How to respond to someone calling my DD horrible for not wanting to FaceTime?

[GlummyMcGlummerson]

DD, 7, is popular but quite reserved at the same time. She's had her classmates and also her cousins wanting to FaceTime her a lot during lockdown and a lot of the time she hasn't been in the mood and said no.

Anyway one of her friends FaceTimed my iPad today for her. I was in the house (she was in the garden) so didn't hear it and she said she only answered because they rang 10 times (I checked, this is true). She answered and said she didn't want to talk to them and was busy, then hung up. Her friend has been in tears and her mum messaged me saying my DD is horrible and and has made her DC heartbroken.

I haven't responded and haven't spoken to DD as I do feel she shouldn't be made to speak to people she doesn't want to. How do I handle this?

She was incredibly rude. She should have just said Sorry, friend I cant talk right now, I'll call you back later. Saying she didn't want to talk to her, she was busy WAS horrible and from the way you are sticking up for her rudeness, I'd hazard a guess that its down to her upbringing.

Awould also say it’s quite unpleasant for her to call your child horrible

Hmm, your dd was rude. But so was the friend by ringing her ten times. I'd ask her mother to monitor how often she's ringing, when someone doesn't pick up the phone then it's not good manners to bombard them with phone calls to force them to pick up.

Both girls got it a big wrong - friend with the endless calling and DD with handling it less than kindly. It's fine, they're seven and this is presumably new ground for them as they'd normally meet in person only at that age. It just needs correcting and an eye kept on the situation to make sure the message got through.

The mother contacting you about your dd being 'horrible' is the most alarming bit and suggests she might be a massive pain in the arse who sees no wrong in her own daughter but plenty of wrong in others.

I'd ignore the mum's message but get DD to apologise in some way or other. Not as text message though as it'll look like you wrote it. Could she write an apology note that you photograph and then send as a message. Then no more calls that you haven't pre-arranged.

Is the friend an only child? She may be painfully lonely and speaking to her friends may have meant a lot to her.

The other mother was clearly out of order to call your daughter horrible.

However, it wouldn't hurt to help your daughter to understand other people's perspectives and feelings.

@JustOneMoreStep

so sorry your daughter was upset, I have spoken to my daughter about being unkind. She will no longer be allowed to take calls on the iPad without my supervision to ensure this doesn't happen again. When taking to my daughter about why she behaved this way she told me she was annoyed because your daughter called 10 times. I've checked the call log and this does seem to be the case. Would you mind asking your daughter to do this. We will call back when we are free if we have a missed call. Gosh, isn't it hard for the kids to navigate social etiquette using technology!'

This would be a perfect response.

I don’t think your Daughter was rude at all. 10 times is a little over the top, you might want to point that out to the other mother who is calling your child rude.

I also have a child who doesn’t want to do Facetime or talk on the phone. It doesn’t interest him. He will say a quick hello, but you can’t force someone to interact if they don’t want to.

I'd message the mother and say that she is an adult being rude about your daughter who is finding it difficult to cope with the demands of frequent requests to Facetime. From other threads on Mumsnet it appears many adults are also fed up with requests to Zoom/Facetime etc and find it difficult to come up with a polite way to say no, myself included.

But the child who rang 10 times wasn't respecting OP's dd's feelings.

It's an extroverts world though.

it’s really sad the way girls are conditioned from such a young age to please and please and please others

I 100% agree. I've never been told that my son needs to be more polite and I'm thing to I do all the female socialisation of "you have to be polite above all".

I've basically replied with the suggestion from -happy - we'll see if she replies 😬

Friend (not an only child) is a good friend of hers - they've had a few mini dramas before, she briefly picked on DD last year and we were called in by the teacher to discuss it but it's all honestly water under the bridge now (yes 6/7 year olds can be very fickle !)

Although I led the message with "No I won't tell her as she isn't horrible" - because I don't think she is, she just got this wrong 🤷‍♀️ the other mother actually said "tell her from me I think she's been horrible".

The other mother sounds like a drama queen.

It doesn't sound as if your daughter meant to come across as rude she's 7 so I think the other girls mum was a little OTT in sending you a message about it. I once received a message from another parent informing me that my daughter hadn't wanted to play with her one playtime at school. It was because my daughter had felt suffocated by this other girl and just wanted a break! I guess we can all get a bit sensitive when it comes to our children. My daughter is 10 and has a few FaceTime calls with friends if she isn't feeling up it she just sends a message to say can't talk right now.

She called your daughter horrible - what a cow!

Whether DD was rude or not is really by the by, she will not be hounded into accepting the call because the other child wants to. She's 7 FFS, so what year 2?

Tell the Mother she will no longer be accepting FT calls and will only instigate them with your permission as she finds them stressful. Ten face time calls would stress me out! Never mind a small child.

Is the Mother aware of the fact that her child had called her that number of times or was she simply put out her little darling was turned down?

There isn't a single person who wouldn't be 'rude' following 10 calls. I don't blame your daughter for being curt. I sure as hell would be!

The tactful/condescending reply posted above is good, but I couldn't not say something about her calling my kid horrible. At least tell her that it's not ok to say things like that to/about a 7 year old.

Contrary to most opinions on here i think if anyone was rude it was the other child. Ringing 10 times is NOT appropriate. If DD gets hold of FaceTime she can do that (she's 5) and I've had to have words with her and also apologise to the other family. The other daughter was harassing your daughter.

The BETTER response from your daughter would have been to turn the IPAD off or put it on silent and that's what Id' be telling her she should have done rather than get irritated and impatient and speak unpleasantly to the other girl. But I would have no problem with her being annoyed by it.

Also, the other woman is batshit crazy. On what planet to do you tell a parent to tell her daughter that she's horrible!? Sheesh, self isolation is messing with people's heads!!!

Your dd may have been a little abrupt but in all honesty I think the other mother is being a bit of a drama queen here. Her daughter is 'heartbroken' because your daughter was busy and didn't want to talk to her? Why on earth should other children be at her daughter's beck and call?

It's probably a good time to work on some strategies for avoiding calls she doesn't want to take which are more tactful. But she's only 7 ffs and she wasn't rude just a bit blunt.

I would certainly have a word with the other mother though, first of all she has allowed her daughter to harrass yours. Calling 10 times is too much at any age. The mother needs to take the blame here and talk to her daughter . Mine would most certainly have not been allowed to call someone 10 times by any medium. It would have been two or three at most and then 'Let's try another day.'

I would also tell her in no uncertain terms that calling a 7 year old child 'horrible' is totally unacceptable.

If someone FaceTimed me 10 times I might answer to tell then to F off.
The other 7 year old hasn’t learnt yet that it isn’t appropriate to call someone back to back 10 times and your daughter hasn’t learnt to be more polite in her rebuff.
Surely it would be pretty annoying to use an iPad when someone is constantly trying to FaceTime? You can’t just ignore it as the request covers the screen... so she either had to stop what she was doing to ignore the calls or answer and say she didn’t want to talk. She’s only 7 so was blunt in her reply.
There more I think about it, the less unreasonable I think your daughter was being. What should she have done? Aged up 15 years to give a more appropriate response? Stopped what she was doing to ignore the calls? If she’d been reading a book and another child kept pestering her to play would everyone be saying she should have stopped reading? Or is it ok that she has to stop because it’s a screen?

Yes, there's a lesson here in how to ignore or rebuff someone less brutally. But this little girl is 7. OK so it's the parents' responsibility to guide them in manners but it's okay not to have competely fully-honed social skills at that age.

Calling someone 10 times is also rude and would be pretty much verging on harrassment in an adult. Again it's an opportunity for the DC's mother to explain that this isn't the done thing, and that leaving a message and then waiting for a call back would be the polite thing to do. Again, the kid isn't to blame for not knowing that. She's only 7.

But a grown adult calling another grown adult and calling her child 'horrible?' There are no excuses for that. Completely and utterly unreasonable. IMO, this doesn't even merit a response.

Little girls should not be taught to appease other's feelings from such a young age. If she doesn't want to engage, she doesn't have to.

If others don't listen she has every right to express her feelings as assertively as she wants to. Assertive children lead to confident adults, neither of which is anything but positive, in the correct circumstances... the other child didn't care about being 'rude' why should your daughter?

So other mum has replied - she didn't realise her DD had called so much. But she still thinks my DD was horrible in the way she spoke to her and that her DD is struggling too.

I'm not going to reply - I do feel like saying that her definition of rude is odd as she didn't seem to think last year that her DD pointing out how my DD is "rubbish at all the sports" in front of the whole class (causing my DD to burst into tears, hence the call to go into school as there'd been a few incidents like this) was all that bad

My god it’s mad grown women all labelling a 7 year old rude just because she didn’t want to chat! Maybe she didn’t feel like it maybe she’s not massively social... that’s okay... if she were a boy there wouldn’t be half this drama or discussion it’s really sad the way girls are conditioned from such a young age to please and please and please others. If she doesn’t want to chat to her friends she doesn’t want to chat let her do her. That other mother totally over the toP
Absolutely this.

The other mum actually said “tell her from me she’s been horrible” That’s pretty shitty and I would be telling her that above anything else

I think phoning 10x and then texting you to say your daughter is horrible is far far worse than any bluntness your DD has. So I’d stick up for your daughter.

Your daughter was rude. Nothing to do with her being a girl.
Not end of world rude but rude and unkind nevertheless.

Parents probably both need to step away and let the children establish their own relationships and boundaries. If she treats everyone like that she’ll quickly be left without anyone wanting to phone her. Then she can be happy in her isolation.