To think that the parents (KS1 child) are wrong to blame me/ my child for the difficulties their child is having?

[dressingtable]

I have just read an old thread about the perils of approaching parents when there is an issue between their child and your child. It rang a bell? My DD (aged 6 at the time) was refusing to go to school last November/ December because she was being targeted by another girl. This girl was not picking on her, just not understanding that DD didn't want to play the same game over again. My DD went along with this and reluctantly spent playtimes with this girl. She then dealt with it by trying not to go to school, telling me 'I don't want to play with?..?. She ended up staying home for three days over a 2 week period as she got in such a state. I told the school why and at first they seemed quite sympathetic and said they would ?work with? the other child.
I was reasonably friendly with the girl's parents and I also knew from chats with the mother that there had been 2 previous incidents with other parents concerning their DD. I stupidly/ arrogantly thought this made it 'safer' to talk to them, as they would see a ?pattern?.
However, it backfired massively. At first the parents said that they would ask the school to help.
I also raised it repeatedly with DD's teachers, who eventually told me that they would tell my DD and the other child not to play together at all.
I approached the girl's mother and said that the school had told me that they would keep the girls apart. She then said that her DD had told her that she had never played with my DD anyway, so she couldn't help me.
Everything seemed to settle down for a term, my DD was much happier and her work improved a lot.
However, my DD's teachers recently approached DH and me, telling us that this girl's parents were very upset - their DD was being shunned by the rest of the class, had no friends, never got invited to anyone's house etc. The parents apparently thought that other children and parents knew there had been a problem with my DD and were therefore avoiding the girl.
The teachers said that they had never seen any problem between my DD and this girl (although the incidents were at playtimes, which get monitored by staff other than teachers). They said that the improvement in my DD?s work and confidence since they told them to stay apart was probably just coincidence.
Being a glutton for punishment, I approached the girl's father in the playground and said I was unaware that his DD was unhappy. I got an earful back, with him telling me that my DD had made the whole thing up in order to pick on their child. He said their daughter had never played with mine. Their daughter hadn?t got any friends because this situation had stopped other parents wanting their children to play with his child, because they had heard she was trouble. I tried telling him that they hadn't heard it from me (I don't think this child is 'trouble' I don't think she means any harm). But I just got back a load of comments that their lives were 'full of sadness' etc. I felt really shocked and tried to tell him that my DD's upset was as real as his DD?s but he wouldn't listen and just said that my DD had done it on purpose and went on about how their lives had been made miserable etc. I?m still really shaken.
The school won't really say one thing or another to me, just that they want both girls to be happy and for me to try not to worry. The only 'evidence' I have had is from a lunchtime member of staff who I know quite well. I asked her whether she has seen this child and my child together. She said that yes she had seen them together a lot around the time that this all started. She added that she believed this other child has problems with friendships. I have kept this information to myself as I have already been accused by the father of branding the child as ?trouble?. But actually I think this child has some kind of problem with social ability.

Last week, my DD came home and said that her teacher had told her that she and the girl 'are allowed' to play together again. I am worried that the whole problem will re-start. My daughter has been playing just with this girl again - similar sorts of (non) games. I risk more of the same if I complain to the school. Even I would not be masochistic enough to approach the parents again.
AIBU to think the parents are wrong to blame me/my DD for their child?s difficulties?
But there isn't much of the school year left. Next year the girls will be in separate classes (it is a large school). Should I just put up and shut up? I have generally found the school good ? it gave DC1 (who has now moved up) a good education. My DD2 can be on the ?sensitive? side. But I think the parents will blame us for years to come for any problems their DD has. I?m tempted to find another school and get right out of it.

I am slightly confused why you let your DD stay off school over a fall out with a friend. 6 year olds fall out all the time, and a quick word to the teacher would have sufficed.

I do think you have been slightly OTT - repeatedly raising the issue with the teachers, of a fall out between two 6 year olds is too much IMO. I think if the teachers constantly had to tell the other little girl not to play with your DD then the other classmates would have heard and may be avoiding that little one.

They are 6 - and you said yourself that the little girl in question is quite harmless. I'd live and let live. Don't approach the parents again, and just let your DD play with whomever in school.

It isn't nice when they fall out with friends/don't want to play with others but a talk about friendships between you and your DD would be far more sufficient than constantly telling the teachers who your DD can play with.

This probably isn't what you wanted to hear, It is just my opinion and I could be wrong/ have misread the situation.

YANBU to think they are wrong to blame you and your DD. However I think you would benefit form speaking to your DD in more depth about how to assert herself.

It is a shame that she did not have the skills to say no to the other girl rather than attempting to stay off school. I also think it was a mistake to keep her off school when she was upset about it - it reinforces the idea that she cannot deal with this girl.

I really don't think you should be approaching the parents alone. Help your daughter to say no to this girl and ask for a mutual meeting with the children and parents if things degenerate. The children could both say how they feel and you could all come to an agreement together.

It does seem like a mountain beeing made of a molehill to be honest.

I think you're overreacting in thinking of moving. I also think it will all blow over.

You can't blame the parents for looking for a "reason" for their child's difficulties...

I wouldn't have approached the parents either, having had someone spread rumours about my son that were not quite true (exaggerated). It resulted in a parent being quite abusive to me. So now I stay WELL out of it!

I'd probably tell my child it was 'kay' to want to play with people, and that if you d that it doesn't stop the person being your friend etc. I'd encourage her to have the skills to 'fight' her own corner. I.e say, "I am doing X, Y Z today" or "I am playing with H at the moment". That way the girls are encouraged to sort it between them.

Defo just leave it for now tho

Agree with everything reindeer said, and would add that reading through what the dad said really does show that you're both probably right and as bad as each other, but just coming at the same situation from your respective angles.

Could your DD be more anxious about it because of the way you're approaching the parents and school? Making it more of a serious matter than it actually is.

At this age they're just getting to grips with getting on and how to get on with people you don't like, so there's bound to be some fall out from that.

Finding another school can seem like an easy option, but you're going to find the same wherever your DD goes, best to try and equip her with the skills to deal with the situations as they come up.

I don't really think it's fair of your friend, the lunchtime supervisor, to gossip to you about another child's difficulties. I also think allowing your DD time off school just because she didn't want to play with another child is a bit of an overreaction. If you start involving the other parents and the school over something so minor, I think it's understandable that the parents might be annoyed with you to be honest.

YANBU, but I can't see why you would even begin to consider moving your dd out of a school that you like and which she is happy with. Especailly if they will be in different classes next term.

I'd leave it and do nothing, unless your dd starts getting upset again, and if she does you will need to go back to the school and deal with it as a new and separate issue.

I appreciate all the comments so far. It is so hard to get perspective when it is your own DC, so an honest reply helps.
I don't feel like living and let living TBH, but I will act in a 'live and let live' way and wait for my real feelings catch up.

I think as long as the other little girl wasn't being mean to your dd I would have encouraged her to include the other girl (obviously playing with other kids as well) rather than having the teacher split them up. I feel sorry for the other girl as her only crime seems to be that she wanted to play with your dd all the time. I think your dd was being oversensitive and I wouldn't have let her have time off school because someone wanted to play with her!
It seems like the other girl has been labelled a troublemaker now. I don't think whether or not you have your daughter leave the school will make a lot of difference.
I know it can't have been nice for your dd if the little girl was very full on but it also can't have been nice for the other girl for your dd to be nice to her one day and then not want to play another day for no reason.

Dressing table - it isn't easy at first, goodness knows I only comment from experience of DC1 (who is also 6).

You will always be protective of your DD and rightly so, but sometimes lines have to be drawn and she has to learn to deal with some issues on her own. Harsh it may seem, but with coaching from you I'm sure she will learn how to respond to unwanted attention from classmates.

Of course you should "put up & shut up".

And tell your daughter to play with someone else.

Who di dthe other girl play with when "not allowed" to play with your daughter?

It's easier for us to say because we're not caught up in the relationships going on (obviously).

I think you need to distance yourself a bit more from it, and like you say, get it a bit more in perspective.

Ignore the parents and tell your DD to try and keep out of anything that's going on.

"but I will act in a 'live and let live' way and wait for my real feelings catch up"

It'd perhaps be good to help your DD build other friendships - invite someone for tea or whatever, so that it's easier for her to find someone else to play with and prevent the problem restarting for her.

I feel really sad for that little girl .

She must be having a really difficult time, and I think it was supremely insensitive to go up to her Dad and say you were unaware that his dd was unhappy AFTER your fussing had prevented them playing together at all. It sounds like a bit of a bigger issue for her than it was for your dd, if I am honest. Having no friends is a lot worse than being hero-worshipped by someone you don't really like. I agree with posters who said that you need to teach your dd to stick up for herself. Also, I would have encouraged her friendships with some other children so that she could go off with them playtime. At worst, the school could have asked the playtime staff to 'keep an eye' on the situation rather than a hard and fast rule that they couldn't play with each other. To be honest, I think this probably has had a negative effect on the other little girl, to be labelled that young as someone that 'can't be played with'. And your whole attitude about leaving school over it makes me think that you are a bif an U kind of person.

So overall I think YABU.

Not my intention to be unkind - just a parent trying to make things OK for her child and not always getting it right. Maybe this is an opportuity for me to try to give my child help in asserting herself and in accommodating children who can behave in 'different' ways.
Maybe this is an opportunity for the other child's parents to give their child some help with her social skills.
At what age do folk think children can grasp the more 'grey' areas around relationships?

Erm....I'm so sorry dressingtable, but I really advise you to leave it now. I can't believe you kicked up such a stink over this girl and I'm not surprised her parents are upset with you. What a lot of fuss over absolutely nothing. We are talking about 6 year olds for goodness sake.
Carry on if you want to be one of 'those' mothers - if not, put a sock in it. Unless your daughter is being bullied, butt out and stop making mountains out of molehills. This is how they learn the basics of socialising....let them get on with it.

My perspective is "from the other side".

My little boy is the boy who another parent asked their son not to play with.
Ds1 used to say this was his best friend. The teachers said they were best friends and were always playing together. They really clicked. They would hug eachother when they met at school. It started in reception.

There was a couple of incidents in year 1. Little boy pinched my son, hit him in the face, and pulled his hair. All separate occasions. The school, being quite a strict catholic school, told the parent on every occasion, as the boy had to go and see headmistress.
The other parent was very strict. She would allow her son ONE chocolate button per week, if he did all his homework. She would be seen hitting him outside the school gates, the little boy covering his head with his bookbag. Other parents brought such incidents up with headmistress.

Anyway, this little boys mum solved the problem by insisting that since it was MY son who was targeted by her son, her son should be kept away from my son, so that he did not get into any further trouble. The two were not allowed to play together at all.

So, we then had two unhappy boys.
But what does it matter in the grand scheme of things, her son got to focus on homework only, and got a scholarship to a private school, and has moved on.

Years later, my son talks about this boy as being the best friend he ever had.

Back off.

Your DD is happier? Good. What more do you want? It went horribly wrong when you talked to her parents, so you thought it was a good plan to do it again? Leave it.

I work at the school my ds goes to and tbh it would be frowned upon if lunchtime supervisors(or any other members of staff) were chatting with parents about the children.

Personally, I wouldn't have spoken to the girl's parents but dealt with it through school. It is then dealt with as a school issue and doesn't become too personal.

Like others have said I wouldn't have said anything, perhaps encouraged her to play with a variety of children and waited for it all to blow over. I wouldn't have let her have time off school.

I too can't get over the fact that you let her have days off over this most trivial of issues.

OP, I can understand that if your child had become hysterical, you wouldn't want to take her into school like that - but it would have been far better to have calmed the girl down, and taken her into school later on. As others have said, it's not a good thing to let your dd stay off school for something so minor.

ALL 6 year olds need help with social skills - yours included! One child being keen to play with another, be friends and include them in games is another child's 'being targetted'. You could have coached your child to say 'I'm friends with you but I'm als friends with XY and Z and it's more fair if i play thier game today' or whatever. And how to eal witht he inevitable 'I won't be your friend if you play with XYZ'.

Don't whatever you do move schools - keeping your dd off for trivial playground friendhsip hoo ha, and then moving schools because of a bit of bad communication with other parents - what will all this teach her?

Just relax, be calmly friendly with everyone, keep your opinions about other peope's children to yourself (especially if you imagine you are 'helping' those parents see what is 'wrong' with their child) and support your own child through the normal up and downs of playground friendships in a calm way which does not add to the drama.

If your dd got into a total state because she didn't want to play with a girl to the extent that you needed to keep her off school, well.. she is also having difficulties with friendships.

I think it's a bit horrible of you, really, to lay the blame at the other child's door, stating she has peer relationship difficulties. You are the one whose si year old was hysterical about another child just wanting to play with her.. can't you have empathy that all children have struggles with working out how to manage social relationships?

In this instance, you needed to talk to school about how to support your child with her inability to deal with this situation. It's not about the other girl (no matter what difficulties she has had with other peers) and you had no business approaching the family. I don't like the gossipy/dismissive tone with reference to this family's "sad times". God love them, who knows what they are going through? You are kicking up a fuss about something that's just natural when they, by the sounds of it, are having actual difficulties in their lives.

I am going to go against the grain here.

Your child shouldn't have to play with anyone else if she doesn't want to. It is right to encourage her to be friendly and include the other girl in her group and activities but there is no have to about it. You need to teach her the skills to include the girl into groups and also to be able to say no I don't want to play that if she genuinely doesn't want to.

The other girl also needs to be taught to play with groups and that she cannot always play what she wants and with who.

There were previous issues from what you said and the school should have been picking up that this was the third time this girl was having social issues and done something about it. Leaving it from November until now, allowing the girl to be 'shunned' and blaming you is terrible. No wonder you feel badbut I don't see how it can be your fault. The other class parents have probably noticed this was the 3rd time and may have had their child telling them they don't want to play with her, not told the school and it has escalated.

It may be a coincidence that your daughter is happier and working better it may not. Your daughter deserves to be happy and so does this other girl. Not at the expense of making the other unhappy though.

The dad well he could just be upset for his little girl or he could be the root cause of a lot of her problems if it is not 'my child' but everyone elses fault as you will avoid him and as a result his daughter after his mouthful.

I think the school have handled this really badly and let the other girl down .