To feel angry at this so called mum friend?

[Theweegobshite]

Dd is 6 and shy and unsure of herself. For the majority of her school life she's had a "friendship" with one particular girl, I'll call her Alice. Alice is a very dominant character and dd follows her round like a little puppy but Alice seems largely indifferent to her.

Last year we had loads of problems with dd coming home saying Alice had been unkind to her. I tried advising dd how to respond and encouraged her to play with others but a couple of times we had to involve the school. I'm friends with Alice's mum but I didn't involve her, I thought it best if the school deal with it. They spoke to Alice and tried to keep them separate as much as possible and did some general pse lessons on friendship. Unfortunately both the girls still kept asking for playdates with each other and I went along with it against my better judgment.

Now the school informed me that Alice has hit dd. Dd says it's been going on for a while but she's been too afraid to tell. Alice's mum got very upset. I made it clear to her that I didn't have a problem with her but I felt the girls needed space from each other so cooled off the playdates and cancelled a day out we'd planned. Dd actually asked me to cancel this. Mum said she was ok with it but clearly she isn't. She's been blanking me at the school gate and arranging get togethers with the other mums and deliberately excluding me. Apparently she said to another mum that I've over reacted and even implied that my daughter is a liar. I genuinely thought this woman was my friend and I'm so hurt.

Aibu to feel annoyed with her and to think that friendships with other mums are only possible if the children are getting on?

The child and mother are behaving the same way

You said that if dd plays with other friends then Alice punishes her in some way

Its a form of trying to isolate her, so that she will come back to Alice's 'friendship' so then Alice has control over her again

The mother is doing the same to you, by arranging dinners with your friends obviously excluding you
She is trying to make you come back to her friendship by isolating you

Your much better off with neither of these people in your or your daughters life.

I once had a call from an enraged mum that my DD had insulted hers. I apologised immediately and said I'd talk to her. It happened on early MSM, so I was shown the thread by DD. It turned out that the other child had been sending tirades of abuse for weeks, and finally DD had snapped and said "you are a b... too!" It even happened again a week or two later, until my DD told the child that I could see it, whereupon she was deleted. The other mum wouldn't accept it, even though the evidence was there.

Your child was bullied, now they are victimising you as well. Hold your head up and find other friends. Someone should call the bully mum out but leave them to it

Why do you care about this woman? She is not your friend...she is a school mum and all of these school mum's will sooner or later be out of your life as your daughter grows up...a friend will always be there..is this your first child at school? I ask this as ive had 2 children at school and the school playground and school mums can be a minefield at times...

Mums will always defend their own kids so of course she will be pissed off with you for pointing out the bullying behaviour in her DD.
In primary DD’s so-called bf bullied her - I told the mum, who was a friend of mine but not close - that I was involving the school as a courtesy really and she just made excuses for why her DD behaved badly towards mine. We did try some restorative play dates etc - it was an odd dynamic and dd was happy to leave her behind when she left. This was Year 5 and 6 though. The mum, although we didn’t fall out, never acknowledged her DD’s actions and she later did the same to other girls too.
It’s hard if you’re good friends w the mum, but as you say the DDs have to come first. Are there other girls she likes in the class - can you encourage different friendships?

Derren and others re mum friendships. Obviously if you’re only there 1-2 times a week you’re not going to make friends as those who do are the ones who are there twice a day, every day. Nothing wrong with either scenario but if you’re not a regular at the gate, inviting mums for coffee etc after drop off, picking up at play dates, the friendships aren’t going to go beyond a nod at the gate are they?
I have made some lovely mum friends and still see quite a few of them 5 years on from leaving primary gates. Some have drifted with the friendships of the kids drifting, and not seeing them on a daily basis, but not all. This is from two DCs - v different children and v different types of mums in the classes.
IMHO it’s a great way to make friends in later life esp if you are a Sahm and don’t have the connections at work.

Ugh, sounds like a really tricky situation...I had a friend like this throughout primary and it really affected my self-esteem. She could be a cow but looked like an angel so she played it.
What I wish someone had told me: this other child does not define your wellbeing, your self-worth, you ability to be a good friend. Focus on other children, or even just play alone. You don't have to continually have to put up with this other girl's changing moods. Words like this, or put in a different more child friendly way would have been massively helpful, rather than me constantly feeling like I should appease this other child. Because not learning that in childhood has led to some pretty shit adult friendships too.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this, it’s horrible when one of our DC is being bullied at school. My DD1 (now 10) was bullied in the past, through being excluded. It was never one particular child, though, so thankfully there was no problem with any of the other mums.

With DD2 (now 7), it’s been a case of falling out with friends, though temporarily, and I’ve known the mums well enough to be able to get past it. (Thankfully, they’ve also been realistic about their DDs, haven’t thought them capable of no wrong.)

It probably is easier when not too invested in mum friendships. I have one close mum friend, whose DDs are friends with mine, thankfully we’re both realistic enough to know that there are two sides to every story!

This girl’s mum sounds awful, totally blinkered, and I agree with other PPs that it’s easy to see where this girl gets it from. She’s certainly not doing her DD any favours, as she’ll find that other children back off from her like your DD has.

we are having the same problems with my 4 year old and her friend. I keep telling my DD that friends don't shout at each other, they let you what you want to do and don't stop you from playing with others. My DD is very forgiving and after complaining to me just says that sometimes she is nice to me so it's ok. I am so glad that they will be going to different schools.

Actually I'll be doing all the pick ups and drop offs every day when my DC is at school. But I'll keep out of all this crap. It's funny how people keep picking up on my posts yet many have agreed with me and said stop being over involved.

I think @derrenbrownings sounds pretty spot on to be honest. Mum friends CAN become real friends, and more often, they will not be people you hang out with in ten years. Little ones need support but NOT parental anxiety over friendships that are the little ones' territory anyway. I would drop off DD and skip past the bitchy other mums and keep on with your other lovely after school stuff and don't let this woman get to you. You are spot on, supporting your daughter and this woman does not count. The 'aloof mums' don't end up with ostracised kids and they preserve heaps of sanity!!!

Good luck DerrenBrownings but if your child does regularly come home upset because of another child or does want to do playdates with other children, you might find you do become more involved with other parents than you ever intended. I hope you don't have any problems obviously I just wanted you to understand that these things happen to the best of us.

Have to say if I was the other Mum and you hadn't spoke to me about the problem and gone straight to the school I'd be pissed off with you too

If she comes home upset because of another child/bullying etc I will deal with that. What I'm getting at is the thing with the mum - just leave her and all of those kinds of mum to it and dont involve yourself in all the pettiness and nights out etc etc. Be aloof. Then rain down the pain (joke) in terms of the bullying. But obviously again my posts have been singled out and mis read!

If her child is a bully at 6 then she will continue to bully and the other mums wil see through it all when it's one of theirs. Don't worry, it's 5 mins in the morning and 5 in the afternoon. Why don't you arrange some play dates with other kids and get to know some other mums. In a month or two things will die down, especially as the summer holidays aren't far away.

Shesaidnofuckthat I felt that the school were in the best position to observe what was actually happening and deal with it in the appropriate way. It's impossible for parents to be objective in situations like this and I had genuine concerns that it would backfire on me and dd if I involved her. She never believes her child is jn the wrong and is quite a passive aggressive person. I wish the school had spoken to her earlier really.

Is she in yr 1 or 2? And is the school handling it well, do you think? Because in all honesty, if she hasn't made other friends, and this is a difficult situation, I'd be tempted to move her to another school so that she can have a fresh start. Yr 3 is a common entry point due to lots of infant schools, and she would likely make friends much, much faster without 'Alice' around and you can make some decent mum friends without this baggage.

Life's too short, and your children are too precious, to stay in a crappy situation.

Don't give her a second thought. It won't be long before Alice find someone else to taunt and the Mums who are avoiding you find out exactly who is at fault.

It sounds exactly like my daughters bully’s mum. She refuses to believe her daughter could be evil however her daughter bullies so many people and is now excluded from many parties and friendship play dates as she is pure evil. She locked one of my daughters friends younger sister (18months old) in a cupboard and threatened the sister if she told anyone. The mum found her 18month old screaming and the older sister crying as she didn’t know what to do. Mum approached the mum of evil child as she denied it happened. She’s done this to many parents who approach her. When her daughter isn’t invited to parties she takes her to Disneyland

Straight out: if this woman was/is your friend then talk to her.

I suspect this woman is hugely embarrassed and rather than deal with it appropriately she has likely assumed you may tell others and humiliate her further so she's "getting in there first" so to speak.

I've seen this behaviour so often at the school gate which is why (as a working mum) I stayed well away from the school gate mafia and only showed my face for 60 seconds to drop off and pick up... it's not worth the aggro but I do appreciate it can't always be avoided.

To be fair, this whole situation could have been avoided if you spoke to her directly rather than going through the school: I can see why you thought it was the right thing to do but this is only appropriate for people you are NOT friends with... I dare say she feels betrayed on top of humiliated as you didn't think enough of her as your friend to show some honesty.

Do I condone Alice behaviour? Absolutely not, do I condone her mother's, nope.

But I do understand it... you are either this womans friend or you're not. If you are then you owe her better communication than this and the opportunity to deal with her daughter herself, which so far, you've denied her.

I know you've tried to do the right thing but you are partially responsible for this mess by not nipping it in the bud to begin with in an appropriate fashion.

Ask to speak to her whilst the girls are at school and start by apologising for not speaking to her directly to begin with, explain that you handled it badly as you wanted to protect your friendship but can now see that you should have spoken to her first. Once that is out the way, then stand firm in your stance that Alice's behaviour towards DD IS an issue and it needs resolving if both you and they are to preserve these friendships going forward.

Best of luck. X

(I do not miss these school dramas!)

like mother, like daughter, it's learned or conditioned behaviour and you like you told your daughter should just keep away from it. I doubt she is embarrassed, she will have found a rational way in her head to make you and your daughter at fault and will continue along that thought pattern. Don't give them another second of your energy and move on.

I think it was unrealistic to expect anything else. You want her to treat you as a friend but tbh you didn't treat her as a friend.
You told her you wanted to cool the friendship.
Once she was told about the hitting, the school may have mentioned your earlier complaints. She might consider you duplicitous since you were giving the children opportunities to play together outside school whilst telling school to keep them apart. tbh if I found out a parent had been saying one thing to me about my child and the opposite to the school, I would distance myself too.

You were absolutely right to go to the school and not to her directly. Neither of you know for sure what's happening in school so the school can monitor the situation and sort it out, involving parents where necessary.

I think your problem is very definitely this mum, rather than school gate friendships in general. I've had similar incidents with two of my DCs - in one case my child was the aggressor and in one the victim. In both cases, the school reported what had happened first, so we all knew the facts.

When my DC1 hit another child, I made a point of ringing the other mum to apologise and ask what I could do to help. Obviously I really, really didn't want to - I was mortified (and she was a lawyer, lol) - but it was clearly the right thing to do. We both managed our children's feelings and behaviour, and the episode receded into ancient history.

Likewise, when my DC2 was being bullied by a group of kids, once the school had contacted the parents of the bullies, the ringleaders' mum came up to me outside school and did the same thing - apologised, asked how she could help. And again, we sorted it out.

To me, this is normal, civilised behaviour. I was never very sociable at the gate and didn't think of these mums as close friends, but we just got on with doing the right thing. I think the problem here is that the mum doesn't accept her child can have done something wrong. It suits her to cast you as the shit stirring villain of the piece, but is very immature behaviour and as damaging for her child in the long run as it's upsetting for you now. If what's happening is getting back to you, then clearly other people aren't even falling for her hype either.

I don't think this woman is going to morph into a reasonable person, so my best advice is to steer clear and advise your DD to do the same with her DD. If your DD was too scared even to report being hit, I think she needs some resilience training too. Back in the day, the recommended book was Bullies, Bigmouths and So-Called Friends but perhaps there's something more up to date. Widen her circle of friends, including outside school and be glad that Alice is being encouraged to go on playdates with everyone else - no doubt they'll all know soon who the problem child and mum are! You've got a way to go, but take heart from how much bigger secondary is and how much easier it is for quieter kids to 'find their people' there in my experience.

If the problem is happening at school you have to let the school deal with it. You and other mums aren't there and you don't know what's going on.

Approaching the other parent with one side of the story which they will take as an accusation never ends well.