To feel bullied?

[JoulesMrs]

Name changed in case the mums are on here, long back story so bare with me.

When my DD was at nursery she was inseparable from another girl. As a result of this I became very good friends with the girls mother. We used to meet each other socially and text each other virtually everyday. As they were approaching reception age I felt that my DD shouldn't be so reliant on this girl so I asked the nursery to change their days so they weren't together. I told the mum it was due to my work so as not to hurt her feelings. My DD then became friends with a girl who was also friends with my friends DD.

The problem came when the girls all started school as my DD then didn't want to play with my friends DD. My friends DD had some tantrums at school because my DD asked her not to play with her and their mutual friend. My friend then approached me to say her DD had come home from school upset and asked what was going on. I let slip about separating them at nursery and she went mad, accusing me of lying (OTT) and since then we haven't spoken.

I then became really good friends with the mum of the mutual friend to the girls. We started going for coffee and meeting at the school gates. My ex friend then started getting upset accusing us of talking about her and to be honest it ruined my DD's first year at school.

They are now in their second year and the mum of the mutual friend decided to move her DD to another school. My ex friend is what I call a PTA mum. She's involved with everything to do with the school and she's all up the other mum's asses, talking to them at the gates etc.

I now find myself stood alone at the gates because I can't join in conversations with the other mum's as she is there. My DD doesn't have many friends and I've tried inviting children back for tea but never get an invite back.

AIBU to speak to the head that I feel bullied and excluded?

YEs OP your daughter was excluding her when she told the other girl not to play with her and the mutual friend and you were excluding the mother of this child by crawling up mutual friends mums backside.

You really need to read your post, then when you get some of your own medicine back you want to cry "bullied". Well bully for you!

And stop calling this woman "my friend" as you were no friend to her.

Are you going to monitor and manage all your DD's friendships?
Are you not ever going to let your child work things out for herself?
You may find in later years your DD will resent you!

" felt it was important for my DD not to feel forced into playing with my ex friends DD! Surely it's fine for my DD to have her own mind??"

But that is NOT what your OP says. Your post says that you deliberately chose to separate the two, and THEN your daughter decided to play with another friend. Why would you want to separate 2 good friends? You are the bully, you are very manipulative and have a hide to accuse others of bullying. If I knew my daughter was best friends with a girl and that girl's mother changed days to stop her daughter playing with mine, not only would I be hurt and upset that you felt there was something wrong with my daughter that you had to actually intervene and change days, but I would want to know WHY, and I would expect honesty from you. Instead, you lied and weaseled out of it, and in the process, you hurt an innocent little girl AND your own daughter. Sorry, but you are a nasty piece of work reading your OP. Let your daughter be friends with her original best friend. Leave her alone and stop manipulating her friendships.

I'm not sure what the head would be able to do about things going on outside school especially if it's parent driven

I'd suggest speaking to your daughter's teacher about her friends - if she has any concerns,if there's anything that can be done in school to widen her friendship circle etc.

Also maybe try and join in with some more school activities? When they get to know you as a person and not just based on what your ex friend told them they may be a bit friendlier or you may find it was blown out of proportion in your head and they aren't ignoring you as much as just getting on with their own stuff

Similar situation happened at DC’s school with a mum who tried on a number of occasions to manage her child’s friendships and consequently behaved appallingly towards other parents - excluding, bitching behind their backs, etc. I hope she is reading this because a lot of PP are saying all the stuff me and other mums wanted to but frankly just kept quiet for an easy life (and didn’t want our children or ourselves to be the mum’s next target).
In another situation, a different mum went into school and told them she wanted her child separated from x, then later y and z and so on. Every term or so, it would be a new child her kid wasn’t allowed to play with (although she always phrased it that the child wasn’t allowed to play with her son! Nice woman.) We reckoned she ran out of of kids her son was allowed to play with by the end of primary! In at least one instance, the mum told the school it was because the adult friendships had broken down. Didn’t help the mum at all - made her look terrible (I believe the words used by the teachers to describe her were ‘controlling’ and ‘manipulative’.) The child was also showing similar behaviours sadly.
Just butt out and stop behaving like a teenager. You can’t control adult relationships any more than you can children’s. You go into school the head will just mark you down as one of ‘those’ parents.

Please don't blame US for you feeling shit. It's your way of dealing with this and refusal to take on board any advice or criticism that is causing you to feel shit.

Did mutual friend Mum move schools because she felt your DD was suffocating hers by not letting any other children play with them ?

Anyway, as a general rule don't interfere in children's friendships unless you really really have to. let them sort themselves out - it's life skill that your DD won't learn if you keep intervening. (It's all about give and take, compromise, not hurting other people, being as kind as you can and as inclusive as you can) It doesn't sound as if it's a life skill you have acquired, don;t deny your DD a chance to work out the rules of friendship for herself.

Yes you've made a mistake. You should have just left the girls how they were in nursery.

School would have ironed all this out in the end anyway.
Look OP, my dcs are in Secondary. If all the Primary years taught me anything its that things change. A lot.
The children that are inseparable now may not be in 12 months. The friendships shift and change and grow to include different children and others naturally drop off.
The same with the mums. The mums that are in a big clique now by not be in a year or two. By the end of Primary, I was just happy not to have to stand in the playground and wait, and I knew people! It just gets tiring.

The other mums at school may never be your best friends. It does not matter. Honestly. Just be friendly, polite and classy. You don't have to be in a gang.
Your dd will find herself and her way eventually. It's a loooooong Road.

OP if I were you I'd step back, take a breath, and rephrase your question to: I've fucked up in the heat of the moment. What can I do to resolve this, please?

Noone is out and out saying you're a shit parent. You asked whether you were BU, the replies were affirmative and you've not listened. Doesn't help. Accept some advice, and move on.

Wow.

Social engineering rarely works well. I hope you are able to use some self-reflection here. There is a pretty unanimous voice against your manipulation here. You feel bad because I’m essence you treated this other woman very poorly and allowed her daughter to end up in a situation where she was isolated. Good grief. I hope you learn from this and get something better to do with your time than manipulating your daughter’s friendships.

"She wasn't excluding her, she was just asking her not to play with her and this other girl. "

You are missing THIS part:- YOU started it!!! "I felt that my DD shouldn't be so reliant on this girl so I asked the nursery to change their days so they weren't together."

The first sentence happened AFTER you separated the two. You stopped your child from being friends with her BEST FRIEND and for what? Because she was so 'reliant' on her BEST FRIEND??? You've clearly never had a best friend, and I can see why.

@JoulesMrs

We cannot support your mistakes. You are not going to get a hand hold and a cuddle because you feel like you're being bullied.... because that's not what is happening.

We can however, support you if you choose to make changes or fix it. You've been given advice on how to do that but you've ignored it. We can help you in how to deal with your child's behaviour and ways to encourage her to include others, but you refuse to discuss that or even admit your daughter behaved badly.

What is it you want support in? You want to fix it... You're getting advice and support for that but you're ignoring it. You want your daughter to have friends... You're getting advice for that but you're ignoring it.

In this situation, you are unfortunately the one in the wrong. We're all been there. We've all done stupid things or overstepped when it comes to our kids. It's really not a big deal to say "I made a mistake". But if you won't do that, then how can we help?

Why not approach your old friend and apologise about the way you handled things?

Completely agree with this advice, OP.

I won't pass judgement on your parenting.

In general though, it sounds like you are completely off your fucking head.

The way you speak about your situation, eg: "ex-friend" makes you sound like a petulant child.

Get a grip and stop alienating those who surround your day to day life, seems like you are acting like a total cunt.

The bald truth op is sometimes adults fall out. We should be mature enough to handle it, but sometimes like in your case it gets a bit immature and silly,

But when your child simalteaneosly falls out with the other parents child, at the exact same time, and tries to repeatedly exclude the other child , no one, but no one, will believe it's a pure co incidence and nothing to do with the parents fight. As you're trying to portray here. That it was your child acting independently.

And you'll find other mums will accept an adult fall out, thy make take sides, they may not, but when they find the children are being involved in it, then they will draw the line immediately.

You don't involve your kids in your fights as adults, especially not at this tender age and you don't have other kids bullied because of your fight.

It wasn't a co incidence your daughter did this at th same time as you were bullying and excluding the mum. And that's wher you went wrong.

You used your own child in your fight and had another little kid bullied and excluded. No one will forgive it.

Your daughter is 4 !

Leave her to it, she seemed to be doing pretty well at making a close friendship until you stuck your nose in.

You can't control your kids in such a way, the sooner you learn this, the easier your parenting will become.

I am probably over invested but my DD finds it hard to make friends and is shy so as her mother I can't stand by and allow it to happen. It's probably "only child syndrome" but she is my only child that u have to think of

So why TF would you distance her from her best friend, and teach her that it's okay to exclude people who just want to be friends?? And don't pull only child syndrome please. She was doing just fine and would be / will be doing just fine if you raise her to be a kind child that doesn't repeatedly exclude her once was bff when the kid has done nothing to deserve it.

I have to wonder what you are like on the playdates your child has had with others and if that's got anything to do with why they aren't reciprocated.

You're a grown up. The other mums at the gate are grown ups too, all are able to decide independently whether or not they like/want to have anything to do with each of the other parents at the gate, and whether to believe rumors and gossip. Please don't waste the head's time. Be a decent human being towards the other mums and teach your child to be a decent child towards the other children.

I'm sorry that you are finding that this is hitting you hard. Mumsnet is known to be a place where people speak as they find. You'd be better received if you'd have acknowledged that what you have done in the past isn't the best, take some responsibility for your actions both in the past and present, and seek to improve things in the future. Best of luck.

I have no comments for the OP, but WOW. Some of you have been inexcusably rude on this thread!! For the most part the sentiment of your comments seems pretty reasonable, the OP has clearly made some huge mistakes and could do with some help seeing things from the other side. I too think she seems to have behaved like a bully and she certainly shouldn't go to the head, or even call out this other mum who seems like the innocent party here! But seeing comment after comment calling her names, telling her she's a terrible mother, she deserves everything she gets, and even in one case calling her a cunt??? Jesus.

None of us are perfect, and some people act like twats and can't see it until someone else points it out. That is NEVER an excuse to speak to someone the way she has been spoken to here, even on the internet. Two wrongs don't make a right - the response here has been a perfect example of bullying behaviour. If you feel you can give someone advice they might not want to hear in a way that is helpful and kind, as some commenters here have, then great. If not, scroll past.

I have had the most amazing support from mums on this site in the past, but reading this I now understand why MN has such a bad reputation for judgemental and unpleasant threads. Some of the responses actually might have been helpful to OP but I can't imagine she will ever be back now - she'll probably carry on behaving as she has done before, feeling even more justified after being ganged up on. Bravo, bullies of MN. Enjoy your perfect lives up on those high horses, but do be ever so careful getting down. You wouldn't want to fall.

"My DD has always been very timid and shy. As she spent so much time with my ex friends DD in was worried that when she started school she would make no effort to make new friends."

As someone who was very timid and shy at school, separating me from my best friend would have crippled and DEVASTATED me. I made other friends apart from my best friend, without be separated. And who are you to say she has to make new friends, anyway? Why CAN'T she just have the one best friend? It is not unhealthy to have just one close friend. Why is that a 'bad' thing?!??

" I also felt that my friends DD was possessive of her" um, it is called HAVING A BEST FRIEND!!! And it is COMPLETELY NORMAL.

"and that is not healthy for a friendship" Christ almighty! They are children, not adults. You don't need to go so deep! What is not healthy, is separating your child from her own best friend, then being upset that the mother is upset. That is not healthy behaviour at all! It seems like you have a very unhealthy attitude towards friendship and need to micromanage your poor little girl's friendships and can't deal when it backfires. The more I read from you, the more I see you are a really nasty piece of work and could do with therapy because your whole attitude and behaviour is deeply unhealthy and inappropriate. Just leave your daughter alone ffs and stop trying to separate her from her friends. You started all this by manipulating and interfering and micromanaging, you are a bully and you are getting your own behaviour back to you. Take it as a learning experience, apologise to that poor little girl AND to her mother.

Well that’s what happens when you manipulate people and lie. Can’t believe you don’t realise how out of order you were - absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever

Was your DD's first year at school ruins or was YOUR first year at her school ruined?
I do sympathise because it sounds like you had everyone's best interests at heart when you changed the pre-school days but as an ex control freak myself I would recommend trying not to control things. Kids fall out and make friends infinite times and you'd do well to take each mini drama with a pinch salt because girls and primary school friendships have a lot.

"I always see posts about allowing your child to make lots of friends etc, which is what I've tried to do"

Lol, please stop lying. You deliberately changed days to STOP your child keeping a friend. You are the one in the wrong here. You interfered to break up your child's friendship. Well, you succeeded. You also succeeded in being ostracised at school for your meddling and manipulating childhood friends. You still don't see how you were wrong, do you? What you did was hateful and evil. Now your own daughter will be ostracised because you, her mother, is a scheming and interfering bully. I hope you're proud of yourself!

Your DD clearly isn't that too timid and shy if she can tell another little girl she can't play with them. That's being mean.
Most parents encourage their children to play with everybody and let others join in their games, pointing out how sad they'd feel if someone told them they couldn't play.
You need to learn some basic social skills and pass them on to your DD before she turns into the mean girl that you are.

The one thing I've learned over the years regarding kids friendships is unless there's bullying going on just leave them to it
They fall out and fall in again at the drop of a hat, it's the parents who end up looking like lunatics getting all involved

News flash everyone all kids are mean sometimes!!! it's normal!!!