to be shocked by this little girl

[runningbutnotfastenough]

Picked DD up from school yesterday, only to be confronted by one of DDs' friends' ( i say friend, i mean it in the loosest sense of the word, they are both 7)
she marched up to me and said ' runniing, could i have a word with you in private please' I had DD with me, and her friend who was coming round for tea. I told her no, i couldnt talk to her in private as there was nowhere private, she said ' i want to talk to you about your DDs behaviour, she was mean to me today'
i asked her what had happened and got a garbled thing which made no sense, so i asked if the school had sorted it out at the time, she said yes, so i said ' great, lets leave it at that then'

Questionned DD and the friend in the car, apparently this girl told a dinner lady my DD had said sometihng she hadnt, another friend had backed my DD up and so this girl ( the one that had a word with me) had got told off.

Im just utterly shocked that a 7 year old would come over and speak to me like that.... and would think i would take her ' side' over hers.

Ah you see I see that Cant as the child with the spitted jumper getting the short end of his mothers temper, and feeling it was unfair as it wasn't his fault and trying to make sense of the in justice in the world.

It scares me that some people get so worked up over what children say.

Am i the only one who wishes that the other girl's mum is on mn and she comes and gives us her side of the story too?

And OP none of us said that we would haved laughed AT the child, dont twist words.

Another great kid standing up for himself and demanding to be treated right. In this case I would make my child write him a letter.
So...what shall we call him, since little madam will not do?

Yes girls are little madams, boys are just boys - for the same behaviour. Says it all.

My dd could have been the girl in the OP. I really wouldn't be surprised.

I don't tell her off for trying to be assertive by the way. I want her to be able to stand her ground and be treated as she deserves - she does speak to people as though she was an adult but I also try to instil respect and politeness to EVERYONE (not just grown ups) too. Of course she gets it wrong sometimes and oversteps but she's 7, she has lots to learn.

I also love the fact my DDs are assertive. I wouldn't dare stand up for myself as a child, with an adult. I'd have been told off. I was determind my DDs never felt like that. I wanted them to stand up for themselves and know that their opinions and feelings matter.

As Caca says though, that also means they were taught to be polite to everyone. If an adult thinks its rude or shocking that a child, asks to speak to them, then that's the adults problem, not the child's.

^Another great kid standing up for himself and demanding to be treated right. In this case I would make my child write him a letter.
So...what shall we call him, since little madam will not do^

A Little sod ?? Or perhaps the reference to sodomy & all that implies wouldn't be quite as distasteful as calling a DD madam

Op I started reading this thread on my lunchbreak and even sent myself the link so I could find it again this evening. I had a similar experience myself recently...

DS is in reception, he's just turned 5, there's a girl in his class who is the same age but looks and acts a 2-3 years older, she's got bags of confidence and is very outspoken. DS went to nursery with her so has known her since they were babies, there have been several incidents over the years where this little girl has hurt DS and other children, more recently she's started scratching and biting other children. DS has a deep scar on his cheek from one of her attacks a few months ago which I was pretty annoyed about but left it to the nursery staff to deal with at the time. (The girl was sent home from nursery that day) I see the mum daily but she's not someone I've ever chatted with, in her position I'd be really embarrassed but she's pretty brazen and has never spoken to me or any other parents let alone apologised for her daughters behaviour.

2 weeks ago I was bending over in the school corridor helping DS hang his coat when I got a prod in the bum from this little girl, I span around and she said "I need to speak to you about your son". I said "oh really, what's he done", she said "I need to to tell him to stop being nasty to me", so I asked what he had done again, it turned out that DS had said he didn't want to play with her the day before, I told her that I didn't think he was being nasty but if he ever was nasty I'd like to know so I could deal with it. The whole time this was going on the girls mum stood beside her, she didn't say anything but shrugged her shoulders and smiled at me.

A few days later I was speaking to another parent outside whist waiting for the bell and the same little girl marched up to me with her mum in tow and interrupted my conversation telling me my son had been nasty again. Again I asked what he'd done, and she said he didn't want to play with her. At this point I looked to the mum for a bit of support and she gave me the same shrug and grin, so I told the little girl that I'd actually told my DS to keep away from her because the week before she'd bitten him on the tummy so hard that he still had a bruise, so in fact he was doing as he was told by not playing with her! I told the mum that I felt really uncomfortable about the whole thing and she said it was just kids being kids. The girls bottom lip wobbled and she stomped off dramatically!

I'm still in shock about it now, I'm a firm believer that my children are only cute funny and adorable to me and I'd never encourage them to approach another adult unless they need help. I'm not really sure how I should have dealt with it and I'm not proud of my response but I think the OP handled her situation a lot better than I did

jennieflower, I think you handed the situation very well.
You listened to the girl, you gave her a chance to speak, you did not dismiss the incidents as school problems, school staff have already dealt with.
And you were true and honest to the girl and her mum.
Well done.

I think in this case Jennieflower the other mum should have stepped up.

I'm actually starting to feel sorry for the teachers who will have these 'assertive' children when they become teenagers.

Op in what way did the girl "talk down" to you?

My DDs are now 19 and 22 and despite being brought to be assertive, I've always been told they were a pleasure to have in the class. Both DDs won numerous teacher awards as teenagers and dd1 recently win an award for 'most engaged volunteer' at uni- voted for by lecturers and her peers. She's also just started her job on a very sort after graduate training scheme.

I'm very pleased I brought her up to be assertive

Excuse - assertive & cheeky are not the same thing, if they were, I doubt your DDs - nor mine for that matter - would be so well thought of

I realise that rocking.

I was responding to Pixel's post about feeling sorry for the teachers of 'assertive' children. I think she may believe that assertive children are cheeky.

No I believe the children being described are cheeky but some posters excuse their behaviour by calling it assertive.

You can be assertive and still be polite, but children need to be taught there is a time and a place to be assertive and other times when they show a bit of respect. Otherwise they turn out to be those awful gobby teenagers that are the bane of so many teachers' lives. In the case of the OP I think the girl overstepped the mark as she had previously been proved to be in the wrong and was just trying to stir up further trouble.

I stayed at school today until 9.30 today, this week school are allowing parents to spend up to 30 minutes in class with their children. One boy said to me whilst stealing a foam letter from my son 'Your XX has just stolen a letter from me'

In fact DS didnt steal the letter, it was on the table and DS used it so he could make words with his phonics monkey and the other little boy wanted the letter so made up a story whilst taking the letter forcefully from DS hand.

The little boy in question got told off last week for spitting in a girls face because she said no to him!! They are 5/6yr old.

There is a little girl at my Rainbows who is nearly 7 and would say things like that (and often tells me what game would be better than the one I've organised etc.) I don't think she actually sees a difference between talking to adults and talking to other children and she isn't being deliberately rude, she's also far from the first girl we've had through like it although she may be the first one whose ideas are nearly always actually better than mine Generally speaking the girls like that have been the same ones whose parents treat them like little adults rather than children.

I actually don't think there's anything wrong in what she said, although maybe that's because I don't know the tone she used, but I would be annoyed about lying.

But M0na the point is they are 5/6 years old. Very small children don't live in our adult world. They're still at a developmental stage where perceived wrongs and actual wrongs still get a bit mixed up. They are growing out of it but it still happens. It might not have looked like stealing to you but it felt like stealing to him so he told you so. And looked to you as the adult to sort it out. Next week it might be your son doing the same thing.

The spitting thing is behaviourism where you don't really want it to happen. But it's fairly easily dealt with and he didn't get away with it.

Forgive me mumsnet I have sinned, I haven't read the whole thread (3 hail marys).

OP your dd's friend sounds like a precocious brat to me. I wouldn't have her near me or my dd.

not read thread but

my god 7 is the most annoying age ever! I dread when dd is around 7

I think it's fairly possible that the child was either mimicking something she heard another adult say or could have social communication problems. Either way, I fail to see how you can be so agitated over a 7yo appearing to "speak down" to you. She maybe was trying to appear more grown up, but that's hardly earth shattering, is it?

Laugh it off. Kids do these things. I imagine you're going to feel like seven kinds of ridiculous when your own DD does the same thing to another parent, as most children do (usually right after you've complained about someone else's child!).