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.

diagnostic

some teachers do think that everything children do reflects on your parenting. Some are more flexible, or have children of their own

And you did post on AiBU! Don't moan if you don't like every reponse you get

newt - im a parent, ive been mortified many times.

What's this about kids with aspergers not making stuff up? My cousins dd has aspergers and my cousin has complained in the past about her making things up!

Ok YourBeingASillyBilly your post prodded me and some more fusty, dusty old thoughts flew onto the keyboard.

Your 'customer services' analogy is wrong. Can you imagine why teachers cannot operate under the belief that a child is a 'customer' who is always right?

Lets try a 'workplace' analogy instead. If every time your line manager makes a relatively trivial decision which disadvantaged you and advantaged a colleague, would you go running to the big boss to try to get them 'overruled'? And would you keep going all the way up the management structure until someone agreed with you?

The ability to accept authority is a workplace survival skill...

well then accept that other children are different from your child and don't label them at 7

i havent labelled her. ive just said im shocked by what she did.

sand - i agree.

Oh Gawd the Feminazi have flown in to bang the sexist drum on this one have they -

I'm sure if a little boy had behaved in the same way the descriptive language would have been a tad stronger than "little madam" so hardly sexist, just as it is highly inappropriate for ANY DC to speak to an adult as if they have a right to an audience - not assertive - plain rude for all the reasons sandfush has already explained

Good luck sorting this out running it does sound like there is an issue there that goes above & beyond this girl just being rude & precocious, but then that was all in there your first post anyway, though not do obvious to everyone else it seems

& can I also second pixel I know quite a lot of SN kids - strange that not one of them is rude & not one of them would think this sort of behaviour was okay & yes some can be pretty blunt, but they have been well brought up, so I agree the "oh dear, they might be SN brigade doesn't wash with me either - this is not the same thing as a melt down is it

Rockin

You are so right and everyone elses opinion is clearly wrong and worthy of an eye rol ...

We really need a 2 finger emoticon

Yes sandfish my analogy was wrong. I accept your workplace one, however as a 7 year old, she isnt well placed to see that her issue is 'trivial' to her it is or at least was this afternoon, probably taking up a lot of space in her head. Falling out with friends is a massive upset when we are 7.

And of course if a workplace issue took up as much space in my head as friendship fallouts did as a child then i wouldnt consider it trivial at all. It would likely be affecting my work.

We're not talking about a boy though are we? We are talking about a girl of 7 who has been described on this thread as a madam and a fusspot and bossy. No doubt she'll realise that being confident and articulate aren't valued in girls so by the time she joins the workplace she'll never value herself. As I've said I don't have girls thank god but I feel sorry for the little girls who daren't put a foot wrong. If that makes me a feminazi, I'm happy to have that label

yourbeingsilly - did you read what had actually happened? she didnt even fall out with my DD, there wasnt even an argument. she made something up to get DD in trouble, admitted to it and got told off.

and then came to me and told me she needed a word with me about DD's behaviour.

joni - im confident and very assertive. more so at work where the job i do requires me to be so.

Again, you are making this something that it isnt.

Well does anyone really have a right to an audience just by the fact they are an adult? Does turning 18 mean you are now allowed to speak to adults about issues that concern you.

Fwiw op i think your response to the girl was spot on. It didnt need further discu

Posted too soon.

It didnt need further discussion but it's not rude that she asked for it.

You're

I agree with that (the second bit) It's a 7 year old copying someone she has seen.

No need to be upset by it.

I can see your point Yourbeing, and I agree, this little girl is only 7 and is learning what is appropriate to say to whom and what is not. As a former 'assertive' child I certainly remember when I said some cheeky stuff myself, but as I tended to get a metaphorical slap-down for it, I learned.

I would in no way regard this girl in the same way as I would an adult who behaved the same in the workplace, or for that matter who would encourage or condone their children MALE OR FEMALE behaving this way.

And yes, Rockin there seems to have been a fair bit of rolling out the old bandwagons and driving them all over this thread. To which I would say, you may have valid concerns about valid issues but I cant see how they relate to this specific circumstance.

Rockin - I'm afraid you're wrong! SN kids can be and are rude without intending to be (and so are NT kids sometimes) That is quite a blanket statement. Just because you know a few of them doesn't mean you know everything there is to know.

My DC regularly comes across as rude even with all the coaching we give him...and other times he comes across as incredibly grown up and polite and we've been told so...the problem is, once he's labelled as "rude" by certain people that's all they see...including his grandmother!!!!!

About the Apsergers - can I qualify what I meant? Yes plenty of children with Aspergers can make stuff up (I know my dd does) but not with the intent to get someone else in trouble.

sandfish I wouldn't ever say naughty children shouldn't be told off but girls get the message both explicitly and implicitly that confidence is not a good quality to have as a girl. Head mistresses of girls have recognised this and are extremely keen to address this as it means academic attainment by girls isn't translating into success in later life.

Not in my school they don't.

Joni my own 11 yr old DD is growing up to be a real ball breaker, trust me she is as confident & as assertive as they get when it comes to ANY kind of equality - she even won a feminist writing contest on here a while back

Yet she would not have dared to be as rude as this little girl was to the OP, because bad manners are something that SHOULD be crushed out of any kid