To be irritated with school mum

[toomanyfionas]

Had a call from a mother of a boy in same class as ds. She says that "a third party whose name I won't disclose" informed her that my son had kicked her son at school.
She was quite het up and talked at length about how "obviously as john's (not his real name) mother I do not want hom to be kicked at school..." And that this was a courtesy call to let me know she is making a complaint to the school.

The boys are 5.

I said okay, I see uh huh mmm hmmm but stopped short of actual conversation saying I didn't get involved in children's school squabbles.

Tbh I was a bit taken aback to be phoned by a parent I didn't know in a flap about an incident of which I knew nothing.

I felt like saying, "you don't ring other kids parents to complain, that's not how it works. You talk to the school." But I didn't.

Afterwards I spoke to my son who said there was a game in which you had to run after each other and try to kick them. There were 5 of them. He seemed unaware a. that it was not a great game and b. that it hadn't ended well and mystified about john's complaint.

Of course we talked about kicking having no place in games or anything else really.

Do I need to do anything else?

Stupid woman, ignore. How did she get your number?

I think I would have told her that unless she was going to name the person who was shit stirring told her all this, then I was unwilling to discuss it with her and would talk to my son and the school if necessary.

then I would have done exactly as you did and reminded my child that kicking games are not a good idea and would have mentioned the phone call to the school.

Well dealt with OP.

To my mind, to bring up a one off incident like this is ridiculous. Fair enough if it escalated to repeated or worsened behaviour, but even then it should be flagged up to teacher if it happened in school time.

There's nothing more annoying than some pfb parent who feels its their duty to flag up every little squabble. If i picked up on every little upset, every cross word or silly behaviour directed at my DCs by other children, I'd be on the phone to other parents all night every night.

There's a reason that teachers often dont get involved in petty squabbles.

Can't believe anyone on thread gave OP grief.
I used to play skater hockey.
We enjoyed chucking each other at walls & the ground.
It was all part of the fun.
Bruising & occasional dislocation was small price to pay.
Children have to learn not to play rough games if they don't want to get hurt.
Not that John complained, anyway.
Appropriate thing to do was complain to school about rough games!

Pictish - the OP doesn't come across like that at all to me. The other woman does sound like she is over reacting. It just sounds like a daft game between a bunch of 5 year olds. If it was that serious then surely little johnnie would have been in floods of tears and noticed by a playground supervisor - that's what they are there for.

If the other mum thought that her son had been kicked deliberately-of course that's not PFB.

And that may be the info that she was given by this overinvolved other parent.

Here(not UK), we have the numbers of other parents & I always thought that the point of that was so that parents could initially discuss things without always involving the school.

It is Monday here on the other side of the world

I was a wee bit confused glad it is sorted for now

impatientmummytobe I didn't ask the teacher whether she would speak to the other mother. My feeling is to leave it to the teacher to choose a course of action, and it isn't really my business what conversations she has with other parents.

I felt she was very fair and sensible. She did express frustration with parental over involvement saying it hindered the children's social competency development.

Thanks boo and to all of you who have been v understanding.

I got one of those calls early one morning, saying my DS had called her DS a name. Not a sweary one, not a nasty one. They were in year 5. I pretended to care, but consider her to be barking mad.

The only time I have complained to a school is when a child peed on mine. I spoke to the mother face to face too, but only to pre-warn her that school were dealing with it.

I think you handled it well OP. some people are just daft.

Saying that the other child wasn't bothered because he didn't say anything is not necessarily true. Think of all the children who don't tell people they're being bullied.
The more upset dd1 is the less likely she is to say anything, I tell by her general attitude when she comes home if something has happened and then phone and friend and ask if they know what has happened.
Dd2 is a drama queen and can be relied on to tell me everything that has happened, so I have a couple of people who phone me to see if she's said anything because their children don't tell them what's happened.

And one little boy's game of "isn't it fun we all kick each other" (ds would think that great fun) may have turned into "we all chase one boy and kick him". If they're not the victim they may not realise that it's one child getting it all the time, or even that one of the group who started doing it now isn't enjoying it.

The mothers weren't there. All the info is second and third hand.

If the teachers are made aware they can keep an eye out to see a) if it happens b) who is participating and c) if anyone is being targeted.
Then they can put a stop to it and have class discussions about appropriate and kind behaviour.

Parents cannot do this.

I do imagine a few on this thread would be the mother ringing and who's own children never do anything wrong

DeWe - you are absolutely spot on in your post.

Well it wasn't even a playground squabble. It was a complete non-event. If you bother people over every minute tiny incident then you have to expect the brush off really.

^^This. How did she get your phone number? I get that the OP wasn't Emily Post, but really - this whole thing is a non issue IMO.