AIBU to think not every issue a child has needs to be sorted out by parents.

[Namechangebitch]

Every little problem a child has with MIL, school, teacher, friend has to he sorted out by parents it seems. Parents need to wade in to solve the issue. Every problem needs a resolution.

I'm sure when I was young (cliche ??) we were just left to sort stuff out ourselves. Now obviously there were some draw backs to this, bullying, child abuse, being forced to have showers at school.......

But has the pendulum swung too far? Would a little bit of benign neglect do kids the world of good? They might have to solve their own problems. Sometimes everything isn't sorted out in life, you don't get invited to every one of life's metaphorical parties. If you did something wrong and you were told off by a relative/teacher/ stranger and you got upset, so what? Behave.

Not sure I agree with myself totally, but the urge to rush in all guns blazing, all the time can't be good. Just have a polite word with the teacher or just don't?

Yes a balance is what's needed. You don't want lord of the flies where dc run the show (wasn't there a school in the 70s that let the dc have free rein and it went badly wrong?) but on the other hand you don't want micro management as it's overbearing and they won't learn how to sort things out themselves.

A guiding hand is best for fall outs if the dc are clearly not able to fairly sort it out themselves, but full on stepping in and taking control is needed when a child is vulnerable and being bullied or abused. Watching and observing how they manage conflict themselves is always the first thing to do, then stepping in at various levels of management/guidance when needed.

It's a balance, as with most things in life. DC don't learn if left completely to their own devices as they model most of their behaviour from adults and those around them, so need some sort of guidance if they're struggling to work it out themselves.

Basic yeah I see what you mean.

My ideas are not fully formed I'm just fed up of reading threads (yes I should ignore them) about kids doing something wrong and parents complaining about how they were told off. Or not being invited somewhere. Yes its hard and horrible but that's life. It's also not the end of the world.

But do most parents do that?

Although I had a run in recently with a neighbour for making his son by cry by asking him not to do something that was dangerous so maybe it is widespread.

x post. Bullying is the responsibility of the bully, not the victim.

However, an abused person does have different boundaries following abuse and so abusers (who like to find these people to abuse) will be watching for signs that that person is 'easier' to abuse. So yes, the bullied child would need some sort of help to build their boundaries back up again after they've been abused. But that sort of goes against your argument to leave them all to it. Also, you move school you know no one and you are going to be a very easy target for a bully.

I think the other thing toptoe is the bullied are sometimes people who also bully. People sometimes bully because they have low self esteem and people also get bullied because they have low self esteem. So it can be the same person. It isn't always as simple as 'bully' and 'victim'.

It depends on the situation. Yes, too often parents get involved when the child should be left to sort it out for themselves, but there need to be limits. As adults we should not resort to vigilante justice, we have to leave it to the police and the courts to sort out people who have done bad things. This is the same for children, except the people in charge of dispensing justice are usually parents or teachers.

Where I do agree with you is that by and large parents are too willing to take their own child's word in a dispute with another child, a teacher or other person. "My child shouldn't have a detention, the teacher bullies him, WAAAAAAAHH!" "Your son told my 8 year old that Father Christmas doesn't exist, WAAAAHHHH!" "Don't you dare tell my daughter off for spitting her chewing gum onto the floor of the bus, WAAAAAHHHH!!!!!" Etc. Parents often cannot see that their offspring may not be quite as innocent as they always claim to be and do not like any suggestion that their child is not "perfect" and neither are their parenting skills.

Surely it's about balance. No, parents don't have to wade in and magically fix everything for a child. But they do have to provide adequate support and guidance. My parents just let me get on with it and I wished they'd been a lot more involved in my life and gave me a lot more support.

Yep they need to be taught skills and we need to stand back and let them try and resolve things themselves. Talk through ides with them help list pros and cons but more often than not they get there just with a supportive ear from their parent/carer etc.

"How to talk to kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk" has some really good ideas and examples around this.

You're right. People who intervene based on every perceived injustice that occurs in their child's lives are not doing them any favours. The world won't smooth the path for them.

Extremes are never good. Be it forgetting you actually have a child or interfering and micromanaging every single minute or issue in their lives.

I talked to the TA over something really silly. Dd is 4,and when it's carpet time,the boy behind her will pull her hair,undo her braid etc. She won't tell him to stop,as it's carpet time and she's not supposed to talk and she was worried she'll get in trouble. She wouldn't tell a teacher either. Cue buying scrunchies and hairclips over and over again and a mildly upset child. So i just quickly mentioned it in passing and did say it's not a big deal just a bit annoying. It hasn't happened again.

Agree with you op. I am not a teacher thank god but I am frankly amazed at the things my otherwise sensible friends go into school complaining about.

Kids need to develop resilience and independence and they are more capable than we think

I don't know actually. DD has been miserable at school all term getting progressively more and more upset. I spoke to her at home about it but that was all. She told the school herself a couple of weeks ago and they've tried to deal with it but now the other parents are going in for blanking/death stares when i do pick ups as their little darlings have been spoken to. I wish I had said something sooner now. I feel like I haven't given DD enough support. If the parents are like that God knows what the children are like.

If the parents are like that God knows what the children are like.

The parents by the sound of it

'blanking' is just beyond juvenile, pathetic individuals.

Bullying should always be dealt with and I think that is what the OP is getting at - the importance of being able to distinguish between the essential, the important and the trivial.

It is a very fine line, but ideally, having open lines of communication, one can help ones' child to deal with most situations and catch the serious problems in time to intervene.

I have a lovely friend who was a very anxious mother and always, always interfered to try to solve her dd's minor problems when playing with other children, not taking her side particularly, just to solve her problems. She also had to move her dd from school to school because of bullying and now her adult dd has serious MH issues. I can't help but make the connection that she never learnt how to solve her own problems.

I needed help and support from my parents but got none. I didn't tell them much of the shit I went through. I learnt it was no point from a very young age - not great parenting.

I don't wade in for dd. We talk and we devise strategies. The only times I talked to the teacher was when a parent was bullying my dd through their child. And when the same parent did so to another child. I did also say when dd came home with long scratches on her legs, which she got from another child during class time. I think it was right for the school to know the children were allowed to play up in IT. The incidents with dd happened when she was in yr1.

She's been called fat a couple of times recently by a good friend of hers (the same kid, who scratched her). And the girls have started being a bit bitchy - threats of exclusion etc - not against dd so far. The best thing is for dd to sort stuff out for herself. If she can't and it continues, it will be time to intervene.

When dd has told me unkind things about other children, I use it as a lesson in empathy. This way, she will hopefully be both resilient and refuse to participate in bullying. Sadly not all parents do the same. Some parents simply are so caught up in their own lives and perhaps just trying to survive they don't even notice.

Atenco She also had to move her dd from school to school because of bullying and now her adult dd has serious MH issues. I can't help but make the connection that she never learnt how to solve her own problems.

I don't think you can assume that. I didn't have the support or move schools due to bullying, was left to own devices to "learn resilience". Became doormat open to abuse. Now have serious MH issues.

What is important and what is trivial is in the eye of the beholder. A bit like humour.

A teacher may think one child being teased is trivial. For the parent faced with their sobbing child it may be anything but trivial made worse if the teacher is dismissive.

The thread about compulsory showers is an interesting case in point. The teachers enforcing showers no doubt didnt see a problem with what they were doing. To them it was no doubt trivial. To the students who were stripping off it was anything but trivial as the hundreds of posters who have described similar experiences will attest.

GnomeDePlume: There is an element of subjectivity in it, of course. But there is also an element of using your common sense. Too many people seem to have lost the ability to recognise when something is trivial.

And the fact that people complain about trivial things means that when it really is serious it might be overlooked or dismissed.

But who decides what is trivial? It is easy to dismiss something as trivial if you arent experiencing it yourself.

In the context of school where a child may be being teased and a teacher is having to deal with an irate parent do any of the people involved have an objective view point?

Is objectivity possible or even desirable?

GnomeDePlume: This is a bit daft. We can descend into a nihilistic "There is no true knowledge" debate if you like, but the reality is that most people (certainly used to) recognise that some things are more important than others. I know lots of people who get upset about big things (fine) but I also see lots of people getting ridiculously upset over stuff I wouldn't turn a hair about. You're absolutely right that I am not them so I can't really understand their position, but I think the exercise of a bit of common sense would lead most reasonably intelligent people to similar conclusions.

Both as a teacher and a volunteer, parents can be tough to deal with. Things like an off site activity, they don't have the initiative to look for their own directions. Seating plans are another bugbear when there is the reality of another 29 children's needs to consider. Some children learn that when their own not-so-reasonable request fails, that parents will phone up to force your hand.

My own children are quite young. With their own sibling disputes I can let most of them roll out without intervention (the age gap is quite close, and they are similarly sized so neither has a great advantage over the others). I will intervene if they are begining to harm eachother. Frequently he who whinged first initiated the annoyance that got the other to react so they both need addressing. So far they have a lovely relationship, and the spats they have are part of forming social skills to deal with their own peers.

Sometimes they will need my intervention (or teachers etc), but I hope that they do have the skills and resourcefulness to deal with most routine situations themselves. From DS's first year at school, I got involved twice, once for a information for his teacher that he'd picked up an unpleasant word so she'd be aware incase there was a wider issue. The other was with a lovely parent I knew whose child had made comments that had upset DS DS was addressed himself by us on both occasions.

Having taught classes with many children who have poor social skills or needed micro management, it's incredibly difficult and is a major hinderence to them as they make the transition from childhood to adulthood.

I think our society is at a transition point. We're becoming increasingly aware of the failings of society in the past, but responding too far in the opposite direction can raise a new set of problems.

Try this on for size Gnome

"My child is upset by exams and gets nervous, she needs to be in a separate room" - no doctors note, nothing to back this up, just an irate and insistent parent. I'm sure the child does find exams distressing would it be cruel to dismiss this childs concerns?

IMO it would be wrong to simply dismiss the concerns.

• What does the child say?
• What is the nature of the child's upset?
• What is the age of the child?

It depends on lots of things I suppose.