to allow ds to be mean to neighbours ds............

[crje]

Live in a small estate (15 houses) 6 boys between 8-10 all play together even though they are quite different.One soccer mad,one science mad ect. They all come in different places within their own familys,1st chils 3rd child.... There is never a problem between 5 of the boys they can find common ground and get along.

The 6th boy is like a spanner in the works !!!!!!He tries to divide the group,wont compromise and ends up ruining the game when he joins in. The kids do pander to him at times but not always. When they get fed up of him they tell him to go home,run and hide ect

His mom asked one of the other moms today if there was anything she could do about the bullying !!!!!!!! Now imo he is not bullied he is just not popular and its someting his mother needs to work on with him. When the others fall out they sulk come home and when they are ready they jump back in the game without any inerferance from the parents. Do we make exception for this family,I think not

AIBU................

trois You have sod all grounds for concluding anything like that about this child

I didnt conclude anything about any child - I made a general observation about MN and subsequent posts. Pipe/light/smoke it.

Hopefully having read the input then ou will take on board that encouraging the children to ostracise this child is not the righ tthing to do. If what you say about his mother is true, then is hardly the childs fault. Maybe invite the boy over to tea to see how he behaves on a one to one basis. He may be very different then.

Well, that was a waste of 6 pages

Trois - you seemed to be drawing a comparison between narcs and this boy

No need to be rude

Arse/ up/ that/ stick

crje your latest post sounds much softer and reasonable.

FWIW I know someone the same, her DD's (mostly DD2) are never the ones in the wrong, even when they are! BUT when playing out the children have been told not to leave these children out. To carry on playing if they whine whilst telling her as they are playing she is more than welcome to join the game.

This girl has stood there yelling at my DS he's a bully whilst he cowered on the floor in tears. Purely because she was making fun of him to make herself look better and he told her to 'shut up'. The girls mum tried to say her DD didn't really understand the word bully but at the same time say she wouldn't accuse DS of being one if he wasn't bullying her. Thankfully the other children there said what her DD was doing and that they would never leave her out but they would tell her when her behaviour was wrong.
FWIW MY DS is the PITA one!, poor social communication, but he gets on fine because he's never actively excluded and is rarely (cos I bet he is at times!) mean.

She has learnt through positive reinforcement by the group (eg when she's nice she gets compromised with) how to behave.

That's really what needs to happen here. I fear that as the boys get older the ringleader of the exclusion may get excluded!

Is it stating the obvious to point out that none of the boys have the social skills to deal with this situation. If the boy who is feeling victimised does not have the social skills to play nicely with others its a bit much to expect other boys of the same age to have the skills to handle the situation with delicacy.
I would say that I have probably told my DS's to avoid children who were bothering them, to avoid aggro, I think that is OK, when they are older I would give them more complicated advice to deal with similar situations.

I do not however encourage her to be part of a group of children and ostracise the annoying child. That is why what the OP is encouraging is bullying because its a group of children telling his boy to go home (i bet they dont use those words!) or running and hiding from him. THAT is bullying, plain and simple.

It's reverse bullying if, in order to not ostracise the PITA child, all the others have to continually accede to his wishes.

And if the parents are forcing the kids to do it, then surely they are bullying the kids?

But boy 6 is being a PITA, he's not being mean. Telling a child to go home and running away IS mean. I've already said my DS is a PITA socially BUT he's not mean. In fact other children will exclude the mean ones before my DS and I think that more of that needs to happen. I reckon 1 of the other 5 boys is a ringleader here. (maybe not the OP's DS which is why she doesn't see it)

I agree with wiggly that perhaps expecting the boys to deal with someone who can't control their behaviour is maybe too much if they are all the same age.

But the mum wants to sort it. Meeting with her and gently pointing out that she needs to put in the work with the other mums may be the way forward. Gently pointing out that by ignoring her children's behaviour has put the situation in stalemate and agree a strategy that they'll all adhere to. Then if she doesn't at least try and help her DS from here on in then the OP and the other mums could be forgiven for not getting involved.

I didn't say they had to accede to his demands, rather that they shoudlnt be telling him to go, or be running away from him, that is very different to them not agreeing to play his games etc.

desperatenotstupid my dd was in a situation when another girl was being mean to her I told her to avoid. She was quite small at the time, if her avoiding had taken the form of hiding or saying to go away that would have been fine by me. Its not bullying when your child is trying to be friendly and then another child aggresses. How much maturity do you expect from a pre teen child?

But the OP hasn't said this 6th boy is being mean - just he's a PITA and socially immature.

I'm going to reply to all those who say "as adults we avoid PITA people".

We do and we don't. That is, we avoid them when it's socially acceptable to do so and when it's not socially acceptable to do so we try to include them with good grace.

And roughly speaking, one of the situations where it's unacceptable to exclude someone who's a PITA (as opposed to actually nasty or mean) is when everyone else in a social group is doing something together. I know that when a good friend of mine was away recently on a work do, and found that all the other members of the team, who knew each other for a long time, had been out to dinner together and not invited him because he was the "new boy", he didn't feel that that was OK. So, no, if they were adults the behaviour of these little boys wouldn't be acceptable and they're old enough to start understanding that.

roughly speaking, one of the situations where it's unacceptable to exclude someone who's a PITA (as opposed to actually nasty or mean) is when everyone else in a social group is doing something together.

Try and be a PITA in any adult group activity and see how long you last. The methods will be naicer, the outcome the same.

And at least the other adults have the option to exit the group to avoid the PITA, you don't get that as kids in a neighborhood and/or whose parents are forcing you into the situation.

The closest analogy is a work situation where the bosses force you to work with a crap colleague who wants everything done their way etc etc

So, no, if they were adults the behaviour of these little boys wouldn't be acceptable and they're old enough to start understanding that.

No, if it were adults then the PITA adult would be avoided PDQ, the really useful childhood lesson here is for him to learn that truth ASAP.

I'm sorry but there's never an excuse to be mean.

I think this boys' child probably DOES need to put in place some strategies for her son, so that he's not such a target, but at the same time, you have to put in strategies for your child so that they understand perfectly that being mean or excluding another child is not acceptable.

Its not easy, life isn't easy, you all have to work at creating an inclusive happy environment for your child.

You need t0 be an adult here too, this child's mum is seeing her boy getting excluded (which will never help HIM) whilst your child is simply mildly annoyed. Get together, see how you can help all the children concerned to get along.

I get where you are coming from, but I am not sure that I would not have the group discussion.

Ds has been and is the excluded child. I am aware that it is down to his poor social skills and the fact he annoys the other children and I do indeed work with him on this. That said, I would give my eye teeth for the parents of the other children involved to understand what their children do to ds and the consequences for him and for them to have the kind of conversations with their children that I have with ds.

I have stood back from my relationships with the parents of the children involved. I have found that I cannot be friends with them - they watch their children make my son cry and chase and kick him and only intervene when ds finally retaliates - sometime after many hours of abuse.

I too am not the most out-going person and generally to be found outside groups rather than in them and watching ds's relationships with his peers has added to my sense of isolation and alienation. If someone would talk to me about how they see things and let me explain how I see things, I cannot tell you what a difference it might have made to us all.

@Whatmeworry. I must move in rather more forgiving circles than you: every group activity I do has at least one PITA in it, and they haven't been kicked out or completely ostracised. They're rarely included in small-group activities, they don't form 1-on-1 friendships in the way other members do, but noone would give, say, a drinks do for all the other members and just leave one person out.

But I think we may be imagining different kinds of PITAs: the people I have in mind are boring and irritating and their conversation is dull but they've got no malice in them.

After all, everybody is somebody's PITA.

But I think we may be imagining different kinds of PITAs: the people I have in mind are boring and irritating and their conversation is dull but they've got no malice in them.

The person described here appears to be what (when I was a kid) used to be called "bossy" - only wants to play their games, their way, to their rules etc etc.

Try that tack and see how long it lasts, even in the most fluffy adult circles....

Try and be a PITA in any adult group activity and see how long you last. The methods will be naicer, the outcome the same.

I am not sure it would though. Children are often swayed by the majority view, so if one started to exclude a child, often another follows then another. Not necessarily because they find anything wrong with the excluded child, but because they themselves want to stay in with the crowd.

Although this does also go on in the adult world, I think most adults are capable of making their own minds up about an individual, and what one person finds to be a PITA, another may not. Therefore the 'group exclusion' mentality is not as strong as it is with children. We all like and dislike different people for different reasons. In the adult world this PITA child may well be liked, respected & popular.

I think it is sad that all the parents are not talking to all the children to help them all to play together.

@Whatmeworry. We've got a couple of those in my choir, the director is very good at managing them. They give their (loud and insistant) opinion, there's a pause, other people give their opinion, and then either the director chooses or we vote. If it doesn't go their way, they have a choice of leaving or compromising: so far, they've always stayed.

They're not well liked and don't have friends in the choir but they haven't been asked to leave and they get invited to the after-concert parties and the end of year do and all other all-choir activities.

Whatmeworry you're not wrong in that the annoying child needs to learn ways of tempering certain behaviours. I'm doing that with my son at present. He is being bullied.

However, nothing will ever change unless those who are making his life a misery (often before he's done a thing to them) are pulled up on THEIR behaviour too.

At present, bullying is tackled by making the victim change, rather than making ALL involved change. If a child is mean to another child, for whatever reason, then they need to understand that they are in the wrong. They need to be taight social strategies that deal with it, they need support of adults to help them change. Just like the irritating, bossy child does.

As a child, I could have done with a bit of compassionate help to show me HOW to deal with group play, what I also needed was someone to say to the other children that they were also behaving unfairly. Because I couldn't change my approach to play when someone's foot was on my head!

Five against one is just not fair! Whatever the majority says, goes, and the poor child has no chance to make amends. I bet they enjoy running away from him!

Aldiwhore, that whole 'getting the victim to change' thing really annoys me too. When my eldest DD was bullied at primary school, her school tried to pick at things that she could change about herself to fit in more, and said she needed to learn to cope with what was happening to her, rather than tell the bullies that they needed to change. And I was alarmed recently, on another parenting forum, a teacher said on a bullying discussion that she tends to deal with bullying by helping the victims learn to cope with what is happening to them and that the bullying then generally sorts itself out. Bullies need to be taken to task about their behaviour and told in no uncertain terms that it is unacceptable and wrong.

You know what.I'll bet in their games they always give him the Sh*t end of the stick eg manipulating a game of tig the game so that he is always 'on' and when he tries to stand up for himself he is 'bossy' and 'won't compromise' or just gives up and goes home.
The trouble is that even some of the nicest kids when they see this happening won't step in because they want to be part of the 'in' group and having a victim, and outsider to gang up on pulls the rest of them together.
There's 5 of them against this one little boy.Have a bit of compassion!!

We used to live in a cul-de-sac where all the kids played out together. There was one boy who was always going off in a sulk because the game hadn't panned out they way he wanted. His mum was perhaps a little protective as she was her last child, but she was also aware that it was something he needed to sort out for himself. But the difference was that the children would still play with this child, they'd tell him to stop being such a baby/spoilsport etc perhaps but they'd still make an effort to accomodate him or persuade him. That is how communities work.

Very well put, Hex.

Good post aldi