To have told 6yo the truth.

[malm275]

Sorry it's a party/invite kind of thread....

DD is celebrating her 6th birthday next week. Every party that she has had so far has been a massive family/friends event with at least 30+ children to cater for. This year things are a bit tighter financially so dd is having a small cinema party with 6 invited guests from school and a couple from out of school that we are particularly close to. Dd is delighted and so excited. And we are massively relieved I'm getting whinged at left,right and centre by the 'uninvited' but that's a different thread
The one thing I asked dh to do this week was give the school invitations directly to parents and not give them to the teacher to hand out. Which he promptly did. Again, another thread Wouldn't necessarily be a huge problem but there is a girl at school, who will call herself dd's best friend, but actually is mean, pushy and very dominating over my daughter. And many other children School are aware and I have been trying to give my daughter the tools to deal with this kind of behaviour.
Long story short, she has been awful to dd this week about not being invited (she has never been invited to any of dd's parties anyway). Dd has left school in tears every day because this girl has been pressuring her each day for an invite, I know that I'm not bu to leave her out, dd doesn't want her there and I have given dd the option to just add her to the list, which was thankfully met with a very firm no, so I said we would just have to ride this one out and that dd didn't have to feel bad about her right decision. I floated the idea of inviting girl round for a play date to see if we could do some kind of relationship building but dd was unsure and I don't blame her, I don't really want this girl invading dd's safe space at home.
So anyway, this girl came out of school on Friday and asked me very loudly 'can I come to dd's party'. I replied 'no, sorry not this time'.
She asked why and I said 'because you are not very kind to dd'
Girl then burst into tears and ran off to her mum who gave me a filthy look as did half of the playground I went to go and talk to her but she walked off before I got there and I wasn't going to chase after her. I've always dealt with school with these matters they have asked me not to approach mum as they like to deal with things and have never even spoken to this girls mum as we are not normally on the playground for the same pick ups.
It's been on my mind all weekend. Girl obviously has some issues (not SEND as far as I know- but obviously I would never like to assume) and I try to be understanding of this but felt like I just wanted her to be told the truth about her behaviour for once and realise a consequence. Should I have just sugared the pill, said that it was a little party and not everyone could have an invite? That I couldn't afford it?
I work in a school and think that I am just getting so wound up with the constant pandering around some children and parents there that maybe I took out my frustration on this little girl.

Bizawit

How would you avoid it then?

If the answer is continually met with "but why not" how would you deal with it? Obviously without making her cry?

And they certainly disagree with tackling the issue with the child yourself

When did OP tackle the child? My understanding is that the child tackled the OP.

Had OP approached the girl and confronted about the bullying then that would be tackling her, but that isn't what happened is it?

By the way, I'm not saying it's ok that the OP's DD came home from school in tears everyday. Obviously that's a horrible situation. But a 6 year old making another 6 year old cry is one situation, and a parent engaging in a confrontation with a 6 year old (not their own) in the school car park and making her cry is quite another!

The relationship between the two children - and the child's treatment of the OP's DD - may have needed to be addressed. The question was did the OP - as an adult - deal with the situation in a constructive and appropriate way, and I would say not, for reasons cited above.

But how would you have satisfied the girl's demand for an invitation?

@Femalebornandbreed we sadly seem to hold the minority view here. It surprises me..

Kid asks question.
Kid receives an answer.
Kid does not like answer.
Kid cries.
Controversial? 🤷‍♀️

DecomposingComposers

Biz has already answered that question directly to you. Why keep asking the same question? I’ll give you some too.

Why? - not enough space love.
But why? - we could only have six
But why? Because that was all that was allowed
But why? I don’t know lovey

Instead of

why can’t I come to the party? - because your unkind.

I mean op could of certainly opened up the dialogue there.. and gone in to ‘remember that time when you did XYZ ect... and really nailed it home but thankfully she held back.

Are those reasons ok for you DecomposingComposers?

The child asked a straight question.
The OP tried to brush it off.
Child persisted.
Child got told why not - in a really very mild way, as far as I'm concerned.
Child cries because the answer she got was not to her liking.

I'm of the mind that if a child is able to ask the question, they can be given the answer in an age appropriate way. To my mind, this was age appropriate. Child's perfectly free to be upset at not getting the answer they wanted. Most kids have to cope with this at some stage.

Me too Bizawit but here we are flying the flag

Most of these threads are nonsense anyway

Child cries because the answer she got was not to her liking

No child cries because she just got told by some ones mum that they were unkind.

No child cries because she just got told by some ones mum that they were unkind.

Possibly. Um, not wrong though, was she?

Alternatively, child cries because she's realising that there is no way she's going to wangle the answer she wants this time.

Most probably a combination of the two.

Incidentally, OP didn't call the child unkind as a blanket indictment of her personality, she said that she was unkind to DD. Which perhaps is a nice distinction, but may be an important one. It was specific.

A cogent argument indeed!

Perhaps we'll have to agree to disagree.

All I know is that if that situation had played out, and that were my 6 year old, I would not think that the adult had been in any way unreasonable speaking to my child like that. Whether my child cried or not.

Other people may say things to your child that you do not like or do not wish them to hear.

Solution - do not allow your child to pester other people, thereby reducing the risk of child being told something they do not like.

I cannot believe for one second this little girls mother is unaware that shes been pestering for an invite to a party she is NOT invited to, by a child she has never been a particular friend of, where there is already an existing issue between the children.

Don't think the OP is U, do think childs mother is VU for allowing her child to constantly irritate others about the matter.

Have to say I agree with @mbosnz and @WiddlinDiddlin.

I do not understand why the OP is expected to stand there and endure a grilling from a 6 year old, rather than answering her with a simple, honest answer.

”Why? - not enough space love.
But why? - we could only have six
But why? Because that was all that was allowed
But why? I don’t know lovey”

That last line would have been a lie, though, @Femalebornandbred and lying to the child would have been wrong, IMO.

This child has made the OP’s child cry. She has been mean, pushy and dominating over the OP’s dd. The school is aware, and the OP has tried to give her child the tools to cope with the other child’s behaviour - and nothing has changed.

Now this little girl has received an appropriate consequence for her behaviour - if you are unkind do someone, they won’t want you at their party. She doesn’t like the consequence - but that is not necessarily a bad thing, in my view. She may learn that it is better to be kind to people, if you want to be their friend.

Negative consequences and punishments are a fact of life, and we do our children no favours if we shield them from the consequences of their bad behaviour. It has to be done in an age-appropriate way, of course, and I think that the way the OP communicated with the child was age appropriate - she used a pretty mild turn of phrase, and didn’t issue a blanket condemnation of the child - she was specific about the behaviour that had led to her not getting an invitation - ‘because you were unkind to dd’ instead of ‘because you are nasty/unkind/a bully’.

The OP has had to cope with her daughter being upset and crying as a result of this child’s behaviour, and I think she has put her own child’s needs and well being first. Her first and primary responsibility has got to be her own child’s happiness, not the child who is making her child’s life a misery.

What is the big deal about a child crying?

But what about the the three other ones STDG?

Three perfectly good truthful explanations..

Obviously you have never fudged the truth or lied to your child....

But she didn’t endure a grilling? The conversation apparently went “can I come to the party”, “no”, “why?”, “because you are not nice to DD”. Over before other mum could intervene. This idea that some kind of extended grilling/ protracted confrontation was involved, that the Op had no means of wriggling out of, is not what happened. The child’s 2 questions may have been irritating but 6year olds can sometimes be irritating!

Yes the OP said “because you were unkind to DD”, not just “you were unkind”, but the accusation was general, and child is 6 and may not have been able to recall what she may have said or done (over the last week or however long) that was unkind (she apparently thinks the OPs DD is her bf!) , or have the capacity to reflect on why it was unkind after the fact. What the child will have heard is an adult telling her that the reason she was not invited to the party is because she was “not very nice”. If someone said that to me as an adult I’d probably cry. Of course as an adult I’d know not to ask the question (for fear that might be the reason/ response) but that’s one of the many differences between an adult and a 6 year old!

Bizawit

We all know that 2 or 3 answers would not have satisfied the child and so at whatever point she had realised that she wasn't getting an invitation she would have been upset.

The OP has a responsibility to her dd, not to this child. She answered her question. She could have just ignored her. She could have walked away. But she didn't. She tried to fudge it and then when that didn't work she gave a mild answer.

I am sure that teachers use exactly the same words in school - that wasn't very kind, you weren't kind to X and they are sad.

I'm sure that sentence was not a devastating blow to this child. What has upset her is having an adult refuse to give in to her. She didn't get her own way and that was what made her cry. And there was no way to avoid that.

Oh for goodness sakes, it wasn't tit for tat. The child asked a straight question, she got a straight answer. She didn't like the answer. She did what kids do when they hear something they don't want to - she turned on the tears.

If this is the best she can come up with in therapy twenty years later, she's doing alright.

Perhaps as parents we ought to take this as a warning? If we don't teach our children some manners, someone else might. And they might not be as 'kind' as we think they ought to be about it. Particularly if our child has been making their child's life a misery for several days.

We all know that 2 or 3 answers would not have satisfied the child and so at whatever point she had realised that she wasn't getting an invitation she would have been upset

How do you know that?

If this is the best she can come up with in therapy twenty years later, she's doing alright

Wow people are galloping away with this

Perhaps as parents we can have the guts to speak to the other parents... oh wait yes the school don’t like that, they prefer you to speak directly the child themselves ... oh yes ...

Just my two-penny here - Children all develop at different rates and emotional maturity/intelligence is vastly different from child to child at that age (actually, at all ages) This girl sounds emotionally immature. To ask you directly about the party won’t seem rude to her; she just hasn’t developed that filter yet. Pressurising your daughter about the party is probably her way of not knowing how to handle being left out. Her bossy domineering behaviour is probably also down to a lack of security. All behaviours in children have a reason.
This little girl needs to be corrected; she needs to know that she upsets others and she needs to work out where she fits into relationships and develop healthy relationships with her peers. This needs to be done gently over time by someone she trusts. To just blurt it out like that has probably done more harm than good. The only way to bring around real change is with gentleness.
I don’t think there’s much you can do about it now OO, but I hope there is someone understanding in this child’s life who can guide her.

Like PP it obviously wasn't a good idea to discuss the DD's behaviour with her. It was fine to give a firm answer that she wasn't invited and message the mum with more details. The fact that the child approached you is neither here nor there. She's six, you're an adult.