play nicely both of you, something like that. it was through pure peer pressure i told him off and i admit that

and do you know what, i DON'T like this girl. she is not a nice child and i make no apologies for not liking her. obviously i don't show it and never would!

Super and bright - I understand what your both sayoing completely as been there. (see above post).

The only thing I will say is - if this girl knows you don't like her she may (IME) behave worse. This happened to me and I explained I liked her because she could be polite and funny but NOT her behaviour as it spoils everyones fun.

Your right though to stand up for DS. and don't beat yourself up about what happened. Just apologise to DS and promise him you won't do it again. That will mean more.

' my DDs friend is 5, and she is a manipulative, sly and spiteful little cow!'

How is your relationship with your friend?

I'm wondering if what you are actually, really upset about is a hidden power-imbalance between you and your friend, in which you see your friend as having more power, higher status, and you having to appease her all the time, and act in ways you don't like to win her friendship.

I say this because you felt you (were forced) to disipline your child unfairly.

Who forced you to do that?

No-one, really.

You didn't have to.

So I'm wondering if you felt you had to do it to please your friend, pointing to the hidden power imbalance/hierarchy that you can't acknowledge. (And are transferring feelings of animosity towards the child.)

Next time, just take you ds out of the room, away from any observers, ask "Did you , blah, blah?" If he says "No", and you believe him, sigh and say "OK". If he says "Yes", well, that's another matter.

Then send them all upstairs again, and carry on enjoying your conversation.

I think from the way you're talking about this poor child there's more to the whole thing than meets the eye.

Parental rivalry perhaps? Jealousy? One child smarter/better looking than the other? One gets more attention when you're out perhaps?

Sounds unreasonable I know...but then so do you in the way you slate your so called 'friends' little girl.

I think you should be ashamed and perhaps question yourself over why you feel this way and indeed why you allow the child in to your house at all.

I think it's entirely possible to not like certain children.

Just because they're children doesn't mean that they're nice - some children can be spiteful little brats, even more so if they have a willing audience ie indulgent parents.

I'm shocked at a lot o posters reactions and I'm keen to know if your children are older (7 and above).

I totally get wht you mean superv1xen, been there myself.

First of all some children are manipulative little cow bags (or whatever she was called) and being 4 doesn't make you immune to that. In fact, it makes it more likely if anything (though the motivation behind it may be different to someone older who does it and also may not be a behaviour tht the child has for long). Children who are 4 are trying out behaviours and some of these behaviours are nothing short of unpleasant.

My friends DD was like this at one point and I'm ashamed to say that (between DP and I only) I would refer to her as 'F*$king myfriends daughter . She was horrid, she would bite, be spiteful, tell tales and whine like it was going out of fashion. I really loathed her she was about 3 when it began. I avoided seeing my friend when her daughter was around and now that she is 7, I've been in sitiuations where I couldn't avoid this child and so have realised that she's changed and is a delight!

Sorry to be long winded but I can't believe you're all pretending that a small child can't be a nightmare.

When this happened to me I would, think out a strategy to handle this next time (sadly it is likely there will be a next time) instead of punishing your child and feeling guilty. I used to do what thisisyesterday suggested.

As, I said I avoided my friends daughter quite a bit, which I don't recommend as children need to go through these phases, as they are learning how to behave.

Stick up for your child, if they're always being accused by a particular child then always say something like 'Oh, littlev1xen would never do something like that deliberately, he's such a sweet boy, let's be gentle with each other'. It is actually quite a strong statement to make and does a lot in terms of supporting your child.

Indeed wannaBe but then again you also have deluded parents like the OP saying things like....

And if you all knew DS, you would know he is not the type to "hit" people, he is a placid, gentle, loving little boy, and if anyone is the hitting, bullying type, its her

A child of that age does not have to be a certain type to hit someone. Even if they are a placid child it still happens now and then...and to use the word 'bully' when it comes to a 4yr old in her house playing with her son just makes me want to throw my eyes up to the sky

I was in the position the OP's child in.

My parents had some friends who had 2 children, a dd same age as me and a younger ds. I'd say we'd known since the DS was born, so probably when me and the dd were about 2/3.

She was CONSTANTLY getting me into trouble, saying I broke or lost her toys or I wouldn't play with her, she used to pull my hair and call me names as well when no-one else was looking (we were usually sent off to her room to play while the adults chatted downstairs).

It got to the point where I would dread these visits.

And she did grow up to be spiteful and selfish cow, fortunately when my dad left when I was 12,l we stopped seeing them not long after as the friendship was more between the dad's. But we saw them when I turned 18 (as my mum, for some strange reason, invited them to my 18th) and all she could do was make catty comments about me and my friends, I felt like telling her to fuck off

Crikey it has been over 20 years since I saw her and still remember how nasty she was to me!

OP Don't dislike the DD because it sounds like in the case of the dd of my parents' friends, she was over-indulged and in their eyes can do no wrong, but I would seriously consider distancing yourself from this woman.

Dittany is right in a way - adults are to blame IME.

Usually a child whinges and tells tales on a child as it gets the reaction they want. In this case cuddles for them and seeing other child in trouble. I am not perfect I have been that parent. I quickly learnt though that it was because if the other parent tried to say to their DC, play nicely, that DC would scream, hit, yell at the parent that they were horrible, didn't care about them etc and that my DS was 'bullying' them and not very nice. Even to the point they if DS picked up a toy they would be yelling about how he never shares, how he always has to go fisrt, how mean he is, snatch if from him and then have a fit if he snatched it back. I use to ask the child to give it back to DS and let him have 5 minutes then swap. And that was 5 minutes to play not 5 minutes whilst the DC got in his way still being mean to him.

I was at the point where I felt maybe my friend and I should see each other without the DC's but hard work payed off and on the whole its better. Not perfect but I am consistant with dealing with situations.

Hmm I am aging myself, that should be NEARLY 20 years!