My three and a half year old has a best friend. They're in nursery together, they're in dance class together, they're in swim class together. So we see the parents all the time. The little girl is having some mild behaviour issues, and frankly it is all down to parenting. Dad's parenting is all right, pretty good actually, but Mum's getting more unbearable by the moment.
Fine, not everyone has the same parenting style. Maybe she and I are just different. Her personality doesn't really mesh with mine anyway. She's one of these people who has a reason why she won't do anything, is very vocal about it, and wouldn't dare change her mind, however weak the logic behind her argument is. Hey, it happens. She is also into "swatting" her child on the bum as punishment. The kind of parent who when told at nursery that her child has had a very good day, proceeds to announce to the class that "well, she's always bad at home!" Again, not my style but nothing to get bent out of shape about.
Until this past weekend, that is. We were getting changed after swim class with a couple other parents and similarly aged kids. And the slightly tired daughter started disagreeing with her mum and mum went completely off on one. The kid was hysterical, and mum was completely baiting her, almost trying to make her more hysterical. She didn't want to do something, so mum took her crackers away as a kind of random "well, since you won't do what I aksed immediately, then I'm taking your crackers." As the kid got more hysterical, mum proceeded to give all the other kid some of her crackers, telling each kid "you can have some but X can't because she is so terrible." The kids didn't know what to do except take the crackers - they're three, after all. And then Mum kept on ramping it up. When the kid didn't want to go to the toilet, Mum just hauled the screaming hysterical child in there, shut the door and even more hysterical screaming ensued. It just got worse and worse. No attempt at all to calm the child or reassure her or anything except aggravate her. The other mothers and myself just kept looking at each other, silently trying to figure out what to do. To my shame and regret, we did nothing. The mother in question would have turned on us just as badly, and sadly we let it stop us.
So what do we do now? I can't stand this woman anyway, but this has really driven me over the edge. I don't want my kid around her, but it also isn't the daughter's fault that her mum's a loon. I don't want to leave the kid even more isolated or my daughter to lose her best friend. What should we have done on Saturday? Everyone just signed up for the new term so we have classes until Christmas as well. I couldn't deal with this again, much less all those weeks.
For what it is worth, I think dad knows she's not a great parent but has no influence on her in this area at all and has given up. (She above about her reasons (which she will happily state) about why she never changes her behaviour, etc.